- [woman] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by claire and carl stuart. and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith. he's a hall of fame broadcast journalist with nearly 50 years in the employ of cbs news, including 24 as moderator of face the nation. his fifth book, overload: finding the truth in today's deluge of news, has just been published. he's bob schieffer, this is overheard. let's be honest, it this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa? you could say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and over time took it on. let's start with the sizzle before we get to this steak. are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you, actually. this is overheard. (applause)

(applause) bob schieffer, welcome. - thank you very much. - so good to be with you again. - well, you and i have been friends for a long time. - long time. it's nice to see an old friend. - watching what you've done down here and the role that the texas tribune is playing in journalism right now. you're the template right now you're the template right now for what needs to be done. - well, i appreciate you saying that very much. this book is a terrific tale of tales, right? it's a collection of tales of people who are attempting to solve this problem that you've identified, correctly. the world is changing, the media business is changing, the consumption habits of the public have changed. what did you find in the course of your investigations, your conversations? - well, what's happened here, walt mossberg, the technology writer who now is kind of the king of the internet, with the reports on technology and what's happening. he once said that when you're in the middle of something,

you sometimes don't realize it. and we are in the midst, right now, of a revolution in communications technology that is having as great an impact on our culture as the invention, i argue, of the printing press had on the europe of that day. and we think about all the good things that the printing press did, it improved literacy all across europe. we had the reformation, the counter-reformation, we sometimes forget we also had 30 years of religious wars. - yeah, there were bad things about it too. - of course, a certain equilibrium was reached in europe. and we're not quite to the middle of this yet. we're still kind of in the first trimester of this and we're all trying to sort it out, we're bombarded with all this news from every source, 24/7. we're bombarded with all this news from every source, 24/7. it's difficult to separate the true from the false and the in between. and the in between. we have access to more information

than any humans who've ever lived on earth, but we have to ask ourself, are we wiser? or are we simply overwhelmed with so much information? - and how do we process it? - what do we do with it? - we can't process it. and how do we sort through the credible and the not credible? we've had a conversation, the president has teed this up for us, the fake news and the legitimacy of the information that the media is providing. he's not happy with a lot of the work that we do, we'll come to that. but the fact is that you have to sort through stuff today to decide what's true, what's false, what's real and what's fake. and the communications channels have made that harder and not easier. - yes. and because of this, it has thrown local newspapers across this country into a real crisis. evan, we have lost a 126 newspapers in this country in the last 12 years. we have now, i think it is one reporter in five, i believe, now lives in either new york, washington or los angeles. - used to be one in eight, right? - yes, and that was in 2004. - so, the concentration

of reporters on the coasts, and we all hate coastal elites here in the middle of the country, right? the concentration of reporters on the coasts has, highlights the fact that there's many fewer reporters in states and in state houses. - yeah. - yeah. and the impact that's had on our politics. no institution's been more impacted by this revolution in communications than journalism and our politics. and you get out in the middle of the country, it's not a question of biased news, it's a question of no news. - no news, it's media desert after media desert. - the local newspaper has gone away. a lot of people in the lower economic groups can't afford the news apps on their phone. you and i get the new york times, the washington post, the wall street journal on our phone. cnn, cbs and all of that. cnn, cbs and all of that. if you're on a limited income, you can't afford that. - or, frankly, if you're a coin cutter, you cut off access, in many cases, to so much-- - don't have cable anymore. - don't have channels. - so, basically, a lot of people in this country, the only news they're getting is what they get

on social media, or what their browser just sort of kicks up by accident. and social media is great for keeping up with your neighbors, for knowing where your kids are, many things. but we have to remember, what you see on facebook has not gone through the vetting process that one would normally get from a traditional news source like cbs or the the texas tribune or something. starting with the fact that, in my organization, we don't broadcast something unless we've checked it out and think it's true. same with you, the same with our traditional news sources. look, stuff happens, pops up on the internet now, on the social media, that sometimes is just simply made up out of whole cloth. after this awful thing that happened out in las vegas, within a half hour, there were reports on the internet that the shooter had recently converted to islam. and i read this story and i thought, can that be right? and i called cbs and i said this, they said, "no, no.

"the police, it's made up "out of whole cloth." - well, there were reports that he was a liberal democrat, that he was a big rachel maddow fan, i remember that, right? - that was the biggest sin. - the worst pejorative in the world, "oh my god, he likes rachel maddow." (bob laughs) what you're saying is undeniably true, and i want to take it to the next place, which is that the disappearance, because really, this book could have been called, "finding the truth in today's disappearance of news." as much as deluge, i think there's both the deluge on the one hand and the disappearance on the other. but extend this out, in the absence of reporters in these state capitals, you have essentially legislators gone wild, right? you've got people who are unsupervised, unchaperoned, who are able to do whatever they want, they're sneaking out of the back of state capitals with washing machines strapped to their hips, right? and there's nobody watching them. and when nobody watches them, the public suffers. - well, that's right, and it's even, to the local level, it's even, even those who don't send a reporter to cover their delegation in the state capital.

we're now seeing, at the local level, sometimes where sometimes where newspapers no longer have the personnel to have a city hall reporter. they have someone that goes in and goes to the city council meeting, but not somebody who goes there everyday. here's a little stat that i ran across doing my research. in 21 of the 50 states now, there is now a single newspaper in 21 of the 50 states now, there is now a single newspaper that has a washington correspondent. so, they're sending, they're electing their congressmen, sending them to washington. - no accountability, no coverage, right? that's it. no connect back. - if he send a newsletter back they find out what he's up to. - bob, it feels to me that two, it feels to me that two, actually, let me stay with that for a second. that's interesting, because really what's happened is, a lot of people in elective office have said well, we'll just start our own media. we'll create our own ways of communicating, we'll cut out the traditional media that ask us those pesty questions, we'll just send newsletters, or we'll communicate directly on social media. or we'll start news organizations. really, we're having to compete, the real fake news

in this conversation may be these fake news organizations masquerading as real. - well, i think that's-- - that's also happened too. - i think that's absolutely correct, and some of those fake news organizations are doing it wrong by design, they're propaganda outlets for both domestic and foreign entities. for both domestic and foreign entities. - we do a whole show on the foreign part of this, so we don't need to do it here. - there's no question that the russians were meddling around and trying to send fake news into this country during the election. joe nye, who is a national security expert at harvard, did a little piece on it and he, people were saying, the controversy about, was trump colluding with the russians and all of that. and he said, "i don't know." he said, "i know what the russians are doing," and he said, "my sense is they were just simply trying to "create questions and destroy the credibility "of our institutions," our government, our press and all of that. and he said, "and they got trump as a bonus," he said, "i'm not sure that's what they meant."

- but the conversation after the election, though, has continued. the fact is, the work that they did was not just supposed to end on election day, or maybe if it was intended, it's actually had a longer tail than that. - they actually bought ads on facebook. - congress is hopefully gonna get to the bottom of all this. - and now we know. - and only now are we knowing about that. - it feels, bob, to me like two things materially have changed in the last decade. one is that the power used to be with the people who created content, now power is with the people who consume content. the democratizing of this has definitely had an impact, whether it's good or bad. - my boss, david rhodes, the boss at cbs, said, "we used to hire all these people "to go out and find the news," he said, "now we have to hire an equal number of people "just to sort out the news that's coming in to us "to determine if it's true, false, "or whether we need to follow up on that." - and we have to bend more in the direction of consumers than ever. consumers now tell us what they want, when they want it, in what form, on what platform. and it's made the job of, not that i'm complaining about this at all, certainly we wouldn't complain, but it's definitely made the job more difficult

or more complex than what we used to have, right? - i was at a conference out in colorado earlier this summer and jeff bezos was there. - amazon, right. and washington post - who heads amazon and now owns the washington post and is making it into a great newspaper, let me just say that. - fully agree. - we can talk about that later. but he said, "even in a competitive business, like journalism," which there's nothing more competitive, he said, "we need to spend less time "worrying about our competitors "and more time worrying about our customers." and that really went home to me. i think a lot of what we're seeing right now in our culture are, a lot of organizations, other than news organizations, they're worrying about, "how can i cut prices so i can sell it "for a lower price than my competitor?" when they should be thinking about, "what does our customer want?" "what does our customer need?" - focus on the product and not the price. - and i think that's a good lesson for all of us. - so, the first change i mentioned,

i think the second change, related but separate, is that the default setting used to be, as recently as 10 years ago, that people trusted the media. and now the default setting is that people don't. when we wake up in the morning and go into work, you or me, we think about the world, they distrust us. that's the default, and we have to somehow get around that. and it used to be that we assumed people believed everything we said, and i just think, again, the nature of doing this work changes by necessity as a result of that. - absolutely. and that's why we have to be so transparent. that's why we have to help the people we're trying to reach understand how we do our work. one of the reasons i wrote this book, somebody said, "is this a defense of journalism?" i said, "no, it's not." but what i hope it is, is an introduction to journalism for a lot of people who are not journalists. and so i did interviews with the folks at the washington post. i did an interview with you. i tried to present as many different i tried to present as many different reports on people who gather and report this news. - let's be clear, this is not a narrative book

so much as that it is a collection of your reflections on conversations you had for a podcast that you and andrew schwartz do out of csis in washington about the state of the media. and you did many more conversations than are reflected in this, you've done many more than are reflected in this book, but this is really a collection of stories and a collection of news organizations and how they're wrestling with the questions that we're talking about today. - i mean, the washington post and now the new york times are setting, are setting, are making the new template. they have literally reinvented themselves. they're no longer newspaper companies, they're media companies. the washington post is now churning out news on about five different platforms. and where the circulation of the paper washington post is about 400,000, they're now reaching some months 70 or 80 million people with their digital product. - digitally. - and they're becoming an international newspaper

like the new york times is. - and that was always the difference, the washington post was always basically a local paper. even though it was a national paper, it was basically a local paper. and they've completely transformed the perception of them out in the world. - i wrote a op-ed piece for them during the presidential debates on the role of a moderator. and it was very interesting. i wrote the piece, i sent it to them. it showed up, they printed it on their website and it stayed up there for a couple of days and then they took it down. and so i call ruth marcus, who is the assistant editorial page editor, i said, "is that it?" "oh no," she says, "we've got a really nice space "reserved for you on the op-ed page in the sunday paper, "it'll be in the sunday paper." the next day, somebody from the washington post video department, the washington post now has a video department. and they called and said, "by the way," said, "we pulled a few soundbites from several debates "that you've moderated, why don't you come in "and just comment, we'll play and you comment

"on what they meant and so forth?" and i said, "fine." i think before it was over, that one story that i wrote appeared on five different platforms. - that's how they do it. - and that's the way to make it work now. and the washington post hired 60 reporters this year. as far as i know, they're the only news organization-- - well, every time you buy toilet paper through amazon, you are funding journalism. (bob laughs) just think of it that way. it's okay. - but it's great. - but it's great. the times is coming along too. - and they also have had massive success, there's been a trump bump for both papers. they've had massive success on the digital subscription side, more people reading the paper at more levels and more places who never read it before. who never could get access to the times before. - and we're doing the same thing at cbs news, as you know, because we've created cbsn, which is a 24-hour news service. if you turn it on, it looks like cnn or, but basically you can only get it on your phone, or your computer, or your computer,

or your laptop. - now, the post is an interesting example, you mentioned earlier how impressed you are with the work of the post, of course i am too, i think everybody understands the post has really got great game right now. something that i wanna talk about related to what we were discussing earlier is the degree to which the post is working to demonstrate why they should be trustworthy to their readers. they have really gone out of their way, in the way that they present their journalism, to not only give us the conclusions that they've discovered in the course of their reporting, but also they're showing us their work. the way a fourth-grader in math class might be asked "show your work." by his teacher, the post now routinely is transparent about what led up to the work, right? - yeah. - and that is helpful if you're a skeptical reader, talk a little bit about-- - it's almost, we have a lot of fun with it. they now will say, they'll put a headline on the second paragraph, it'll say, "according to 17 sources." (audience laughs) you don't just say, sources say. according to 17, and so we were, in our newsroom,

as newsrooms always do, we put the number up, 17, and then when they got past that, we wiped it out and said, today they quoted 18 sources. - it's amazing. - but they do. and that is, and i talked to them at the post and the times, the times is doing the same thing now. and i said, "why do you do that?", and said, "we want people to know this is just, "we're always accused when someone, "you do a story, it's uncomplimentary, "they come back and say, 'yeah, you're quoting one source.'" - kid in the mail room. - and said, "we want people to know "we have talked to more than one person." i think it's a very effective thing. - this is also a moment, bob, when process is as interesting to civilians, who are consuming journalism as substance. the people out in the world who are consumers of media are more sophisticated. they understand that there's a sausage making as well as a sausage. and a great example of this, that you and i talked about, actually, on the podcast, and is in the book, is david fahrenthold. the pulitzer prize-winning reporter of the washington post who was tweeting out pictures of his big chief tablet

as he was chronicling the supposed giving by the trump foundation over the course of the campaign, right? - i reprinted that david fahrenthold story that he wrote in the washington post about how he went after that charity. that story that he won the pulitzer for. and it was just amazing, it was the best example i've seen of how we can use the new technology. of how we can use the new technology. he would actually tweet out, "have you seen this picture-- - he was crowdsourcing. he was crowdsourcing stuff, right. - "of donald trump?" and he would locate this stuff. - "of donald trump?" and he would locate this stuff. i think he's one of the best reporters that i've come across, i think. - as i told you, some people have the virgin of the guadalupe in their house, i have a picture of david fahrenthold, you know what i mean? (bob laughs) i see him as kind of the great hero of this era because he's demonstrated how you can be both a traditional reporter, an investigative reporter, but also access the technology to advance the cause of journalism.

it's not either or, it can be both and. - that's what i want young reporters to understand, that's what journalism is really about. david fahrenthold called 320 charities david fahrenthold called 320 charities in the course of this investigation and said, "hey, have you ever gotten any money "from donald trump?" i mean, 320. how would you have liked it, he was given this assignment in the elevator at the washington post. martin baron, the editor, said, "you know, why don't you just check in "to donald trump's charities. "find out if he's really contributed all this money." how would you like to get that assignment. how would you like to get that assignment. - he took to it with incredible enthusiasm. - well, my god. - it's amazing. - and the way he did it is really an example of how reporting works, and how it can be so effective. - well, the stories in this book are so hopeful, from my perspective, as somebody who loves journalism and wants the next generation to see not only a way in, but a reason to pursue this as a career. i think this book is, it's immensely hopeful.

i've resisted as much as i can asking you about trump, i've gotta now pivot to, you know. - he's the president. - he is. - he is. in your lifetime, would you have imagined-- - no. (audience laughs) - i don't even need to go on, that's good. (bob laughs) - i don't even need to go on, that's good. (bob laughs) - haven't i answered that question so many times on television. i said i've never seen anything like it so many times on television. - but it's true. - it became a drinking game where younger people at cbs, every time old bob is, "i've never seen." (imitates swallowing) - you have a bunch of drunk journalists pretty fast. - luckily, we had some designated drivers. - drivers at cbs, right. - that's all we had. - and it's not only about the way trump views and bats back and forth with the media, trump views and bats back and forth with the media, but it's more just the general affect in this position of his presidency, right? whether it's disruption or chaos, pick your preferred word. - you know, i used to, because i covered all the big beats

in washington and people used to say to me, "what's your favorite beat? "i bet it's the white house?" i said, "no, it's great. "but," i said, "the thing about the white house is "everybody works for the same person, "so you don't get much news there." i said, "what i always loved was capitol hill, "because here you've got 535 independent contractors "and that's where you find news. "you go and ask this guy, what this guy said, "and the next thing you know you've got a story." well, that's no longer apt. because now, there are more factions, or as many factions in the white house as there are on capitol hill. i've never seen anything like it. they all, various agendas, they all talk, they all, various agendas, they all talk, they don't mind undermining each other. it's just extraordinary. it's just extraordinary. and a lot of reporters, i remember when this guy scaramucci, and a lot of reporters, i remember when this guy scaramucci, remember that guy? - right, seriously right. he will be but a footnote in the history books, but boy, for those 10 days it was awesome, wasn't it?

- well, i'll tell you. i called up one of our folks that covers the white house and i said, "what do you think?" she said, "oh, i'm really sad. "he was a great, "i could always get through to him." "i could always." - isn't that the irony? he may not make america great, but he's sure making journalism great, isn't he? - well, i'll tell you, it's a much different deal here, and-- - it's created an opportunity, in all seriousness, to tie this back to the conversation we were having, it is created an opportunity for journalism to be it's best self. - yeah. - has it not? - well, look at watergate. we had some great investigative journalism that came out of watergate. enrollment in journalism schools went up, everybody wanted to be woodward and bernstein. up until that point, the miss americas wanted to help the needy and the sick, and after that they all wanted to be investigative reporters. so in a way so in a way big stories make for good reporters. - and there's no bigger story than this, that's for sure. in the couple of minutes we have left i wanna ask you about broadcast journalism specifically.

this has obviously been your playground for many, many years. i noticed that this week, the cbs evening news named a new permanent anchor. jeff glor was just named. - i have to tell you, bob, that when i saw that news story, i thought, there's still a cbs evening news. it is easy to forget that there's still a nightly news broadcast. generations previous got their news from those newscasts. those newscasts and the anchors were major figures in journalism. what do you make of how all this has changed? because the changes we talked about at the beginning of this conversation have inevitably taken a little bit of the shine off of the nightly newscasts. - well, that's right. when i came to work at cbs in the days of walter cronkite the evening news drove the boat. because that's where the commercials were, that's where the largest audience was. the evening news which is a pretty good crowd., - in fact, on any given day, more than those cable hosts at night, who get all the attention, right? - and as long as that continues to be the case,

we're gonna have an evening news. let me just say a word about jeff glor. he's a fine, young reporter. i am a great believer in promoting from within. somehow going out and getting people from outside the organization and bringing them in, somehow that doesn't always work out. - always hire from. - always hire from. - that's the way i like it. - that's the way i like it. - this is really something less about him, than it is more about it. which is to say, is, the institution of the 22-minute, after you take the commercials out, evening newscast, is that an institution healthy enough that it will persist? - i think it is. i think it is, it's certainly at cbs for a while. i mean, for a while, i don't mean for a couple of weeks. but the other part is that the morning shows, now, are the ones that are generating most of the revenue. even though their audiences are not as large as the evening news, but they're two hours long.

- or in the case of the today show, i think the today show is, like, 12 hours. - something like that. but the great advantage there is, that's really the last time period where you have a opportunity to tell people something they may not have known, because it may have happened overnight. - overnight, yeah. - and so that's a big advantage there, so we'll continue to put more and more emphasis. and just this little commercial for the cbs this morning. this is the best morning show we have ever had. - with the best composition of hosts, right? - yes. and this is a remarkable thing in television, they found three people who actually like each other. (audience laughs) - over the years, that's not been the case on these morning shows, right? - no. it very seldom happens. - it's been high drama. - and they're all really good interviewers, and they all bring a certain talent to it. and we have great hopes, i would not be surprised, and i almost have to say it aloud, we may be number one in the mornings before this is over. - before this is all over. - and we're gonna make a real run at that.

- you know what i love? you said earlier that we've been friends for a long time, we have. you seem materially no different to me in terms of your energy, your enthusiasm for this stuff as you did when i first met you. - really? well, that's great. - but i mean it. and it's another hopeful sign for me to take away. you're still blowing and going, as they say. - i just love this. this is why i always tell young people, journalism is not for everybody. for one thing, you have to work on christmas a lot, especially in the beginning. (evan laughs) for me, i can't think of anything i could have done that i would just have had more fun. this year, i interviewed willie nelson. and i've interviewed thousands of people over the years, but it was one of the most fun things i've ever done. and just totally different. what other kind of job do you have where you have an opportunity to do things like that. - there's nothing more fun in this world. we both know that. - that's what i'm thinking. - bob, thank you for everything. - thank you, evan. - good to see you, and congratulations on you success. bob schieffer. (audience applauds and cheers) - [man] we'd love to have you join us in the studio.

visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q&a's with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes. - there was this story going around that the white house is gonna bring in some new advisers, but we didn't know where they were coming from. so when i got up, i shook hands with the president, i said, "mister president, these advisers, "will they be in-house advisers?" "oh no," he said, "they'll be out-house advisers." - [woman] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by claire and carl stuart. and by claire and carl stuart. (mysterious music) (mysterious music)

gñçñ(rock music) (mysterious music) (male narrator) memphis, tennessee. it has been written if music were religion, then memphis would be jerusalem and sun studio its most sacred shrine. (male narrator) and you are with anders osborne. ♪ ...twenty miles from honolulu ♪ ♪ wai-ki-ki, here i come... - hi, this is anders osborne from new orleans, we're here at sun studio. and me and the band, which is brady blade on drums, carl dufresne on bass and vocals, and eric mcfadden on guitar. we're going to jam out a bunch of tunes. and then... new orleans in itself is such a cultural, musical place.