remember peter jennings anchored for 24 hours straight.r every single time period. it was a huge success, but more than that -- >> the internet didn't collapse. >> no, that's right. y2k. >> everyone assumed it would happen. >> we had jimmy walker in new zealand with an atm card who put it in at 12:01 to see if it would collapse. >> it was the biggest nonstory. >> and we covered it extensively is. >> what was the low story? >> well, the death of peter jennings was a terrible moment and then the wounding of bob woodruff and his cameramen was terrible. and my biggest regret was not covering the weapons of mass destructions more extensively. peter jennings was more skeptical and i wish we had listened to him more on that. >> he was a great man and a brilliant broadcaster. a fascinating book. nice to meet you. >>> next only in america, the blood of a great president now up for auction. ♪ ♪ why do you whisper, green grass? ♪ [ all ] shh! ♪ why tell the trees what ain't so? ♪ [ male announcer ] dow solutions use vibration reduction technology to

one of the great joys of the job that i had was working with people like peter jennings, and diane sawyer barbara walters. ted coppell, people like that. peter and i developed a close relationship, but this was early on. sdmreefs testing you, and he was wondering if you were sort of taking the network in a tabloid direction. it was a huge story. >> it was a huge story, and it came up over labor day weekend, so i was alone in the newsroom with my staff, and peter was out of pocket, and everybody else was out of pocket, and i decided to do a primetime special, and peter called in late at night and caught me on the newsroom floor while we were in a special report and said i understand you are thinking about a primetime special, and if you do that, no one will ever take you seriously as the president of abc news. >> i guess you survived that. another huge story the following ye year. there was a well produced story about the pope visiting cuba. ted coppell did not want to change that, and you did not overrule or say let's jump on the story. mistake? >> i was down in havana. direct answer, yes

. >> from abc, this is "world news tonight" with peter jennings. >> good evening. is this -- pan am flight 10 had been in the air for an hour. >> the passing of 24 years has done little to erase the shock that have night. the many rellmives, his trial, and the guilty verdict were the closest thing to come. when megrahi was convicted of mass murder in a specially convened court in the netherlands, many u.s. relatives were there to witness it. and unlike some of their british counterparts, the americans were overwhelmingly convinced of his guilt. but few believe one man alone was responsible. joan lost her daughter, gretchen, who had been in london studying art. young woman's mother wants to see more prosecutions of those who gave megrahi his orders. >> have him come to his final end gives us some justice, but there's still more to the story that needs to be solved, we need more truth to come out, we need more of the criminals who were involved in the bombing to be exposed. >> the obama administration has pledged to work with the new libya to uncover the truth, assum

. >> bill: as you know, i was a friend of peter jennings. and i liked mr. westin's book, by the way, i read it. you had a great story of you going head to head as you're a rookie with jennings who is a monster about princess diana. i don't want to give this story away. i want people to read your book. jennings himself was a liberal man, all right? he was. but he did try to tamp it down but he admitted that the whole culture of network news was left. he admitted it. >> listen, bill, one of the things i talk about in the book is we all have a bias. whether we know it or not>> bill: it has to change. >> oh, i think we really did change it. >> bill: you think you did? >> i think we made progress in saying other people have a voice at the table. >> bill: last question. do you think romney is going to get a fair shake from the three network news organizations as opposed to obama this time around? >> you know, i think first of all, i'm not running it, i don't know. >> bill: i know you're not. what do you think? >> this is what i really think. i think that news org

peter jennings, the late peter jennings saw me in the hall at abc would go? >> really? point. to abc's credit they did air much of my stuff. >> you write in the book demanded you be fired because your bias was quote an embarassment? he was embraersed by you. how many conservatives or libertarians were there running around abc news at the time? one, two? >> none. there were no conservatives and libertarian. >> brit hume was conservative. >> he was in the closet at abc. playing it down the middle. >> wouldn't let it affect his reporting. >> i called him in the closet because we all have opinions. i was letting mine out. abc acted as i was only guy in the building with an opinion was me. >> do you that is changing now? do you think advent of cable news where people hear both side and internet where they hear both side that they're starting to be a little bit more opened-minded to both sides? >> i don't know if they're open-minded but at least at cnn and abc, cbs they now know there is another side and it is not like, oh, we are wholly in the middle and right and those wack

. >> bill: as you know, i was a friend of peter jennings. and i liked mr.estin's book, by the way, i read it. you had a great story of you going head to head as you're a rookie with jennings who is a monster about princess diana. i don't want to give this story away. i want people to read your book. jennings himself was a liberal man, all right? he was. but he did try to tamp it down but he admitted that the whole culture of network news was left. he admitted it. >> listen, bill, one of the things i talk about in the book is we all have a bias. whether we know it or not>> bill: it has to change. >> oh, i think we really did change it. >> bill: you think you did? >> i think we made progress in saying other people have a voice at the table. >> bill: last question. do you think romney is going to get a fair shake from the three network news organizations as opposed to obama this time around? >> you know, i think first of all, i'm not running it, i don't know. >> bill: i know you're not. what do you think? >> this is what i really think. i think that news organ

that night she began a three part series about tailhook on abc's nightly news with peter jennings.jennings listened in his fatherly way as coughlin wept and told her story.' >> guest: yeah. c-span: among the national items was president bush and then you go on to report it. >> guest: right. c-span: but how'd the media treat tailhook? >> guest: well, i mean, my god. i think that the--the media is pretty silly most of the time, but this was like the silly season of them all. i don't think we've seen excesses--i mean, possibly john john, the period of th--the--john john mourning was bigger. but i found this shocking as a reporter whose worked at, you know, newspapers and has heard over and over again, ad nauseam, the-the sort of reporter's creed about balance and seeking out the other side, and you know, and how--you know, 'we're skeptical. we're always skeptical of people.' there was no skepticism applied to this story. i mean, we had leads, you know, i--i'd have to look in my book to find the exact words, but that said things like, you know, tailhook '91, the weekend that, you know,

early in your tenure, you end up going head-to-head with another legend in modern journalism, peter jenningst home and get a call from peter. >> saturday night on labor day weekend. peter and i got to work closely for several years. it was a wonderful experience. and most of the time, he was right. and i listened to him. the first time, we had a big disagreement, right out of the box, about princess diana. he was unavailable. he was away. and i decided that we would do a primetime special on the sunday night the next night. and peter called in late at night. and i took the call just off camera. and peter said, i understand that princess diana has died. and i owe it to you to tell you, if you do a primetime special n princess diana, no one will take you seriously. here's was my first big news call in a breaking situation. and he said i was dead-wrong. i drew upon what i knew, which was not an extensive background in journalism. i have a sister back in michigan. she never reads tabloids. but she followed every detail of diana's life. he said, that's your right to make that decision. >> and he

bernie, a lot of our viewers remember the heyday of dan rather, peter jennings, tom brokaw, we all watched night on tv. this story changed his legacy, and he does seem conscious of that and upset by it. >> yeah. yeah, absolutely. i think, i think he's hurt by it. because i think he knows that despite the fact that he covered every major story around the world since the assassination of kennedy and even though he went to some very scary places and put his life in danger more than a few times, you know what -- and i hope this doesn't happen for 100 years -- but you know when the obit is written for him in the first paragraph the words memogate or rathergate or something is going to be mentioned, and i think that hurts him very much. something else that hurts him, and this is interesting -- i'm laughing because you'll see why in a second. he's hurt by the fact that his colleagues who he thought were his friends, some of whom he actually hired at cbs news, turned on him when things went bad. megyn: he calls them spineless. >> very touching that he feels that way. let me say this, when dan was

jen peter brooks is joining us, former cia officer and fellow for national security affairs at hurtarg foundation. your thoughts with what catherine finished there, with maybe there were politics going on and mixed messages from different agencies. what do you think? >> we have to be very careful of that, we can't let politics get in the way of national security policy and our national security, regardless of what's going on in the political sphere around the world. we clearly, jenna, are living in dangerous times. people who suggest we're in a post 9/11 era are mistaken. we're still in the crosshairs of terrorist groups associated with al-qaeda, even though usama bin laden is gone, the al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula is probably the most dangerous al-qaeda affiliate out there. they not only had this plot going along, they also holdter tore in yemen and in fact the day before or about the same time this bomb was picked up they raided a yemeni army base and killed soldiers and stole weapons. this is a formidable around the. jenna: peter, let's bring up that map, guys. we had a map tha

jens committee. republican congressman peter king. >> the pressing issue right now is how it was leaked and what canthis doesn't happen again. i can't emphasize how closed this it was and how compartmentalized it was and the fact that it could have gotten out in any detail at all. it is very, very shocking. >> we have to be vigilant, and strong and have to work as a team. we can't have the stove pops and not corroborate. you can't have leaks. leaks can kill people. leaks can deter us getting information. >> reporter: now both congressmen came out to say that they did not know where the leak came from, but they did note that the cia is akre about this and also insist the that the leak could not, did not come from congress because members of congress, key members of congress were not informed and were not briefed on this until yesterday. that in and of itself has been a source of criticism by members up here and top members of the house intelligence committee did say they will be investigating and this is where a lot of the focus is at this point. how and why the information leaked out prematurely and

gen jen we all know how that is, right peter?ook at that $9 fare, you have to fly midnight wednesday and come back thursday 5:69 o'clock a.m. or something ridiculous like that. we'll see. we'll see if this changes anything. thank you very much, peter. >> reporter: okay. jon: right now police in florida, arresting a new suspect accused in last year's hazing death of a florida a & m drum major. julie banderas is tracking this story. >> reporter: a brutal ritual that's gone phone at least two decades will go to trial after the beating death of a florida a & m drum major, the last of 11 band members found responsible in his hazing death, lasheri codener, she has turned herself in to authorities and will be released after posting $15,000 bond. codener joins ten others who face charges of hazing with death, which is punishable under florida law by a maximum of six years in prison, steming from robert champion's death in november. two others face misdemeanor counts. champion died on a bus, beaten so badly his body has gone into fatal sh

. >> jen, let's go here, and we're just going to work our way back. >> al richmond, former state department. peterberg also says many files have not been released, not been declassified. fist question, will there be more intention to do so, to declassify them, and whether or not that's the case do you have a sense in conversation with people who are involved in classification or not what the criteria may have been for the release of these 17 files? but not others? >> um, so if you read our report, there is a section called from abbot todd to the tt -- abbottabad to the, ttp, ad this section really kind of describes the process of how the ttp receives battlefield documents. we only receive them at the end of a very long process, when everything has been exploited for security, intelligence by the goth and only when they're done with them and they want to reclassify them, that's when we see them. we have no say. as i said earlier, i don't have a security clearance. i don't -- so we research and we teach. so we are the typical academic outfit in a liberal arts school. we don't do more than -- so i wi