captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: a government shutdown drew closer today, as the stalemate over a budget deal continued. good evening. i'm jim lehrer. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the "newshour" tonight, we get the latest on sticking points and the partisan blame game from naftali bendavid of the "wall street journal." >> lehrer: and we talk about the showdown with the top democrat on the house budget committee congressman chris van hollen of maryland. >> ifill: then, jeffrey brown examines new findings on estrogen treatments for menopausal women. >> lehrer: judy woodruff talks to belva davis about her career

as the first african american woman television reporter on the west coast. >> it was extremely hard because i was also the first girl street reporter and that's what i was referred to-- going out with the girl. but never did i doubt that it was worth it. >> ifill: and ray suarez examines the challenges ahead for haiti's president-elect pop star michel martelly. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: in 1968, as whaling continued worldwide, the first recordings of humpback songs were released. ( whale singing ) public reaction led to international bans. whale populations began to recover. at pacific life, the whale symbolizes what is possible if people stop and think about the future. help protect your future with pacific life-- the power to help

you succeed. ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life.

and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: both sides insisted today they don't want a government shutdown, but there was still no deal on how to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. "newshour" congressional correspondent kwame holman has our report. >> reporter: the capitol grounds were bustling today visibly with tourists filling the halls of congress while behind the scenes congressional leaders kept up work to break their weeks-long stalemate over a spending bill. in the house, republicans discussed the budget negotiations at an afternoon meeting, two days before money for government operations is set to run out. house speaker john boehner spoke to reporters afterward.

>> our goal is real clear: we're going to fight for the largest spending cuts we can get and it had policy riders that were attached to them because we believe that cutting spending will lead to a better environment for job creation. we're continuing to have conversations with our colleagues in the senate. i'm hoping that they'll continue to go well. >> reporter: boehner also said republicans would hold a vote tomorrow on a one-week spending bill that would cut $12 billion from current spending levels and fund the defense department for the rest of the fiscal year. the president and senate democrats have rejected that approach. president obama spoke with boehner and senate majority leader harry reid earlier in the day by phone, before departing for a town hall discussion on clean energy near philadelphia. but mr. obama took time to prod lawmakers to finish the funding bill. >> after weeks of negotiations, we've now agreed to cut as much spending as the republicans in congress originally asked for.

so we've agreed toe a compromise. but somehow we still don't a deal. because some folks are trying to inject politics in what should be a simple debate about how to pay our bills. >> reporter: but democratic leader reid said republicans remain unwilling to compromise. >> every time we agree to meet in the middle they move where the middle is. they said no when we met them halfway, now they say it's our way or the highway. that's no way to move forward. >> reporter: washington's high tourist season is just getting under way. up to half a million visitors are expected this weekend alone at the federally funded smithsonian museum, like the iconic castle and the national zoo. but if congress and the president can't agree on continued government funding by midnight friday, these and other popular sites will be shuttered. linda st. thomas is a spokeswoman for the smithsonian institution. she said a failure to pass a spending bill not only would close the museums but cost them millions in lost revenue from gift shop concessions and food sales. >> the museums are all free, but

once you're in the museum you probably want to eat in the cafeteria, or a buy a memento, or go to the imax theater. we have some popcorn concessions, we also have the carousel outside. so we definitely lose revenue even if the government was shut down for a weekend. that doesn't affect most government office workers-- monday through friday-- but it really affects us; weekends are a big time for us. >> reporter: according to the white house office of management and budget a funding freeze would close more than 360 national park service sites. visa applications would not be processed, meaning some travelers could be forced to delay trips out of the country. and tax refunds could be delayed, although returns still would be due on time. not all operations would come to a halt. government workers deemed essential, such as security and military personnel, would stay on the job, although they could not be paid until government funding is restored.

the united states postal service would deliver mail as usual because it has its own separate funding. social security checks would be go out on time, but processing new applications could be delayed. the most recent government shutdown came in 1995-1996, when president clinton and house speaker newt gingrich clashed over raising the debt ceiling. analysts say republicans took most of the blame in that case, helping clinton win re-election. now opinion polls show the public equally divided over which party should be held responsible if no agreement is reached. >> lehrer: for the latest on the negotiations, naftali bendavid, congressional correspondent for the "wall street journal." >> welcome. where do we stand as we speak, sir? >> the fact is things are sounding more positive about averting a shutdown than they did yesterday. sometimes it seems like congress has to stare into an abyss before they can reach an

agreement and that may be part of what happened. there were headlines all across the country this morning saying a shutdown was imminent and now both sides seem to have taken a step or two back. so still there's no deal. the government could shut down but both sides are sounding a little more positive and both ides, senator reid and speaker boehner, are supposed to go to the white house later this eve sning we'll have to see what comes out of that. >> lehrer: i noticed jay carney, the white house press secretary, said the president asked for that meeting at 8:45 eastern time tonight at the white house because not enough progress has been made. you know, can you read anything into what that means? >> well, it's a little bit hard to know what they mean. i mean, one could perhaps draw the conclusion that president obama is trying to position himself a little t he. if a deal is reached he'll look like he stepped in at the last second and made the whole thing happen and if a deal isn't reached he'll look as though he did everything possible to prevent the government from shutting down.

so there's a little gamesmanship going on on all sides. i wouldn't read too much into that comment. i think a lot of people on capitol hill feel like progress is being made. again, that doesn't mean a shut down is not going to happen but it means things are in a better place than they were 24 hours ago. >> lehrer: is there any new word on what... one of the major dividing points was this issue of policy riders versus clean cuts. the policy riders the republicans want that the democrats and the president do not want. is there any news about movement on either side on those things? >> well, there's nothing specific on that and i think reason is the two sides have sort of agreed they're going to work on spending first and how hard a line each side takes is going to depend in part on how they think they've done on the spending part of things. so for example if the republicans feel like they've given more than they wanted to on spending they may insist more on some ofhese riders that relate to abortion or climate

change or whatever it might be. that's being left for a later stage in the negotiations. >> lehrer: and the principal rider that is the problem is the abortion one on some funding for planned parenthood, correct? >> well, that relates... yes, that's one of the big ones. but there are a couple other big ones, too. there's a policy rider that would defund president obama's health care law and that's hugely controversial. there's another that would block regulations have to do with climate change. so those are the big three. democrats say they cannot live with those. some republicans say that they can't live without them. >> lehrer: everybody on both sides-- either positively or negatively-- is talking about, of course, the role the tea party conservatives on the republican house side are having. any news on that? what position they're taking as we move toward the end here? >> well, i think it's pretty clear to maybe a couple dozen of those republicans are probably going to oppose almost anything that comes out because it's not going to be the initial deal

that the house republicans passed. beyond that it's hard to say where these guys come down. there's some talk that if they end up with a deal to cut $40 billion instead of $iii 3 billion some of those conservatives might come along. a lot of people are looking ahead to the 2012 bat which will has been joined now. a lot of people are eager to put this fight behind them. but speaker boehner is in a tricky spot. on the one hand he's under pressure to get a deal done. on the other hand he has to do something to reach out to tea party conservatives and how he navigates that tricky terrain is going to be interesting. >> lehrer: and everybody who says they don't want a shutdown, the tea party conservatives wouldn't mind having one, am i right about that? >> i think so. there's a lot of tea party conservatives and they have a lot of different views but they feel if that's what it takes to cut funding significantly, then bring it on. there are people like congressman mike pence of indiana who's a leader of that

group and he has sort of said look, i don't want a shutdown but if that's what we have to do, that's what we have toe do. but everybody else in both parties is saying they want to avoid it at all costs because it would lead to a volatile political environment. nobody knows for sure who would be blamed. nobody knows what the outcome would be. so it's something both parties are shying away from with the exception of those tea party conservatives you mentioned. >> lehrer: so when in doubt if you don't know who will be blamed you may be one of them so forget it if you can possibly do so, is that it? >> that's it. i think polls show a split as to who would be blamed but it's interesting because if you talk to people if congress privately both people think the republicans are a bit more at risk from a shutdown than democrats and speaker boehner has said very openly to his colleagues, to his republican colleagues, is look, democrats think they would benefit more than we would from a shutdown and i agree with them. so even though the polls show an even split, i think everybody remembers what happened last time which is that president clinton came out ahead politically and speaker gingrich came out behind.

>> lehrer: and that's the impetus toward a deal tonight, as you said. thank you very much for the update. >> thanks for having me. >> ifill: still to come on the "newshour": democrat chris van hollen on the budget; new findings on estrogen; a memoir from a television pioneer and the road ahead for haiti's new leader. but first, with the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: the house budget committee began its markup of a g.o.p. proposal to slash nearly $6 trillion in spending over the next ten years. the committee chair paul ryan of wisconsin unveiled the plan yesterday. it would restructure medicare and other federal health care programs, as well as reduce total federal spending. ryan said sky-high deficits made the cuts vital. democrat bill pascrell of new jersey denounced it as an attack on health programs for retirees and the poor. >> let's get through this partisanship. and let's get on to the business of saving this country and getting this debt pd off while we can still do it on our terms. the reforms in this plan are gradual, they're sensible. this is something we can

preempt. this is something we can stop. we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our grandchildren, we owe it to our fellow countrymen to get this debt under control. >> i think that your budget needs a gps because it is a roadmap into the woods and we're not going to be able to get out. we believe in providing health care security for more. >> sreenivasan: an analysis by the congressional budget office found under the plan most future retirees would actually pay more for health care. the nonpartisan agency said when people now 54 and under retire they would enroll in a voucher- like plan to buy private insurance. and it noted the medicare benefits package is more expensive to deliver through private insurers. opposition forces in ivory coast moved in on the man who will not

leave office. but the fighters were repelled by heavy arms fire coming from behind the gates of laurent gbagbo's residence in abidjan. gbagbo refuses to cede power despite losing last november's election to allassane ouattara. we have a report narrated by rohit kachroo of "independent television news." >> the distant evidence of an assault aimed at removing laurent gbagbo. as it began, rebel leaders said they were going in to end the comedy, then they stormed the luxurious compound where he's been hiding. gbagbo played the commander-in-chief for state t.v. cameras. today he's cornered in his home in an underground bunker but still refusing to leave. u.n. strikes forced him close to surrender, but he switched to defiance. "i love life, i love life, my voice is not the voice of a martyr, i do not seek death,

it's not my goal here to die." today his wife emerged and showed that he still has some support in this divided country. >> ( translated ): god is leading our fight. god has already given us the victory. >> reporter: but her husband lost the election. it's his former citizens who've lost the most, though. desperate for food and for a solution. aid agencies report the growing refugee crisis. others fear revenge killings after gbagbo goes. >> sreenivasan: french military officials said their forces were not taking part in today's offensive. french troops are backing up u.n. peacekeepers in ivory coast to protect civilians. libyan leader moammar qaddafi has sent a personal letter to president obama, calling for an end to airstrikes on his country. the three-page letter written in english was obtained by the associated press. in it, qaddafi writes that "nato is waging an unjust war against a small people of a developing country."

in washington with the italian foreign minister, secretary of state hillary clinton said there's no mystery about what the u.s. expects from qaddafi. >> mr. qaddafi knows what he must do. there needs to be a cease-fire. his forces need to withdraw from the cities that they have forcibly taken at great violence and human cost. there needs to be a decision made about his departure from power and as foreign minister said, his de-par which you are from libya. a boat that set sail from libya loaded with 300 migrants has apsized in the miternean. it overturd in rougheas off the coast of a tiny italian island near north africa. rescue crews were battling strong winds in their search for survivors. 51 of the migrants were rescued and brought ashore. thousands of people have fled to italy to escape the recent unrest in their home countries.

unrest in the middle east continued for another day. thousands of protesters in yemen defied a government crackdown and took to the streets of sanaa to demand president ali abdullah saleh step down. major rallies were also held in the southern city of taiz. meanwhile, u.s. defense secretary robert gates traveled to riyadh, saudi arabia for talks on the spreading unrest in the region. japanese engineers turned their focus today to preventing new explosions at the destroyed fukushima dai-ichi nuclear plant. they began injecting nitrogen near the reactor to prevent more hydrogen explosions like the ones that happened after a tsunami hit last month. that came as the new york times reported the united states nuclear regulatory commission sees a host of new threats at the plant, including explosions and growing stresses on containment structures. portugal has become the third eurozone country to request an international financial bailout. the prime minister said portugal needs the extra help to tackle

skyrocketing debts amid recent political instability. he said the fact that parliament rejected austerity measures last month made the request for aid inevitable. greece and ireland have already asked for financial assistance. on wall street, stocks closed higher today as the dow neared a three-year high. the dow jones industrial average gained more than 32 points to close at 12,426. the nasdaq rose eight points to close above 2,799. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: we spoke last night to house budget chairman paul ryan. now for the democrats' side of the budget argument-- short and longterm. earlier today, i spoke with ryan's democratic counterpart, congressman chris van hollen of maryland. for joining us. today we have been hearing horror stories about the potential of a shutdown. 800,000 employees furloughed and the i.r.s. payments held up. do you know... what can you tell us about whether there's going

to be a shutdown tomorrow? >> well, it's all up in the air still, what you have is the tea party wing of the republican party in the house has taken over. they are pushing speaker boehner whatever direction they want and they have taken the position that they want 100% their way or they're going to shut down the government. they don't want any compromises even if it means that we would be able to keep the government going and that's where we are right now. we're all hoping cooler heads will prevail and that we can get this behind souse we can move on the a major discussion about the whole budget rather than vo cusing on this very narrow piece of the pie. >> ifill: congressman, your district has a lot of federal employees living there and a lot of them are telling pollster this is week that they think both sides, both parties, are playing politics with this. what do you say to them? >> well, look, i think at the end of the day we don't get anywhere by finger pointing. with respect to the debate going on here, we simply ask the american people to follow

closely exactly what's being said. the fact of the matter is, the speaker of the house, john boehner, the republican speaker, said not that long ago that they would ask for $32 billion worth of cuts. the president of the united states has now said we'll do $33. they said that's not good enough anymore because the tea party wing of my party refuses to go along with that and not only that, but they say we want to pick what the specific cuts are. in other words, they want to cut education and medical research into cancer rather than cut subsidies for the big oil companies. if you're really interested in deficit reduction, it would be the same thing. but they're demanding that they have their particular ideological views imposed on the budget. >> ifill: congressman, how do we get to this point? when the democrats in the majority there wasn't a budget passed, either. >> we passed a budget enforcement resolution which governed spending for this year

and, in fact, in december the democratic congress cut over $40 billion from the president's budget. on the campaign trail, the republicans came up with this arbitrary number, you have to do $100 billion. when they got back here, some cooler heads on their side prevailed, at least relatively so and said okay, we'll do $32 billion. now they've changed it and they've taken the position that if they don't get everything they want they're going to shut down the government. and as i said, if you're really interested in deficit reduction it shouldn't matter whether you reduce the deficit by getting rid of subsidies for big oil companies or special interest tax breaks or by cutting education and cancer research. but they've said not only do we want to cut a certain amount out of the budget but we demand to cult the education of cancer research rather than special interest tax breaks. that's part of the reasons where we are. >> ifill: let's talk about the

long-term argument. republicans have put a budget out there. they plan to do their proposal, paul ryan's proposal which he talked about on this program would be at least in part to privatize parts of medicare and to shift some of the burden for medicaid coverage to the states. there are people who say at least this is a first step. what's your response? >> let me say this. what's happening now in the full budget unfortunately is a larger version of what we're seeing on the smaller budget. what do i mean by that? we're seeing the same old ideological agenda where they want to extend tax breaks for the wealthiest americans. they want to extend tax breaks for special interests and then go ahead and cut other important investments in education and other areas and they want to end the medicare guarantee for seniorss. what that would do is force seniors off the medicare program into the private insurance market where their cost of health care are rising. so the entire risk of health

care would be borne by the seniors. now... >> ifill: aren't the seniors grandfatherd? anyone 55 years and older grandfathered in under this plan? >> certainly not under the medicaid portion of this plan. because under the medicaid portion of the plan, what the republicans would do is block grant a fixed amount of money which shrinks over year relative to the demands for support and sty governors here's the money. now, the reality is block granting is just code for cutting deeply. the medicaid program already gives governors a lot of flexibility and when they say look, we're going to help you out by sending you all the money what they're saying is we're not going to provide the needs going forward. and say you're going block grant medicaid which is already underfunded and whose health care costs have risen at a much lower rate than the private sector is like throwing on anchor to someone who's drowning. with respect to medicare, i want to make this point.

what they're doing to the medicare program is not the same as the federal employees health benefit plan. they're asking seniors to share much larger of the risk and cost than members of congress. because under the federal employees health benefit plan you share the risks of rising health care costs. in fact, it's called the fair share formula. they're not giving seniors under medicare that fair share. they're throwing them over to the insurance industry and all the payroll tax dollars for medicare and premium senior pay will now go to the private insurance market. it's a bonanza for them. it's very bad deal for seniors. >> ifill: so what are the democrats proposing that, assuming that you all agree that there should be something done, there should be something done to tackle the deficit, there should be some reform of some of these entitlement programs what is the democratic plan and does it involve raising taxes? >> well, the democratic plan will be a more balanced plan and

yesterday the co-authors of the bipartisan fiscal commission said that the republican budget was t balanced and not comprehensive. one of the things is that it doesn't ask the wealthiest americans to pay their fair share. we've said we should go back to the same tax rates for the wealthiest americans that were in place during the clinton administration when you had a booming economy and lots of jobs. republicans refused to ask the wealthier taxpayers to pay their fair share. we've said we should close the tax giveaways to the oil industry and other special interest tax breaks. they said no, we're not going to do that. we'd rather cut education, we'd rather tend medicare guaranty for seniors. with respect to health care reform, this is an important point. if you look at the eight year... the ten-year window of the republican budget, most of the medicare savings that they get are as a result of reforms that we made in the affordable health

care. and, in fact, what they said last fall about those was when they ran adds scaring seniors and said the democrats have cut your medicare when, in fact, now they're using those as part of the medicare reform. in the long run, the affordable care act will help bend the cost curve throughout the health care system. >> ifill: let me ask you a final question. the buzz words that are the republicans use are "choice" and "competition" and "growth." what is it that democrats propose that would achieve those goals? >> well, in fact, if you look at the republican plan and the job growth estimates that they said that went along with it, they fear from the heritage foundation, the same institution that predicted that the bush-era tax cuts would lead to huge job growth. in the country when in fact during the eight years during the bush administration after those tax cuts we actually had a net loss of 650,000 jobs. look, in our plan we continue to

invest in the future of our economy. a we need invest in education. we need to invest in our infrastructure. we need to make sure we invest in science and research and n.i.h.. so, yes, we recognize you've got to make cuts. you're going to have make serious and sustainable cuts and we will propose those as part of a budget that we offer. but at the same time, it would be a big mistake to reduce our investments in critical national investments. other countries are following that successful model from the one our past generations pursued and yet this republican budget would cut those strategic investments and reduce our competitiveness overseas. >> ifill: with the democratic point of view, congressman vision van hollen of maryland. thank you so much. >> thanks, gwen. >> lehrer: now, the latest findings on estrogen for women and what they need to know. jeffrey brown has our update.

>> brown: once a popular treatment for women dealing with symptoms of menopause hormone replacement therapy has come under heightened scrutiny in the last decade with profound implications for its use. a 2002 study from the women's health initiative found that use of the combination estrogen and progestin therapy can put women at greater risk for breast cancer, stroke and heart disease. now a new sdy, fromhe sme source, focuses on women who've had hysterectomies and, as a result, used only estrogen. and it found some benefits, including a reduced risk of breast cancer, and said the risk of stroke declined after women stopped taking the drug. we walk through the findings with doctor andrea lacroix, lead author of the study. she's an epidemiologist at the fred hutchinson cancer research center in seattle. dr. lacroix, just to establish briefly where things stand as women begin to digest this new

studs di, what's happened to the use of hormone therapy since that 2002 report on the combination therapy? >> what's happened in the united states is that the numbers of women using hormone therapy have declined quite a bit since 2002. >> brown: so explain what this new study was looking at. why specifically was it focused only on women who'd had hysterectomys? >> well, we started two hormone therapy trials back in the early '90s because we believed that at the time based on the totality of the evidence we believed that taking estrogen might prevent major chronic conditions in post-menopausal women like heart disease and like hip fracture and colorectal cancer and we were concerned about a possible increased risk of breast cancer. so we started both hormone therapy trials at the same time. the one we're reporting on today in women the past hysterectomy for estrogen alone was a

separate trial because women who haven't had a hysterectomy, who have an intact uterus, cannot take estrogen alone without experiencing a greatly increased risk of uterine cancer. so they have to take estrogen plus progestin if they take hormone therapy. women with prior hysterectomy can take estrogen alone. brown sbroup what does this new study tell you? what's the key findings here? >> well, the key findings of this study are like four main findings. the first one is what happens when you stop taking hormone therapy. these women took estrogen alone for an averagef six years and after they stopped we saw the increased risk of stroke and blood clots in the legs and lungs go down. we also saw the benefit on hip fracture slowly go away i. the second major finding we saw was a decreased risk of breast cancer. during the intervention part of the trial when they were still

taking their pills there was a suggestion that breast cancer rates were lower in the women taking estrogen versus placebo. and when we followed these women for another four years, that decreased risk of breast cancer persist sod that over the entire follow-up period we saw a 23% decreased risk of breast cancer that has now become statistically significant. the third finding is that the risks and benefits of hormone therapy differ importantly by age for several types of chronic disease. heart attacks colorectal cancer, death and then overall chronic diseases are lower among women taking hormone therapy in their 50s compared to placebo but among wome in their 70s they actually had higher rates of all these conditions if they were taking estrogen alone versus placebo. and the last thing i would say this paper does is it greatly distinguishes estrogen alone from estrogen plus progestin in

terms of the overall risks and benefits of post-menopausal women. >> brown: so if you take those four findings, what do you tell patients now? for women in this particular category does it suggest the short-term use of estrogen only is okay for them? >> it suggests in the 50s that women can be very reassured that if they decide to take hormone therapy for relief of menopause symptoms or other reasons that they're not going to have an increased risk of breast cancer, they're not going to have more heart attacks. in fact, their risks of those outcomes might be lower. they're not going to have more deaths. their risk of death might be lower and it suggests for women in their 70s that starting estrogen has some serious consequences in terms of increasing their risks. >> brown: the breast cancer, i gather it's not at all clear why estrogen alone, estrogen

treatment alone, would lower breast cancer risks or how much to read into that at this point. i was reading a lot of study and commentary on it. it provoked... it will provoke a lot more research. >> exactly the kind of research our country needs to fund, to take off on your previous segment. the decreased risk of breast cancer, there have been some pre-clinical and clinical studies that say that after the cells in the breast get used to not having estrogen from your ovaries that it's possible that if estrogen is reintroduced like it was in this clinical trial for post-menopausal women that the estrogen might actually inhibit tumors growing in the breast issue once this invo electrocution in the breast cells has occurred

post-menopausally. but we need to know a lot more about that and i think it's very exciting. >> brown: let me ask you very briefly. so for the majority of women-- perhaps two-thirds of women-- who are not in this category, does this change anything? do they go to their doctors and ask new questions or status quo? >> for women who still have their uterus there are a whole other set of findings they can use to decide about hormone therapy. the picture after stopping estrogen plus progestin was quite a bit more risky than the picture that we're publishing in j.a.m.a. today and for women with the uterus i think they need to pay attention to that whole other trial on estrogen plus progestin. >> brown: dr. andrea lacroix, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, a pioneer from the world of broadcasting and the stories she can now tell.

judy woodruff has our profile of belva davis. the story was done in partnership with kqed sa francisco. >> reporter: in the san francisco bay area and much of the rest of northern california, bell have davis is a household name. for more than have a century she's been writing, reporting and broadcasting the news starting in the 1950s when the only media job open to blacks was a weekly newspaper. and women in news were hardly seen or heard no matter their color. i spoke to her recently in san francisco about her memoir that "chronicle"s a journey from a life of poverty in segregated monroe, louisiana, to a career as a respected t.v. journalist. >> it has been an extraordinary life. not just growing up poor but growing up in a family where you were moved from one place to another.

>> that's why the book is entitled "never many my wildest dreams because i could not have imagined when i was growing up. i spent many years trying to figure out where i was going to sleep the next night. off and on in periods as i moved around from relative to relative. >> woodruff: you moved from louisiana as a young girl to arkansas, grandparents and then to california here. to the bay area. >> and that was, again, part of this dream. i always thought i'd spend my days in northern louisiana and that was going to be it. until we were forced, really, the family, to leave the south and head for california and that was an education into itself because southern blacks were not particularly welcomed even in west oakland where i ended up. it was a long time portuguese neighborhood and we were invading.

so that took some adjustments. >> woodruff: she was the first in her family to graduate from high school but couldn't come up with $300 to go to college. she wasn't deterred. you went to work, were married when you were, what, 19? >> yes. >> woodruff: and then you quickly got into writing, journalism. how hard was that? for an african american woman in the 1950s >> there were no examples. (laughs) there were no examples. i shouldn't say that, there were examples if you wrote for the black press or if you did radio for black-owned programs, radio stations. but there was no opportunities for women of my color to see themselves in the broader society performing in those kinds of arenas. >> and at some point you made the transition from reporting for either black audiences, black-owned media to working in radio, television, in the

integrated news environment. how big a shift was that for you? >> that was so big that when i finally landed a job-- and, remember, there were no women of color that i had seen on television doing this job-- well when i went to work i was very concerned because i have always worked for advocacy publication. but my station manager very wise guy called me into his office after i'd been at work a few days and said we want cow you to know now you are a reporter for all of the people not just some of the people so if you really want to succeed you will remember to do that. keen in mind that you are no longer advocating for anything, you're reporting the news as it happens. >> woodruff: was it hard to make that change? >> it was extremely hard because i was also the first girl street reporter and that's what i was referred to going out with the girls. it was hard but never did i

doubt that it was worth it and i think that's the key to persevering and pushing forward. many negative things happened but i tried not to dwell on those. i tried to look for... what else can i do to convince these guys that i can handle this? >> woodruff: one of the scariest experiences she had was covering the 1964 republican presidential convention in san francisco as a radio reporter when fans of conservative senator barry goldwater turned on her and a black colleague, yelling the "n" word and "what in the hell are you doing in here?" >> and we were spotted in the rafters and we were driven out and we had many scary moments running the gauntlet of folks who didn't like us with bad names. and when we got through with that and we got in our car and we were driving home and i thought about the contrast of

the journalists who were just trying to tell the truth and how people needed to know that but often they had... they didn't have a person with my background to tell our side of the story. and so i said to myself this is it. i want to be like those guys. >> woodruff: the turbulence of the 1960s that saw anti-war protests and riots at the university of california at berklee berkeley gave davis another chance to prove herself. >> i was covering berkeley and it was really difficult. so my assignment editor says "i'll give you something new." and i said "what's that?" and he said "the black panther party." well i didn't think anything of it. here i am from monroe, louisiana i knew bobby seals, and this is what i brought to the table. this knowledge of the community that they did not know. about the other side, they didn't know about the anger that had built up because of inequities. they didn't know about the

demands for better treatment and better education and it was my job to tell that story. at least it got on the air. >> it was mid-afternoon when senator robert kennedy arrived here. >> woodruff: when high-profile national figures like senator robert kennedy, martin luther king, jr. and mohammed ali came to northern california in that era, davis' reporting showed a unique perspective. >> we don't drink, we don't smoke, we don't chase white women, we're not looking to integrate, we bathe twice a day and we don't want to push white people out of the neighborhoods and restaurants but yet we seem to be the most despised and hated. >> woodruff: for all of your achievements you write in the book... you talk about being unflapable in the face of some really difficult circumstances where you were out covering a story. you also write at one point that you felt you had to prove yourself day after day after day.

why? >> well, because i was always trying to anticipate what skills i would need for the next stage of the media as it grew. and i realized i didn't have an alumni association to go to. i didn't have a college backup. i didn't have classmates i could call that i had to find the people who would help me survive and move on to whatever the next frontier was. and this hunger for... one would call it ambition to be successful in a media where i have not been expected to be, had not been accepted for so long and where expectations had been so low by so many people i just couldn't let them win. i couldn't let them get the best of me. >> woodruff: do you still feel that way snowed >> i still do! >> woodruff: that you have to prove yourself day after day? >> i feel i have to do that. that the baggage you take with you from your childhood as to who you are, the concept of what it takes to make it for your

group, your gender, that stays in the back of the mind no matter how far you advance. >> woodruff: belva davis, thank you very much for talking with us. the book is "never in my wildest dreams: a black woman's life in journalism." thank you. >> judy, this has been more than a pleasure. >> lehrer: finally tonight, the haiti story: a new president and many of the same problems. ray suarez is in charge. >> suarez: celebrating his election victory, haiti's presumptive president said his win will usher in a new era. >> ( translated ): you wanted change, you voted for change, change of our political activities, change in our economic choices, change in our social organization. >> suarez: on monday, preliminary results showed he captured nearly 68% of the vote in a march 20 runoff against mirlande manigat, a former senator and first lady.

>> ( translated ): we are >> suarez: martelly had placed behind manigat in the first round of voting in november in a three way race with current ruling party candidate, jude celestin. the vote was marred by disorganization and claims of ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation. much of the support for martelly-- a former pop star known as "sweet mickey"-- comes from the young and unemployed. many haitians said they hoped the election to replace president rene preval would help bring stability to haiti. yesterday, martelly promised reconciliation. >> ( translated ): haiti must rebuild itself, we have a democracy to strengthen, you >> suarez: the new leader takes over a country grappling with daunting challenges on numerous fronts. reconstruction from the devastating january 2010 earthquake is still stalled. hundreds of thousands remain homeless and unemployed. the political vacuum has left

some of the much-needed aid funds in the hands of non- haitians with much of the money yet to be spent in the country. and amongst the public health problems-- a cholera outbreak last october that killed more than 4,000 people. the earthquake followed nearly a century of political instability and dictatorship. popular and divisive ex- president jean bertrand aristide and deposed dictator jean-claude "baby doc" duvalier have returned from exile, stirring further anxiety about the future. for more on martelly and the country he inherits, we go to nicole lee, president of the transafrica forum. she has lived and worked in haiti as a human rights advocate. and robert maguire, an associate professor at trinity washington university and chair of the haiti working group at the u.s. institute of peace. well, the results aren't certified until april 16. mrs. manigat is claiming fraud.

but you don't feel we feed any qualifiers, michel martelly is the next president, nicole? >> most likely. unfortunately while we can say that he has 67% of the vote, that's only 22% of the actual registered voters voted in the election. so we do have to be concerned about his mandate. even though most likely they will certify that he is the winner, we're not really sure who actually voted for him. >> suarez: why did he win, sflof >> i think he won for a couple reasons. one, i think he did well in the primary election because the haitian voters seemed to reject the candidate presented by president preval, a great deal of frustration with the preval government and its inability to respond to the quake. now in the runoff election i think his victory is a combination of rejecting the haitian political elites, the haitian political class which has tried to get power in haiti through the ballot box in 25 years and has had next to impossible time succeeding in that.

but i also think martelly kind of represents a break, something new. youth, new, vibrancy. because haitians are basically fed up. they haven't really seen governments that have been able to deliver to them and he's made very strong promises. he's a very good communicator and he won them over to his side. >> suarez: how do you explain it? >> we have to be clear that while martelly has appeal to the youth, he's a popular figure haiti, the truth of the matter is he does present some old ways of thinking, if you will. he has talked about bringing back the military. he is the first president in a democratically elected forrunl in haiti to actually talk about bringing back the military. to actually not have any sort of ties to any other popular movements in haiti. so while certainly he's fresh and young people are excited about him, some of these young people are too young, frankly, to remember the military regimes

in 1991 which, frankly, he was in support of. >> suarez: we should explain that right now a united nations force combined from many nations is providing the military service in haiti. well, professor, did he give any indication that he knows how to run a country during his campaign? the issues he highlighted or the thing he is said he intended to do? >> well, no, i don't... he has asked haitians to take a tremendous leap of faith. this is an a man who is an entertainer and is now going to be the leader of a nation. he did surround himself, i think with public relations firm and advisors who helped him a lot. he went to a u.n. briefing, one of the few candidates who did it took ample notes and the next day he was on the radio talking about the kind of thing he is had learned. so without a doubt his learning curve is going to have to be skyrocketing, but he's also mentioned that he understands that and he will surround himself with experts who can do the job. a major question is going to be,

of course, who will those experts be? and there are some concerns that does harken back to the past to the duvalier past and this position to reestablish the haitian army is going to be one that will galvanize and polarize haiti tremendously and i'm not sure there's going to be great ability of the international community, enthusiasm of the international community to respond to that, either. >> suarez: will americans have watch this kind of a struggle through the last 20 years? what does he have to do right out of the gate? >> well, first i think there are some things he's talked about, like that military, that i think should not be priorities. one of the things he's promised the haitian people and for the majority of haitians is very important is education and reconstruction. so the question is will this learning curve that professor maguire is talking about, will it be enough to ensure that the international community has the faith in him and in his administration to start... begin to provide the much-needed aid to the government? so far while we've seen a lot of aid on the ground, aid has not

been provided to the government of haiti because we were waiting for these elections. well, now these elections have happened. now we're here, what will the international community do next? i think that's a major question and if martelly is going to be the leader of everyone in haiti, he needs to ensure that the majority of haitians who are impoverished, who are still living in tent communities that their needs are met first. >> suarez: so is haiti's future... is the fate of the country in the short term in the hands of people who aren't haitians? >> well, haiti doesn't have a great deal of space to negotiate its sovereignty right now. it's extremely dependent on international actors. i mean,ronally, tomorrow and friday there will be a meeting of the international... the interim haitian reconstruction commission which, you know, is really a very powerful mixed haitian international pod di but it is making decisions. how... martelly's got the challenge of trying to negotiate a little more sovereign space,

frankly. part of his campaign shtick was that we'll get haitians to stand up. he's going to have to gain confidence within the international community first. one of the things that might be very important is the fact that we are on about the first anniversary of the donors conference at the u.n. last year where $9 or $10 billion were pledged over five years. very little of that has been disbursed so far, as nicole eluded to. but he's going to have to gain confidence and one way is perhaps to position... the position he will take on the plans that were approved and endorsed by the international community a year ago upon which they pledged? so what will his issues be on manufacturing, tourism? support of the actual economy, decentralization of the economies through supporting growth polls outside of port-au-prince these will be strong indicators to see how he

will be able to work with the international actors. >> suarez: for all the crisis, for all the real challenges facing the president-elect are we overlooking what a big accomplishment it is for an elected president to hand power to another elected president in this country? we have a situation where people didn't go to the polls because they didn't believe the process was fair. so martelly and the parliament will have a difficult trow hoe. so it's one thing to get the conversation of the international community. they need to get the confidence of the haitian people and it's going to be up to them that they balance the interest of the international community with the real aspirations of the majority of haitians. >> suarez: nicole lee and robert maguire, thank you both. >> thank you. >> sure, thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day: president obama warned a government shutdown on saturday

would harm the economy, as a stalemate over budget negotiations continued. the entrenched president of ivory coast repelled attacks from opposition fighters as a and libyan leader moammar qaddafi sent a personal letter to president obama, calling for an end to airstrikes on his country. and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the "newshour" online. hari? >> sreenivasan: there's more on haiti on our world page. on japan's tsunami, read a debrief with a red cross official in tokyo who visited with evacuees still living in shelters. plus, on "art beat," find a slide show of work from a prominent art deco mosaic artist whose career is being newly honored at the national building museum all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll update the roiling budget battles in washington. i'm gwen ifill. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> okay, listen. somebody has got to get serious. >> i think... >> we need renewable energy. >> ...renewable energy is vital

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