tavis: unlike my friend tim russert i will warn you in advance that i will pull this tape out. the answer to the question you are about to get me out -- i will pull this tape out into years. you will see yourself on this program in the future. how should the american people judge democrats in washington between now and 2012? two years from now, a big presidential election. what should be judged on in 2012 as to whether or not we return more of your for your review to the house and senate? >> which party offers the best prospects for building the american economy so that we can grow this economy, creating jobs and prosperity not just for those at the top of for everybody. that will be the bottom line question. it is important. it is not just a matter of growing the economy. we have to make certain we are moving forward with the kind of jobs that can sustain a family and help them to grow the important part of the community. my fear is we seem to be falling behind. our workers are more productive. their wages do not reflect it. we need to have fair compensation, living wage, good

and contrast that with good interview shows, let's say tim russert when he was doing "meet the press" or your show. people... there's an element of surprise, an element of fear that people have, "what am i going to get asked?" and you never had that with larry king. >> brown: eric deggans, and that world of cnn at the time, the only cable news out there. so he's pioneering, they're pioneering. take us back to what was going on there. >> well, you hit the nail on the head. the fact that cnn was the only cable news outlet at the time gave larry a wide latitude. and he presented the kind of show that we were used to seeing on the networks. it was more general interest. it was wide ranging. they were lots of different kinds of people on the show. and larry himself had a really broad appeal. they basically took a radio show that he was doing that was syndicated and did a t.v. version of it. that's why you still have that old-school broadcast microphone on his desk even to this day. and i think one of larry's problems right now is that he's doing a very general interest show in a very speci

with the "today show" and nightly news and meet the press with david gregory who had to step into tim russert's shoes. and you add to that cnbc and msnbc and the fact is the news and information strength of nbc universal is one the things i'm incredibly proud of. >> you said i would have liked to be remembered, creative and innovative, not afraid to take a chance, believing in diversity, creating a culture of cooperation and collaboration unique in ead meadiation, revolution morning television, never letting them-- never letting people forget that this was a people business. >> right. >> and that's what you end with, good people. so all of that -- >> that's a lot of things there. >> so what are you not-- what are you not proud of. what is part of the legacy. >> right. >> that you wish had not gone the way it did. >> yeah, you know, the one piece of the puzzle that i regret that we haven't been able to improve and we did not do a good enough job on is the performance of nbc entertainment. and over the last four or five years it hasn't been strong enough. as i look back on all of this the one thi

tim russert at that time and all the morning talk shows, that was our play. what did we miss?>> the audience, you thought you did. >> what didn't know about it? >> how they interpreted politicians and some of them were kind of crooked. >> but you would think everyone in washington would have gotten that, right? we are all living off of the fact of the land here. we missed something. there was a valued disconnect that i think if those guys were sitting in our room individually we might have convinced them that this was perfect but when it came across in terms of an ad it was clearly cheesy. >> people losing limbs. >> no. but we thought we had a slick bunch of senators and they were. this was impressive. this was in the late 90s. that would make the case. whatever it was weakness that. the value connection with our targeted audience by a mile. one of the things going to my question is what makes it hard is particularly when you are crossing out different audiences, we talked about

. >> one of your predecessors, a colleague of mine, tim russert, used to say beware of the pamphleteershe felt something the people have expressed keenly, that the news organization -- news industry is getting close size. do we now have source of inspiration -- the news industry is getting politicized. to would have news organizations that are right of center, left of center? -- do we now have news organizations that are right of center, left of center? between nbc and msn d.c., you preside over both. -- between nbc and msnbc. was it a market choice to go in that direction? >> first of all, i think it thing in this debate about are getting so politicized, to remind everybody, it is what the size of the audience is. the highest greatest show msnbc has 1.5 million viewers on hours. the major competitor is bill o'reilly, who has less than 3 million viewers. both have less viewers than you. bill roth has about 1/st. of the viewers that brian williams has hashe -- bill o'reilly about 1/3 of the viewers that brian williams has on the nightly news. >> you will not be happy if 9 million people

. >> mark, one of your predecessors, tim russert, who said to be aware of the pamphleteers, he expressede now have sources of informations in this country that are left of center or right of center? do we have news organizations or are we becoming a little more like the european press used to be? i am going to pressure on that because you were in the unique position to preside over both between nbc and its msnbc. on msnbc, is it a market choice to go in that direction? first of all, i think that the thing in this whole debate is to remind everyone but the size of the audiences. the highest rated show on msnbc is key doberman -- is keith oberman. his main competitor is bill reilly and -- bill o'reilly. o'reilly has a third of the viewers of other newscasters. >> to be fair, you would not be happy if none of these people were watching. >> the thing about cable television is that it is not -- it is almost intentionally a niche. cable has a vault for good reason because more people can look for more specific programming that they are looking for. in has work financially for advertisers who w