not enough of this kind of murrow boy. don knew he wasn't a murrow boy. >> rose: he admired them. >> they were news gods, he really did. >> rose: he was a broadway producer type. >> but he called them correspondents. he looked up to them so much. it was a shock because he had been the director of the nixon kennedy debate the first one. >> rose: when he was 37 years old. >> he was young and on fire. he had been a pioneer of television. and so the idea that he rose to that level the boss at the cbs evening news and then got fired. it was a shock. >> rose: it is said that fred friendly called him in and we're going to promote you your own documentary unit. he calls his wife and said i just got promoted. >> you've been fired. >> rose: he was on the wilderness then. >> he didn't like the documents. he called them hour long snooze stories because he was bored by them. he had a short attention span and he was write. that's how he came up with the idea. he could do shorter stories three of those documentaries cut them down to 15 m

a magazine that covered a combination of what he called high murrow and low murrow.interview with a president in the same broadcast as interview with a movie star. >> rose: the same way edward r. murrow would do with a mile mooilg rant worker and an actor. that's what everybody at "60 minutes" does? >> everybody is a generalist. >> rose: you think about mike doing it, but mori did it. >> everybody is a generalist. you have to have the ability to do just about every kind of story-- though, everybody does it in a slightly different way with different strengths that they bring to the table. and it was bosh and it was given these values, and the practices that storytaling, how we're going to tell our stories, we're going to tell them in narrow ways, all of the things that i write about in the book that don taught us. he would fix our copy and help us write and lines and he had an amazing eye for a story. but it didn't start to take off until about seven years in. >> rose: it took that long to do what, find a home, build an audience? >> they found a home, at 7:00 on sunda

edward r murrow had a symbol to all these people during the war. the organization was born. it was born and given these values. the practices, storytelling, how we will tell our stories, in narrow ways, all the things i write about in the book that don taught us. why the time fred friendly became president, the big job, walter cronkite, he said i don't want him there. he is too much of a showman. charlie: he admired him. jeff: he looked up to them like news gods. he really did. charlie: he was a broadway producer. jeff: he was, but he called them gentlemen correspondence. he looked up to them so much. it was a shock because he had been the director of the next and-kennedy debate. charlie: when he was 37 years old. -- nixon-kennedy debate. jeff: he had been a pioneer of television. the idea that he rose to that level at cbs news and got fired, it was a shock. charlie: it is said that fred friendly called him and and said, we are going to promote you to your own documentary unit. he called his wife and said, i just got promoted. she said, it you just

charlie: the way edward r murrow would do migrant workers and movie stars.incredible mix and variety that makes it so special. everybody is a generalist. charlie: steve does it. jeff: you have to have the ability to do every kind of story. everybody does it in a slightly different way with different strengths they bring to the table, but he could not sell it. he got into this position because he was fired. i don't think a lot of people realize that. he had been at cbs news for 15 years, the best job in the place, the executive producer of cbs evening news with walter cronkite. you're talking about 17 million viewers a night. it was huge. charlie: that was where you wanted to become a correspondent for the cbs evening news. jeff: that was the highest place you could be. he was fired. fred was president, one of the founders of our great organization. they were partners. they were the founding fathers really. don watched them and learn from them, but he was a creature of this new thing, television and there were not that interested in it until they had to becom

russians have a sense the other zero abilities that they don't really know their own population may be murrow than we did before and then you don't know so there is that continuity there of folder ability of what we provide of what has changed is the ability to manipulate so we're just starting to come to grips and we have had a couple of years of those open information systems. and with those european elections we need some more perspective because is this something that is a continuing feature? or are we wiser now? to let this spread? it is generally disruptive. id weekend quite control that it made the with the interference with the presidential election so laissez it is desperate bin it is the consequences of that because of the democrats who might be more inclined bid on that would determine election is pretty high style. server the consequences with that activity you can watch. >> i do want to ask with fiction so that a more accurate and others. you'll also oppose current efforts to lure the atlantic council in you were mentioning from new america. and of course, peter is another offer.

[laughter] it's about ed murrow and it wouldn't have happened if they didn't give it the green light. he'd been the merchant marine and really wasn't dying to be a reporter, he liked the new attention television and someone said you should get into television and at the time i said what and it was nowhere. the people at cbs news were not interested in television at all. they were elegant storytellers. they were incredible gentleman correspondence referred to them and so he had television to himself and he was more in the production side as an directing as he was on the editorial side but he learned the editorial side from those at cbs news from the nixon kennedy debate are fascinating because it was a breakthrough moment. the polls showed radio broadcast of the debate. the executive producer of the cbs news with walter cronkite had a half an hou half-an-hour s the biggest job at the time. as fred became president, he called don hewitt into his office in 1964, early 65 and he thought he was too much of a showman and he told them you are going to have your own unit and we want you to do

. >> i was referring about the fact if you read michael murrow's book, great war of our time, he comes out with the narrative in these current -- this current release, it's a different narrative than al qaeda was on its heels and it was the lion in winter watching the good old days in reruns on his non-cable tv. instead, this former deputy director of the cia, former acting director said, no, we realize they were in touch in a very micromanaging way with their entire network. so what the intelligence community thought versus what the two administrations in a row decided to release seem to be different things. >> commenting. >> i was referring to the behavior of al qaeda. >> the book is very good on the point of what was bin laden doing when he was killed. he was very good at explaining the cia assessed he had given up day-to-day control of al qaeda. after the documents are scooped up in the files lo and behold they realize, no, me was running the whole thing. good clarifying language, not just us nerds going through the files or a journalist like yourself looking at the stuff and an of