Interview with Lawrence Grossman, NBC News & PBS, Retired President
Grossman | Interview
June 30th, 2004
Transcription by Ben Tupper
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Why don't you introduce yourself and your role at NBC and PBS.
LAWRENCE GROSSMAN: I'm Larry Grossman, former President of NBC News and of PBS.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. Talk a little bit about the process of each day -- When you decide what is going to be news and the timeline for when that happens for each show that goes on in the evening for NBC.
GROSSMAN: Well, these days it's vastly different from the way it was when I was there. Because now NBC News, and all the network news -- are also on cable -- which is an endless cycle, so that it works 24 hours a day. The Today Show starts on the NBC network with the news reports. And there's an Early News before that on the network. And then the evening news. And the news cycle just keeps going on and on. And you try to be up to date and make the decisions just as you go on the air.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. At PBS you have the NewsHour. Can you talk a little bit about the differences of approach between the format of the NewsHour versus the way NBC News is done now?
GROSSMAN: Well, NBC News generally covers the headlines, the breaking news of the day. The NewsHour is a talk show that does public affairs discussion. It gives you brief headlines at the top and the bottom of the NewsHour. But it does not do any real news reporting throughout the world. It does some, because it has some stringers from the BBC and from other places, but it has no news division of its own.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. Talk about -- How the news is covered in a breaking fashion? So say if you have an issue, is it pushed forward incrementally or are issues covered as larger issues? -- kind of your sense of how that happens.
GROSSMAN: Well, obviously it all depends. [Cough] Excuse me.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. And in this, I'm actually going to be editing my voice out.
GROSSMAN: Obviously how you cover an issue -- or a news event -- depends upon the nature of the event. It could be a continuing story, like the Iraqi war, or the economy, or education. Or it could be a breaking event -- airplane crashes, or there is a terrible hurricane or forest fires -- and you determine how much you invest in the coverage, and how you cover it, and how you continue to cover it, depending upon what the event calls for. How important it is. How long it lasts. How different it is from day to day. And whether there is breaking news involved.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And -- When breaking news happens, can you talk about, editorially, how -- When stories are covered how important the image is -- whether or not there are images -- for television news.
GROSSMAN: Well, obviously television requires pictures. And if you can't get pictures, then you put up words -- or the picture of the person who is covering it. You prefer, wherever you can, to get images from on the scene of what's happening -- or interviews from the people who are primarily involved, whether it is the President or Secretary of State, or a general, or a member of the Army who is involved in a battle, or firefighters. Television is a picture -- sound and picture medium -- although the sound is, in many ways, at least for me, much more important than the picture, because it's much more memorable.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So the sound is more memorable than the pictures?
GROSSMAN: I always viewed the sound as being -- in a strange and surprising way -- essential -- more essential than the picture.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I just watched an interview with Bill Moyers and Michael Deaver, It's called "The Public Mind" -- or the series was -- back on PBS. And Michael Deaver was stating that the image would actually would last in people's minds longer.
GROSSMAN: Well, there are no rules on this thing. Obviously, image is terribly important. The sound tends to get into your emotions. And then there are stories about images in effect defeating the sound. But it's the -- In my view, and it's a minority view, don't underestimate the compelling power of sound, even in a visual medium.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Talk to when the President has an event or so -- or each day -- It seemed to me that when issues are being covered, it was a lot of dependence on how -- the influence of the White House on what the news was going to be that night. So can you maybe speak to how powerful the institutions of the government are in shaping how that news is going to be?
GROSSMAN: The government -- The institutions of the government, and particularly the White House, are enormously influential and powerful, as they should be, in shaping the news. They spend a lot of time and effort and money in trying to shape the news. Much depends on the kind of news you're covering. If it's a war in Iraq, then you're spending a lot of time in Iraq covering the war. And if it's a White House announcement about a major issue, such as abusing prisoners, you will cover the White House announcement. And since the President represents all the people, is the most powerful official there is, whatever he says makes news -- you will spend a lot of time covering the President. And it's no accident that the White House correspondents are among the best-known correspondents that any network has -- or any news organization -- whether print or on television or radio.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And -- I'm sorry. During the build-up to the war, there was -- Did you track a lot of both the New York Times and the print news? Or how do you get your news during that -- In general,where do you turn to?
GROSSMAN: I certainly read the New York Times every day. I read a whole bunch of newspapers, the Washington Post, the LA Times, predominantly. Also listen to public radio. NPR, I think, is probably the single broadcast source that's the most important that we have in this country now. And watch television when there is breaking news -- usually CNN or NBC News, but mostly CNN these days.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: If you were -- There's been some surveys where people who use primarily television news as their primary news, what advice would you give to them if that is their only news source?
GROSSMAN: Listen to public radio.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm sorry.
GROSSMAN: The advice would be to listen to public radio -- more than actually television -- but certainly listen or watch the news channels, particularly CNN. But online news now is also become a very important feature. But network television is still the mainline center of television news for most people. But increasingly there are many news sources. Although sadly, the news gathering is not increasing, and there is not as much diversity in news gathering as there should be. And there have been great cutbacks in the news staffs of all the network newses, as well as the cable news operations.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, what do you attribute to that -- Why are there cutbacks?
GROSSMAN: Because news is very expensive. It is no longer a national obligation.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Right. Right. I'm sorry. Just incorporate, 'There are cutbacks because' --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So that's a complete sentence.
GROSSMAN: Right. Gotcha. We were talking about cutbacks.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Cutbacks, yeah -- in news organizations.
GROSSMAN: There are a whole bunch of reasons why there are cutbacks, or have been cutbacks, in the news gathering. One, because it's a lot cheaper to rely on syndicated services, whether it's the BBC or Independent News Services or the Associated Press, the wire services, to gather the news for television. To send crews all over the world when news is breaking is very expensive. And to send reporters all over the world is very expensive. The network news operations are very small pieces of what are now major, huge, international organizations. GE owns NBC. Disney owns ABC. Viacom owns CBS. And these are in the business to make profits. And covering breaking news is not generally a profitable enterprise. It's more of a public service. And there is much less emphasis in this day and age on broadcast public service than there used to be when the FCC was a serious factor, and there was a sense that broadcasters were public trustees. The ones who are still doing journalism in many ways the old-fashioned way, which is gathering it themselves, are limited to the New York Times, National Public Radio, and some of the major newspapers like the Washington Post and the LA Times, which do a very good job, I think.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And do you see an influence of demand for entertainment over the public interest in news?
GROSSMAN: Well, there's always been a questionable line between news and entertainment. Clearly the prime time news magazines are now virtually entirely non-fiction entertainment. They very rarely focus, except for 60 Minutes, very rarely focus on the major issues of the day. They are purely entertainment, but non-fiction entertainment. And it's shameful in many ways that that's the only primetime news on the networks these days. I still think the nightly news is, for the networks and CNN and public radio, as I said, are serious news organizations within the context of their regular news programs, but those are only a half-hour a day. The early morning on both CBS, NBC, ABC -- the Today Show, and Good Morning America, and whatever is on CBS these days -- do have news breaks, but they are basically feature shows. So, yes, you get a featuring up and an entertainment-dominated new environment outside of the half-hour nightly news programs.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Can you talk about -- Do you see any trends of investigative reporting -- Or just talk about the challenges of doing investigative reporting within television news.
GROSSMAN: Television these days has practically no investigative reporting in the traditional sense. There are no major news documentaries that go for an hour, which there used to be in prime time, which relied on investigative reporting for a lot of their content. As I said before, the prime time news magazines are really entertainment, non-fiction entertainment. So there is investigation into what is going on in Hollywood, but it's hardly what you would consider to be real-news investigative stuff. Investigative reporting is very expensive. It can be very controversial. It can be very difficult because you have to worry about legal consequences. And it may not pay off in terms of providing serious news in the end, because your investigation may turn up dry. So there is very little, if any, investigative -- legitimate investigative reporting going on on the networks. There are still some people like Brian Ross, who is a very good investigative reporter on ABC News, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Right. Did you watch a lot of television news leading up to the war in Iraq?
GROSSMAN: I tend to watch a lot of news, yes.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: How would you characterize what they were covering during the build-up, let's say -- Or how would you evaluate their coverage?
GROSSMAN: Well, it's easy to have hindsight and second thoughts, Monday morning quarterbacking, about coverage of news when it's breaking. Clearly, when the country is going to war, the patriotic influence takes over. And it's very hard, because reporters think conventionally, like just about everybody else. It's very hard to break away from what seems to be the conventional wisdom. I thought that the coverage was really quite good. There were great controversies about whether we should go into Iraq. Questions about what the United Nations inspectors were getting at. Those were pretty well-reported by the networks. There was general conventional belief that weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam Hussein was a menace. In retrospect, obviously, nobody did enough, including the New York Times, which is, about independent investigations of what the assertions were from the White House, and from the conventional sources. But that's not too surprising. And as the war goes on, and that's been true of every war, there tends to be more independent or non-conventional thinking. More of an opportunity to examine the basis, the reasons for going in. More of an opportunity to question the authorities, and whether they are conducting the war properly. And certainly when things blew up after the war was over, essentially, in terms of the occupation of Iraq, and in the context of a Presidential election, the whole tone of coverage began to change.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So it seems like leading up to the war there wasn't a lot of criticism on the President, and then after the war there is a lot of criticism. So what do you attribute that -- the differences between the journalism of journalists.
GROSSMAN: Journalists -- and it's always easy to generalize -- and often it's too simple to generalize. But journalists tend to think like everybody else. After 9/11 there was a great fear of terrorism. We heard assertions from the CIA and from the White House and from the FBI about terrorists being a great danger. And we saw the results of terrorism in the most dramatic and ghastly way. So everybody was very sensitive to that. And journalists are no different. They tended to accept the judgments of the authorities. And they had no basis to have any independent judgment until questions began to arise and documents began to show up that suggested that the CIA and the FBI and the Homeland Security, which was the latest addition, didn't know what they were talking about. And it changed. I am not one -- And the coverage changed. And the skepticism increased. And the independent pursuit of information expanded. I'm not one that has a conspiratorial theory about what prompts journalists to report things in a particular way. They tend to think like everybody else. They tend to be questioning, because that's why they're in journalism. And they tend to be somewhat liberal, because they tend to have a skepticism about conventional authorities. Their bosses, mainly the owners of the companies, are all Big Business operators, who tend to be very conservative. But it is very rare, if at all, that they will influence what a journalist has to say. The trouble with the reporting today, and the trouble with the reporting always has been that the nature of journalism is that the journalists think like most other people. They are brought up under those circumstances. There are sociological changes that we can talk about, journalists have college educations. They are not "from the people and of the people," and part of the working class any longer. They used to be, to a great extent. And so they reflect the kind of sociology -- or the circumstances under which they were brought up and educated. And they tend to think the way other people think in the same circumstances, in very conventional kinds of wisdom.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I think historical studies have showed that whenever there is either an attack or when you are in a war situation public opinion rallies around the President, which fits. So shouldn't there be a distinction. And when should the line be drawn, that the journalists don't rally around the President, but actually try to challenge the power?
GROSSMAN: I don't think there's a rallying around the President. I mean, that's incidental. What you do is, "You're an American." And the question is, "Are you a journalist first and an American second," or the other way around? Obviously, journalists should report the truth -- or the facts -- the facts is a better comment. And worry about being a Patriot later. But it's inherent in the nature of things, particularly after the country was attacked and thousands of people were killed on 9/11, when we go to war to support the troops. You can't be opposed to American fighting men and women who are presumably defending your country. And it's inevitable that every journalist takes on the coloration of the country that he comes from -- or she comes from. And as I say, as the war pursues, goes on, and there are real questions raised. They began to raise the questions too. It's usually the people -- the general public -- that wakes up. And at the same time the general public is waking up, the Walter Cronkites and Edward Murrows and Tom Brokaws and Peter Jennings and Dan Rathers are waking up as well. So it's very hard to separate the journalists out from the rest of society. They should be more skeptical. They should certainly be questioning. They should not go beyond the facts as they find them. But inevitably they find the facts that tend to support where they come from and what they're about, and the country that they're citizens of.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Talk about in this particular issue that the Republicans were for the intervention, generally, when the war authorization was passed. And then the Democrats had enough votes so that eventually Congress had the war authorization by October 10th and 11th. So when -- If those two institutions have agreed, essentially, on the war authorization, is it the -- How can when both those two sides agree, can journalists go in that void for someone who doesn't agree?
GROSSMAN: Well, first of all, when you get Congress passing a resolution that authorizes the President to declare war, although war was not declared, but authorizes the President to go to war if the situation required it, then you've got to report that. And that's the major news, and when you have Congress and the President and all the forces of the nation on that side no journalist in the world is going to, nor should a journalist, ignore it or demean it. The journalist does have an obligation to report on meaningful opposition, but in the beginning there's very little meaningful opposition. Vietnam is the longest war we ever fought. It took years for the meaningful opposition to develop. In the case of the first Gulf War, it was over in no time flat and journalists were just beginning to break away. In the case of the second Gulf War and our attack of Iraq, in the beginning the news is the breaking war. And then as the war goes on that's when the more independent, more individual efforts are made to find out what's really happening. And the examination gets serious. And in the end, as I keep saying over and over again, journalists reflect public opinion. They very rarely lead it -- or very few of them lead it. And they believe they're reporting the facts. And usually they are reporting the facts. The trouble is, we see too often is that too many facts are left out -- Or are not visible -- Or are much harder to find. Eventually, many of them do get found that reflect a very different perspective. Often it's never the case. We've seen in our dealings in Africa, in our dealings with South America, Latin America, and our dealings with Panama and our invasion of the Caribbean under Reagan, that the facts never really came out.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess when I was talking about the war resolution, after -- and this is just a follow-up -- after October and there is no -- within the United States, the consensus within the United States -- but internationally, within the United Nations there seemed to be a really big debate. And the way that I saw that it was covered was "Are they with us or against us?" on this resolution. As opposed to "What is the substance of their actual argument?"
GROSSMAN: I don't agree with -- with the conclusion that journalists or the press failed to alert the American public to the great opposition there was around the world. The stories appeared every day, about our conflict with the French, our conflict with the Russians, our conflict with the Germans, our conflict with the United Nations, the White House's disagreements, and so on. Those were widely reported. Those were big stories, as they should have been. But when America's troops go to war, it's very hard to be entirely antagonistic to what they're doing and what they're about, especially when all the forces who allegedly know the facts are giving out facts, or what appear to be facts, as to what the reasons are. But even at that time, while a lot of latitude was given to the President, and to the President's views, and to his administration's views, there was very substantial and very significant reporting about the opposition.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, from your perspective do you feel that a second UN resolution was required for the war?
GROSSMAN: A second UN? I don't understand the question.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: 1441 was passed at the United Nations on November 8th, and that allowed the inspectors to go back in. Do you feel that there needed to be an additional authorization at the United Nations?
GROSSMAN: What I felt -- or feel about whether we should have gone to war or whether we shouldn't -- or whether another United Nations resolution should have been passed is irrelevant. As a journalist that's not my job. My job is to tell what is going on and what the context is and what the facts are. And whether I have a personal feeling that I like George Bush or I don't like George Bush, or I voted for him or I didn't vote for him, or whether it should be the United Nations that determines whether the United States goes to war or not, that's not my job as a journalist. If I write a column, or offer opinions, or I'm a critic of some sort, or I'm an analyst, then I'm free to tell whatever I personally view. But the general job of a journalist is to report the facts, and not to report the facts that he thinks are the facts that should be reported, but the facts that are important to enable people to make up their own minds. Now the flaw in that so-called "objectivity" standard is that it is very hard to get [phone interruption]
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. The flaw in that --
GROSSMAN: The flaw in the "objectivity" standard is it's very hard to get non-conventional ideas through, particularly if you're part of the establishment, as you are if you are a television journalist or a newspaper journalist. You're not unemployed, you're not part of the rebellion or of the opposition or the counter-culture, because you probably wouldn't get hired if you were. Because your job is to reach the wide number of people who -- the biggest possible number of people, and you tend to think, as I keep saying, the way everybody else thinks. As people change their views, you change your views. But the job of objective journalism is to lay out the facts to allow people to make up their own minds. And that often misses a lot of the stuff on the edges. There's also advocacy journalism, which is what we used to have when the country was founded, in which you get at what is going on by having the clash of points of view. And now we have a combination of both. I suppose the notion of objective journalism is declining and you get more and more of the Fox News versus liberals, and so on. I think, myself, a combination of both is what's in the best interests of the country.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: What is your sense of -- I mean, I guess one point of contention I would have is that a lot of international legal scholars were actually disagreeing with Bush, and so it's not that you have to necessarily say, "I disagree." But isn't it not the job of journalists to go to those international legal scholars to see what their opinion is?
GROSSMAN: Oh, sure.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm sorry.
GROSSMAN: Journalists should seek out authorities. If there is strong opposition to our going to war, that opposition should be heard from. When Howard Dean came on in a major way to talk about opposing the war and opposing Bush, he was heard from to an extent that he was a dominant force for a good long time, until he lost out to John Kerry during the primary period. But it also turned the discussion into a real debate as to whether -- and what we were doing in Iraq. If there are prominent people, or authoritative people, or experts, who have strong views contrary to what the administration is putting forth, then the good reporter should be covering those contrary views. And the fact of the matter is that good reporters do do that by and large, because that's what makes news interesting is the clash of opinion. Where we really fell down in our reporting was in the independent seeking of the facts -- such as the weapons of mass destruction, were there any? Such as whether Iraq was really tied into al Qaeda, and had any responsibility for 9/11? Such as what is the role of Saudi Arabia in all of this? And the Saudi Arabian finances, and so on. Eventually all of that came out. But it's very hard to from day one or from the earliest period when there is major news breaking -- sending troops abroad, trying to equip the Army, battles being fought -- to get at all of those. It takes time. And it's easy to fault what when on leading up to the war, but it's no different from the way it's been leading up to every war we've been in. And the longer the war lasts, the more independent views and the more different views begin to emerge.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I think, when I'm looking at this issue there's the weapons of mass destruction, and then there's also the international legal justifications that were being used that you could have walked to the United Nations non-governmental organizations across the street, and you could have asked anyone in that building and they would have said -- they would have told you that there weren't any weapons of mass destruction, because as early as September they had their suspicions of the British dossier. And so I guess there was a lot of dissent within the international law community that wasn't being heard, and even Michael Getler admitted such in his ombudsman's report, International legal scholars strongly disagree with Bush's legal justification, which was only ran on March 18th and buried within the paper -- which that story could have been done early in October.
GROSSMAN: Look. Nobody does a perfect job, or even a good job, when there is outside or outland -- not outlandish, but, but -- Let me start over again.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay.
GROSSMAN: It's easy to see after the fact that there were many areas of the major stories that were untold. It's very hard from Day one to get at the full range of views of whether we should have gone to war, whether we shouldn't have gone to war, where the opposition lay. The general consensus was that the government wasn't lying to us. Because it's hard to believe that the government lies until you get at the facts. There was a general belief that if Saddam Hussein was a threat, he was a vicious, nasty, terrible dictator who had started a war when he invaded Kuwait the first time, who refused to pay any attention to the United Nations, and did everything he could to stop them. There were many who were opposed to the war, to going to this war. But it's perfectly understandable where most journalists were focusing on the breaking news of the time. It takes time to get at the opposition, to sound out the opposition, to do more investigative reporting. They didn't do enough to be sure, but we never do enough. And in the beginning there were plenty of coverage of the objections, of the United Nations concerns. There certainly was universal view that Saddam Hussein was a danger, that he was hiding weapons of mass destruction, because he didn't come clean. He didn't allow the inspectors in for many years, and we had pulled them out. And there wasn't -- And even the chief United Nations inspectors were strongly of the opinion that threats existed, whether we had him under control, whether we had him boxed in, as it turns out of course we did, was very clear. But these are very complicated, very tough stories. And you tend to spend your time and energy covering the stories that are breaking. And that invariably gives a preference to the institutions, the establishment institutions -- the government, the White House, and the Congress that are making the news that is affecting everybody's lives. And you have to catch up, always, with the opposition afterwards.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, I guess when there are very complicated issues, such as international law, talk about some of the challenges of covering something that complex and trying to reduce it.
GROSSMAN: Well, here again -- On issues of international law, whether it's how you treat prisoners, whether it's the Geneva Convention in dealing with prisoners, whether it's on what basis do you go to war -- Is it declared? Are you defending yourself against attack? Are you trying to root out terrorists? -- The first people you go to are the authorities, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States. And then you begin to hear other views. And you go to the sources, if they are reputable sources, to get the other views. But invariably you go to the government first. A good argument can be made that not enough coverage, there's not enough news gathering that's done. There are not enough forces to gather the news, to widely get at the international authorities and others who are more remote than the folks who are trying to steer the news in a particular direction. It's never enough. It's always inadequate. But it's also inaccurate to say that a lot of the questions weren't being asked early on. Because they were being asked by journalists and they were being reported. And clearly from the word go, from the git-go, this was a controversial war.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: What I see is as soon as the November 8th resolution was passed there was, speaking with a forked tongue with the US Administration, they on one hand said there was "no automaticity" and "no hidden triggers for war" -- the Administration said at the United Nations -- Negroponte said, there's "no hidden triggers" and there's "no automaticity." But at the same time he said there's nothing to prevent us from going to war. And so the international community heard that, but the United States only heard "there's a blank check for military action." So they reported there was "a blank check for military action," but that was actually inaccurate.
GROSSMAN: I never know anything about a blank check for military action. Congress passed the law -- a resolution authorizing the President to take us to war.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm sorry. This is November 8th, which is actually the UN authorization 1441. The authorization for war -- What I'm speaking to, what Campell Brown was talking about, was in regards to the 1441.
GROSSMAN: I still don't get the point.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, well let me just see it from your perspective. What happened on November 8th with that first resolution that was passed? What is your kind of --
GROSSMAN: I'm in no position to answer that question, because I just don't remember. And, you know, I'd have to study what happened. But the fact is it was very clear -- clearly reported that there was great opposition by countries in the United Nations. We couldn't get anybody to join us except for the Brits and from some no-account countries in terms of their -- I don't mean no-account in the negative sense -- no-account in terms of their influence and major role in the world -- to join us in this effort. Clearly we went it alone. And clearly that was well-reported. Now that the legalities are, what the complexities are, are never well reported. But the basic facts were made very clear, and nobody was under any illusion that we had cheering, rousing support from the United Nations anywhere or throughout the rest of the world. And that was indeed the basis for much of the opposition -- even in this country -- to the war. My -- Where the New York Times ran its apologia recently, was in terms of the aggressive reporting of the facts. Were there weapons of mass destruction? In terms of failure to push on the facts. But the overall issues, the overall controversy about whether we should go to war, the fact that we had world-wide opposition to our actions in Iraq, was certainly well-reported.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess my contention is that there was a controversy, but could you explain what actually the French were saying, what was their point of view?
GROSSMAN: The French were opposed to the war. The Germans were opposed to the war. Most of the rest of the world was opposed to the war. There were very serious questions about the reason for the French being opposed to the war. And particularly their engagement with Saddam Hussein, and their strong economic and other interests in what was going on in Iraq at the time, that were very much opposed to what our interests were. Those were made very clear, and indeed, you know, there was something of a controversy between the French and the Americans. We began to change French Toast and French Fries to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast, stupidly. But there was no question about where the French stood about this, or the reporting of the fact that the French were opposed to us. Not that anybody cared very much, or paid very much attention to it.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But I would say that the French never came out and said, "We're opposing this war because of oil." That's what the interpretation was. So I'm just asking what they were actually saying? What was their argument?
GROSSMAN: At this point I really don't remember.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm sorry. Just --
GROSSMAN: I mean, we're going back to events that nobody should talk about without being able to refresh himself as to what the details are. Because that was -- in terms of all that has happened since, long in the past.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess my point is that all these -- and it's not well known because the media wasn't covering it in a way. And they had an opportunity, beginning on November 8th. But these types of issues that I'm asking about are the very rationale that was being given by the international community.
GROSSMAN: See, I don't -- You keep asking the question, or arguing that the rationale being given by the international community was not well covered, and it may not be as well covered as you would have liked. But I'm saying the basic outlines of the opposition by the UN, the request by the inspectors to get more of a chance to spend time inspecting, the opposition by the French, were all made very clear, and were all made widely covered at the time. And it was then that the seeds of the opposition, our own opposition to the war, were sown. Now, the legalisms and the sophisticated arguments perhaps, certainly, were not well covered. They're never well covered. But the outlines of where people stood were very clearly articulated.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. In the buildup to the war there was a lot of, starting in February and March, there was a lot of military mobilizations in Iraq. Can you talk about -- I don't know if you remember a lot of the training exercises before the war -- But I'm just curious -- your viewpoints on the Pentagon reporters and enterprise reporting that went on -- actually in Kuwait during that build-up.
GROSSMAN: Again, this is not for -- You're getting into stuff that's very hard -- Nobody should talk about this, in terms of a film, without reviewing the facts -- being able to review the facts at the time. The Pentagon reporters, as it happens, if we're talking about the major networks, the Pentagon reporters are among the best reporters that the networks have. Miklaszewski -- the NBC man, the CBS man, are all -- and the ABC Pentagon reporters, are all absolutely at the top of the game. They're independent. They're smart about this stuff. And they are the best reporters that the networks have. So we were getting good coverage out of the Pentagon, in my judgment, by the networks. And the New York Times, and the LA Times, and the Washington Post defense correspondents are no slouches either. But when we go to war, and particularly in this war where we had embedded journalism, you tend to support the troops that are being put in harm's way. And as the war goes on -- The name of this program is "Echo Chamber," the journalists, the press, the media, all do act as an echo chamber. They always do, on any issue, certainly more so in war. And the more opposition develops against the war, as we saw in Vietnam, the more the press comes around and reflects that opposition and reports that opposition. And when the war starts, when there's very little opposition because there is concern about supporting the troops, the press feels that way and operates that way and thinks that way. The press does not think any differently, in general terms, than the rest of the country thinks. And so it will report whatever is acceptable to the rest of the country. The press is always an echo chamber, and then there are elements of the press that act as an opposition, that act as -- that reflect a minority concern. And as those oppositions begin to mount, and begin to expand, and begin to become the majority, then the press will reflect that as well. The famous Walter Cronkite coming back and saying, "We're going to lose the war in Vietnam" happened only when the rest of the country began to think that we were going to lose the war in Vietnam. That's not because he's pandering to the rest of the country, it's because he begins to think the way everybody else begins to think, by and large. They may think it a little ahead of the rest of the country, but they come out of the background and the culture and the sociology of the nation that they're reporting for. When Ed Murrow went after Senator McCarthy back in the 50s it was very clear that it was -- he was a little ahead of the time. But by that time people were beginning to be fed up with Senator McCarthy and his anti-communist pursuits.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: From your judgment, in the build-up to the war in Iraq, did you see a lot of -- From my perspective, I saw a lot of the coverage of an actual anti-war rally, let's say. But there was no actual substance of what the arguments or anything that the anti-war protesters were saying. And one thing that Jay Rosen said was that whenever journalists are faced with people that have a lot of -- very passionate about any sort of topic, you know, they treat them with a certain amount of skepticism. That seems to be the way how the press treated the protesters, and would say "Okay. Here they were." and they'd have a quick sound bites of what they'd have to say without actually listening to their arguments.
GROSSMAN: Covering protests, it's very hard to listen to an argument, because by nature protests do not engender rational arguments. They engender strong emotional cries. The protests are covered. One of my great criticisms of the New York Times was that they always underestimated the size of the crowds. They tended to undercover the protests, and all the media did. Because in the beginning they were a small, highly emotional group. They very quickly expanded, and pretty soon the protests were being covered the way any major news story is being covered. Again, it's a little worse now because there's less news -- independent news gathering now -- maybe be a lot worse now. And there is not as much serious news being presented on the networks as there used to be. But the fact is that when there are major stories, like protests, at first they may be considered -- because they are thought to be radical and emotional -- it's very hard to get at what the basis of the protest is, except that you get the general drift of what the protest is all about. And as the protests become more mainstream, the journalism covers. Because the journalism is mainstream. Most of the journalism we have is mainstream, and it always has been.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: From my -- I saw on the weekends would be the protests, then during the week there would be the regular coverage. And even within the regular coverage, the regular beats -- White House, State Department, or Defense Department -- there was hardly ever any skeptical voices saying, "Whoa! Why are we going to war?"
GROSSMAN: I'm not sure I agree with that. There are not enough skeptical voices?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Yeah, within the Pentagon beats -- or the regular beats.
GROSSMAN: It's easy to say that when you are responsible for covering a beat -- You're a Pentagon reporter, you need to have sources from the Pentagon. If you are somebody who keeps asking hard questions, if you are somebody who is skeptical of any answer you get, if you are somebody who is not sympathetic or appears not to be -- If you're a journalist who appears not to be sympathetic to the beat that you are covering, then you're not going to get the facts and get the background information and get the exclusives that you are in business to get. So -- One of the dangers of beat reporting is that you become, in effect, possessed by the beat that you're reporting -- or unduly influenced by the beat that you're reporting. That's a big danger, and that happens sometimes. The best reporters -- and as I say, interestingly, by contrast with many of the other major beats in Washington, the Pentagon reporters tend to be the best ones that the network have. And have been, if not skeptical, at least professional in the way they handle their coverage. They have a very good record. I'm a member of the DuPont Journalism Award jury -- a judge. And have been for the last years. And we've given, particularly the CBS guys, and as well as the NBC guys, awards because they've done such a good job. And ABC has some good people in there as well. The advantage of having a beat reporter is that the beat reporter gets to know the territory, and therefore is able to give some expert reporting -- as opposed to somebody who is just parachuted in and has no background in the particular beat. So -- It's the same issue as with the embedded journalists. If you travel with a Marine or an Army group you're going to become part of them, and you tend to be very favorable to them, and you tend to report what they -- to share their experiences, and therefore, you're reporting reflects that sharing. It gives you great insights into what's happening. It brings you right into what's happening, but it's a very narrow view. But it's better than not being a part of the troops, with the troops, on the ground with the troops. And what you need is balance elsewhere, enough independent reporting to counteract the inevitable favoritism that goes with whoever it is that you're covering, because you're living with those people. Jouralists -- Journalism is not rocket science. It's an experience like any other kind of experience. And when you're with people all the time you tend to think like them, and you tend to not want to displease them, and you have to watch out for that.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: One question I have is -- if David Martin, the CBS correspondent, who broke the "Shock and Awe," why is that -- getting exclusive information from the government rewarded? And not anyone asking, "Why are we going to war in the first place?" To me it seems like the administration has shifted their reasons for going to war at least 4 or 5 times, and used 23 different rationales.
GROSSMAN: Well, the fact that you know that. The fact that you. Well, since nobody's hearing you, I'm not --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And that fact that they shifted -- Well, go ahead.
GROSSMAN: David Martin is one of the best reporters we have, certainly in television. In fact, one of the top, very top, reporters we have in television. His job is to cover the Pentagon and to cover the Defense. When he talks about "Shock and Awe" as their strategy for dealing with Iraq, he put on a major story that was a very effective story. His job is not to question "Why are they going to war?" in his role as a Pentagon correspondent. He has his own views about that. But his job is to report what is going on in the Defense Department, what's going on with the Army, what's happening in the Pentagon. He asks tough questions, and he ends up getting very good reports. There are others whose job is -- or should be -- to raise questions from the administration which is setting the policy. The Pentagon is carrying out the policy. So journalists all have their own specialties, and their own roles, and their own assignments. And every journalist is not expected to do everything.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So whose job is it to question the war? Why to have a war?
GROSSMAN: It's part of the news presentation to explain why we're going to war, to explain why there's opposition to the war, to explain the grounds for going to war. And for that you quote the people who are sending us to war. And to explain the grounds for opposition to the war. And to let people -- the viewers, the citizens -- get as much information as they can, and as many facts as they can so that they can make up their own minds. The job of a journalist -- of a certain kind of journalist, of a network news journalist -- is not to provide strong opinions -- except to the extent that he can't avoid providing a sense of where he comes from or she comes from, because they come from the nation, or the society. It's no accident that Al Jazeera has a very different perspective. And the BBC has a very different perspective from what our networks are providing. But eventually, and I don't mean to sound Pollyanna here, eventually as people get experienced in covering what they're covering -- the news event that they're covering, and begin to see what the questions are, we get a broader picture. Now, there are huge inadequacies in the nature of our journalism today. There's not enough news gathering. There's not enough focus and center, which there used to be, on news as an important product of what the networks are providing. There are not enough newspapers that are doing major news gathering. There are very few. But the fact is, the national newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the somewhat national newspapers like the Washington Post and the LA Times, are far better than they used to be. They're giving far more access to news than people used to get from local newspapers. And we have many more on-air -- particularly with Public Radio, NPR -- doing journalism -- the only ones on radio that are doing real journalism -- opportunities than we ever had before. And in many ways, it's much worse than we ever had before. Because television news is really being corrupted by entertainment. And by, well -- I've said this over and over again.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. Well, yeah, just -- One question about the effect of sound bites and only having 7 or 10 seconds to get points across. Can you talk to that effect? And how that affects the nature of coverage?
GROSSMAN: Sound bites is a favorite beating horse -- blaming our lack of news in depth on the affection for sound bites -- sound bites being very short excerpts. And so you don't get much color. You don't get much depth. You don't get much sophistication in covering news. It is surprising, as somebody who originally was in the advertising business, how much you can put into a very short sound bite. But in this day and age, with C-SPAN, with CNN, with The New York Times, the citizen who really wants to get beyond sound bites into major news, and major sophistication about news, can find the news sources to do that. The nightly network newses are basically headline news operations. They can tell you what's breaking, what's happening. But you don't get much depth, and never have. It used to be 15 minutes a night. Then it became a half hour a night. The Lehrer News Hour is now an hour a night. But you have CNN, and you have Fox News, and you have MSNBC, and you have CNBC, most of which are not doing a very good job covering serious news. But somebody who really wants to get at it is in a better position to find out what's going on in the world now than ever before. That's not to justify the -- well, enough.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: The next question I have is about the -- What is your take on the claims of liberal bias within the media -- that the journalists are too liberal, and that affects their coverage too much? Make a distinction between -- even if that's true for domestic policy, and whether that holds up for foreign policy.
GROSSMAN: The liberal bias issue in the media is an interesting one. Any time you don't like what somebody is saying, you decide that either the media is too conservative or too liberal. The fact is most reporters are skeptical. They are -- tend to be slightly anti-establishment, but not much because they all went to college. They all are making a lot of money, in television certainly, so they reflect everybody else's views. They are the echo chamber of conventional wisdom, by and large. They don't allow their liberalism -- most of them vote Democrat, I have no doubt. Most of them tend to be more liberal than more conservative -- although that is changing, because they're reflecting the nature of the society, which is becoming more conservative. But most of them also are very careful, because they're professionals -- and they don't want to lose their jobs by looking biased or being biased -- not to let their views affect the reporting that they provide. It's just that they are -- the reporting they provide is influenced by their conventional background and beliefs. All of the owners of the media are conservative, are major business operators, who don't want to alienate the establishment. And some, like Rupert Murdoch, do it openly.
