times in england as an investigative reporter columnist and senior writer two time winner of the george polk award for excellence in journalism and a pulitzer prize finalist in two thousand and two thousand and two his second book the informant was called one of the best nonfiction books of the decade by the new york times book review and made into a major motion picture starring matt damon for its most recent book is the critically acclaimed five hundred days secrets and lies in the terror wars joins me now in the studio so honored to have you with us thanks for having me thanks for joining us. first of five hundred a question so let's start with nine eleven it seems to have been a pivotal point in fact i want to get into some of the before but first of all the nine eleven commission i'm just curious your thoughts on what they did how well they did that sort of i think it's. terms of you know outside commissions that are investigating government action i think actually the nine eleven commission is up there in terms of quality i mean the report they put out was much more detailed than i ever imag

you have 16 george polk awards. you are in the land of the great tradition of americans for what people in the old days would call muckrakers. today we call that investigative reporters. but investigative reporting as a craft seems to be in decline. there doesn't seem to be much of it anymore. we went through fallow. where'd you go through the earliest part of the 20th century, you know, people like lincoln and tarbell and upton sinclair. when you come forward to the 60s and now you see more of that kind of critical, you know, intellectual consequence emerging price as a market of stories that dig in and u.k. people, who would you mention from that. >> guest: bob greene of newsday and all the great investigative reporting cnc even international peace says is a real trendsetter at the time, towards looking at the big issues of business, not small business. >> it was not a widespread occupation. let's put it that way. "the new york times" basically did very little. you had a massacre. the news service or papers around

you have 16 george polk awards. you are in the land of the great tradition of americans for what people in the old days would call muckrakers. today we call that investigative reporters. but investigative reporting as a craft seems to be in decline. there doesn't seem to be much of it anymore. we went through fallow. where'd you go through the earliest part of the 20th century, you know, people like lincoln and tarbell and upton sinclair. when you come forward to the 60s and now you see more of that kind of critical, you know, intellectual consequence emerging price as a market of stories that dig in and u.k. people, who would you mention from that. >> guest: bob greene of newsday and all the great investigative reporting cnc put together, both for regional, and even international peace says is a real trendsetter at the time, towards looking at the big issues of business, not small business. >> it was not a widespread occupation. let's put it that way. "the new york times" basically did very little. you had a massac