Interview with Bill Plante, CBS Evening News, White House Correspondent

July 20th, 2004
Transcription by Volunteer Citizen Journalist Ben Tupper

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and how long you've been here at CBS.
BILL PLANTE: I'm Bill Plante, the correspondent for CBS News, I cover the White House, have for most of the last 23 years. And I've been at CBS for 40 years.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- In the film that I'm looking at -- I'm looking at the buildup to the military intervention in Iraq. So when you look back onto this time period, what kind of thoughts come to your mind?
PLANTE: I covered the White House during the run up to this Iraq war. There was a great deal of coverage devoted to whether the United States would, A.) Seek another United Nations resolution. B.) Convince the other members of the Security Council to vote for that resolution. And C.) Convince the American public that war was necessary. All of those things were covered at some length. The debate became acrimonious at times. There were substantial portions of the opposition in Washington, both the Democrats in Congress, and policy people who thought that the war was ill advised -- at least until the inspections process sanctioned by the UN -- had run its course. But it was clear, from at least the beginning of 2003, if not sooner, that the Bush administration was determined to go to war, and was basically going through the motions of trying to get the United Nations to agree. In the end, the United Nations agreed to inspections, but not to war, and the war began in any case.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so, when you're looking at this time period, at what point did you realize that war was inevitable -- that they were determined to go to war?
PLANTE: It seemed to me that war was almost inevitable as far back as the fall of 2002. It seemed all but inevitable at the beginning of 2003.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so, in the case of this time period, you had the Congressional resolution passed in early October. And so talk a little bit about the Congress' role during this time period. And whether or not -- well, we'll talk about after the time period -- Let's talk about during the buildup -- starting from like August to October -- the Congress' role in this.
PLANTE: When you look at Congress' role in the run up to the war you have to see it in the context of the reaction of what happed to the United States on 9/11. Many members of Congress had serious misgivings about another war in the Middle East, in Iraq. But at the same time, when it was suggested that there was some connection -- and the connection was only vaguely suggested, it was never, almost never directly hinted at, or directly made. It was hinted at, but not directly made. But just the fact that the United States had been attacked was enough to put most members of Congress on edge because they knew -- deeply -- felt that their constituents wanted answers, wanted the feeling of security and safety, wanted to assure that this sort of thing could never happen again. They knew that the national psyche had been damaged. Members of Congress, particularly members of the House, are extraordinarily sensitive to public opinion because they run every two years. Therefore even many of those who had personal concerns or reservations about the war were listening to their constituents, and very concerned about how they would feel. And didn't feel that the constituent concern that they heard outweighed what they considered the inadequacy of the argument. That was the situation in Congress.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you look at that do you see that the elections in November played a part in the vote that happened in early October? You mentioned something about constituents and they had to make a weight, so was that a factor as well?
PLANTE: It probably was -- There's been a considerable amount of analysis on the effect of 9/11 on the election of 2002. I'm not really in a position to reanalyze it for you. But it was obviously on everybody's mind in that campaign. And -- What brought it back to the fore in the debate about the war in Congress was the widespread belief -- promoted by the government -- that we were subject to attack again.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you look at after October, if you have a general consensus in Congress, and then after that point -- Can the media fill the void of the normal "He Said / She Said" constraints of objectivity?
PLANTE: First of all you didn't have a complete consensus in Congress even though there was a vote to authorize the use of force. You still had dissenting voices well into February and even March. Reviewing some scripts from that period, I noticed that in mid-March we still had the Democrat leader of the Senate, Senator Daschle, complaining about the rush to war without the completion of arms inspections -- and he was certainly not the only voice. So Congress wasn't silent. That's first thing. Nor were media -- Congress wasn't silent, nor were critics of the idea of war who were also heard in the media. Perhaps not to the degree that government's message was heard, but they were heard nonetheless.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess -- In this time period, what I kind of notice is what Jay Rosen and both Tom Rosenstiel say is this "real politik" attitude towards the United Nations and "politics of the reality" of the situation. In a way it was covered as a political issue as opposed to a legal issue. Can you talk about covering the UN -- these resolutions -- as political versus legal issues?
PLANTE: If by legal issue you mean -- 'The responsibility of the United States to the United Nations and to the rest of the world' -- There are as you know, widely differing understandings of exactly what that is. Starting with the administration, which it seems feels very little obligation. But -- We do, it's true, look at these things as political stories. This was the story in the United Nations, of the United States trying to get the support of France and Germany. The political angle on this was that France and Germany were unwilling to support the United States in a war against Iraq -- for several reasons -- not the least of which was that they had significant commercial concessions in Iraq, which they wished to assure -- in the wake of any war -- significant debt which Iraq owed them. And significant reasons of their own -- real politik reasons -- not to support the United States. France, for example, wished to be seen as the leader of the European Union, the preeminent nation. And Germany, it seems, was more concerned with the commercial aspects. Those were the political angles which we saw and covered. Those were the primary story in the UN, not any argument really about the UN -- the US' legal obligations to the UN or to the world community.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When I'm looking through the transcripts and rewatching a lot of the footage, what I kind of notice is analogous to political coverage. There's a lot of horse race -- "Who's up? Who's down?, Who's with us?, Who's against us?" And I think you run into the same type of thing in election coverage -- the poll numbers -- as opposed to actually attacking, or addressing the issues of what the actual substance of the arguments were. So when you look back at this time period, can you address the event-based coverage versus the issue-based coverage of the UN?
PLANTE: The big issue was whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction. We now know that there appear not to have been or that if there were, they somehow disappeared. The argument was whether the United Nations would send -- they would have time to send in another team of inspectors to determine whether Iraq possessed WMD, either chemical, biological, or nuclear. This -- The argument focused on the weapons of mass destruction. The argument was also heavily influenced by the notion that Iraq might somehow have been connected to, if not to 9/11 at least to the shadowy terrorist network which promoted jihad and 9/11. It's -- I've lost the thread of your question actually.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Well I guess what I'm asking is -- what was the actual -- Why did the United States in January, for example, why did they decide to go after a second resolution?
PLANTE: There's no doubt in my mind that the reason the United States went for a second United Nations resolution was that they hoped to get international sanction, or the sanction of the security council, for a campaign against Iraq. That was seen as the interim step. First, the resolution which would authorize another arms inspection. Then, the second vote, which of course the United States never sought because it was clear that it would not carry. But it was seen, I think, as a stepping stone toward an operation into Iraq.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you look at some of the statements of the Bush administration, for example on March 6, President Bush says, 'No matter what the whip count is we're going to take this to a vote,' and then they don't end up doing that. Why didn't they end up taking -- if he's on the public record saying that we're definitely going to take a vote, and then they don't take it to a vote, is it...?
PLANTE: They didn't take it to a vote because they would have lost. And he's not the first politician to have promised something and not do it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: One thing that Tom Rosenstiel said is that this administration in a way -- their communication strategy -- they know how the media works better than the media itself knows how they work. Do you think that's true?
PLANTE: No I don't necessarily, but if you'll give me some examples, I'll try to talk about it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- Yeah, yeah -- I'm not going to be including my particular -- my question, but I'll give you an example. If you have a lot of events that are going on over a period of time, and you're covering those events, such as the second security council authorization, and the administration -- Well I guess a better example is -- Back on December 18th, you did a report where, you said at the end -- this was right after the Iraqi declaration was submitted -- and you said Saddam is basically "damned if he does and damned if he doesn't." And there seemed to be a pattern of behavior that the United States had a disdain towards the weapons inspectors -- that they didn't -- they were looking for procedural violations after that point, and continuing after that point. But yet, if Bush has a press conference and says "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that'll still be the lead, so it's event-based as opposed to looking at the issue over periods of time. So I guess the question would be, did you see a pattern of behavior in the Bush administration that they did not want to have the inspections work, or they were trying to discredit the weapons inspectors?
PLANTE: What we saw was the use of the weapons inspection as a means to an end. The means to the end was either to find a violation or to get that over with so that the United States could proceed to build a coalition and invade Iraq, which it seemed intent on doing. The coverage that I've reviewed shows that there was intense skepticism about whether the UN inspections really mattered to the United States in its determination to go to war. It was widely viewed, in a political framework, as something that needed to be done to appease world opinion. And perhaps to find something, which would have been even better.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So I guess a follow is, when you look at everything that's going on now, when you look back, how would answer the question, "Why did the United States go to war with Iraq?"
PLANTE: My belief is that the United States went to war with Iraq because this administration believed that it was important to show the world American power in the Middle East. They picked on Saddam Hussein because he was the area's most demonstrable bad guy. And because they believed, I think, that he did possess weapons of mass destruction. There's no evidence that anybody has yet found that he was connected to 9/11, but that's beside the point. This was an exercise in American muscle flexing. And -- It was intended, as the president laid out in his speech in February of 2003, to show the way to remaking the Middle East. To bringing democracy -- not only to Iraq -- but to show the way to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, for example. This was the reason, ultimately, I think, that the United States went to war in Iraq.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: During the buildup to the war in Iraq, is it the media's role: CBS, NBC, ABC to do segments on "Why are we doing this?" "Why are we going to war?"
PLANTE: It's the media's role to examine very carefully everything that the government says. Now this government -- this administration -- like all administrations, puts the best face on all its public communication -- this is generally known as 'spin.' They say the same things over and over. They repeat them. They get carried uncritically in the sort of anodyne flow of news, which is what the wire services do -- and what is repeated on many radio stations, on many news broadcasts. It is simply the government version of the story on any given day. It's our responsibility to bring some context to that. And we try. All of us have tried at one time or another to help bring context, to interpret, to show in conjunction with other events and with past events what it seems that the government intends despite what it says. We are successful in varying degrees. And we are successful or not in the eye of the beholder.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: In your interview with Martha Joynt Kumar back in April of this year, you mentioned that you see the evening news service as a wire service -- as a headlines service. Can you elaborate on that point?
PLANTE: Because you now have 24-hour news available globally and from many different sources, the evening news broadcasts on the networks, now put the days news generally into the first news block. And then try to do some interesting feature work (COUGH and water break)
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So just start from the top -- I'm not going to be including my question. When you look at the news as a headline or a wire service -- the evening news.
PLANTE: Because news is available everywhere globally 24 hours, the evening news broadcasts on the networks generally compress the days headlines into the first block. That doesn't mean that we do it without context. I think we offer more context in our brief presentations of the daily headlines, particularly on government issues, than you will get on a lot of the cable broadcasts, which simply repeat what the government has said verbatim. We generally do try to provide some, again, context. Perhaps we don't succeed often enough, but we try.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- When you -- I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought -- Okay -- One example of the Bush administration -- from what I see is -- around March 7th, when Hans Blix was about to make his presentation at the UN, there was a press conference the night before. And then the next day the Bush administration announced a 10-day ultimatum. That they -- in a way, they knew it didn't matter what ElBaradei said about the evidence or anything -- that that would wipe out the actual substance of what ElBaradei was saying about the Niger claims, about the aluminum tubes, about the evidence. So when you look back on that and you see this deadline that they created -- What are some of your thoughts on that particular deadline?
PLANTE: The deadline which was announced in March, early March, of 2003 was simply further evidence to most of us that the administration was determined to go to war no matter what the weapons inspectors found. It was quite clear by then that they didn't quite trust Hans Blix to do the job or to find anything. And it wasn't going to matter what the weapons inspectors reported. There was going to be a war. There wasn't any doubt in our minds at the time -- And I think we communicated that to the public.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So when you see the -- did you see that there was a lot of events, I mean -- Just talk a little bit about your constraints, when you're doing stories every day, and you -- How do you go about that? And is there time for second-day stories also -- in other words -- during this time period?
PLANTE: During that time period there was a story every day, and frequently you would have to reprise what happened the day before. So in that sense, there was more opportunity for second-day pieces than there usually is. But the second-day aspect was usually subsumed into the headline of the day. But very often they were not very far apart. We were dealing with the same topic night after night, morning after morning.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: One thing that you mentioned in the interview with Martha Joynt Kumar is the elimination of a research department. Tell me a little bit about -- When you're gathering information for a story, is it you and the producer? Or do you have a research department here? Or do you use the Internet? Talk a little bit about that.
PLANTE: When we gather information for a story there are usually -- almost always, certainly on the White House beat -- two people working on it, the producer and the reporter. Both of them reach out to experts or politicians whom we may wish to interview. And both of us do the research. It's true that we don't have a large research department here, which we once did. But it's also true that it's easier than ever to access all kinds of material with a few keystrokes. We have full-time access, via the Internet, to Nexus. And we have the internet itself. The search functions, as everybody by now knows, are nothing short of astonishing. You can bring up just about anything in a matter of seconds. And that is what we do -- We do our own research. It gets double checked. When the script goes to New York, it passes through two hands here before it goes to New York, and then is read not only by the producers in New York, but also by a researcher/fact checker in New York, who does indeed check and question. So there are several layers.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: One blur that I see is the regime change policy. Did you ever have time to dig back into the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 and kind of see the genesis of the regime change policy?
PLANTE: I don't think that we did take a close look at the regime change policy during the war. The current administration used it -- used the fact that that act had been passed in 1998 to extend the notion of regime change back to the previous administration, which was fair enough as far as it went. -- Of course, the previous administration does not to appear to have contemplated armed conflict in order to affect regime change.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So there was a shift in other words that -- When it was passed it didn't imply military armed conflict? And then -- Did you see a shift or a reinterpretation of that policy?
PLANTE: I think we didn't have to go back to the regime change act to see that this administration was determined to have a regime change by force of arms. That certainly was no mystery. To the extent that they used the Act of 1998 to justify it, it's certainly true that isn't necessarily what lawmakers had in mind. But they didn't justify it on that basis -- They didn't claim that that gave them military authorization. So again, I think that was largely something left in the past.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I think the issue comes when Ari Fleischer says, 'It's our official United States foreign policy.' Who sets the foreign policy? Is it a sense of Congress language resolution passed in '98? Or is it the United -- Or is it the President? Who can set foreign policy? --
PLANTE: The President makes foreign policy in this government, but it was the sense of Congress as expressed in that act that regime change was a desirable thing in Iraq. And when Fleischer sited that, he was doing it to buttress the administration's position. And -- When we journalists who cover the place every day look at that we say, 'Okay he's reaching into the bag for an argument to support what they intend to do in any case.' And, generally, shrug it off.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So when you draw these types of conclusions, when you listen -- in your objectivity constraints -- How can you get these points of view out? Do you search for quotes? It's sort of, in a way, adjudicating the facts. How do you draw conclusions? And how do you separate drawing conclusions versus presenting what both sides say?
PLANTE: You point out what one side says. Then you point out what a fact may be. What others have to say about this. And you demonstrate for the benefit of the audience, we hope, that there is more than one way to see this issue. It's true that the viewpoint of the administration probably receives most of the coverage, but not all. And there are many ways to do it. You do it by presenting the viewpoint of an opposing idea, and I -- There are many ways to do it. You do it by presenting an opposing idea in an interview within the piece. You do it by pointing out in the on-camera close of the piece that it conflicts with some previous fact or some likely outcome. But you do do it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: One thing that I've noticed in the difference between CBS versus ABC and NBC is that there's a Diplomatic, White House and Pentagon correspondent in ABC and NBC. And here in CBS, the Diplomatic and Pentagon is reduced down into National Security. Can you talk about -- Why doesn't -- Why didn't CBS have a Diplomatic correspondent?
PLANTE: CBS did have an on-air person at the State Department until about 1990. Now -- Since then we've had an off-air reporter who feeds material from the State Department to those of us who are on the air at the White House and the Pentagon. It isn't that the State Department is uncovered, it's that we have no one standing in front of a camera there. And by combining the two beats, National -- under the general rubric of National Security, you get David Martin, who's an excellent reporter, covering both places. He can certainly make phone calls to the State Department, and we have somebody there who covers the place all the time feeding material to him. So I'm not sure that not having an on-camera presence matters that much.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So during this -- when I looked through the time period I saw -- during the early weeks of March and late March you were doing a lot of reporting on the second resolution. Do you have -- what background or experience have you had previous with international law or the United Nations? Is that because John Roberts was sent to Iraq that you were now covering the White House beat and then that was a political issue? Or can you kind of elaborate on that?
PLANTE: I've covered the White House beat almost all of the time since 1981. And my specialty is American politics. But I did cover the diplomatic beat from 19 -- '90, I guess -- '89 or '90 until '93, which was the period of the first Gulf War and of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. So I do have some experience with international affairs, and I've followed it. So -- I cover the White House, I still cover the White House. There are 2 of us there. In Roberts' absence I covered continually both early and late shifts. So --

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So when you look back on November 8th of 2002 when the 1441 was passed. John Negroponte actually said this resolution contains "no hidden triggers" and "no automaticity" What did he mean by that?
PLANTE: He meant that passing the resolution did not guarantee that there would be a war.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess the substance of what the French were saying is that you needed a second resolution in order for this war to be legal under international law.
PLANTE: The United States continued to argue that no second resolution was needed because of the many previous resolutions calling on Iraq to divest itself of its weapons of mass destruction, which it never did to the satisfaction of the international community. So the US argument was that no second resolution was needed. At the same time they suggested that they would try to get one before going to war. Then did not when it was obvious that it wouldn't work. This was a matter of some discussion in the news programs between, say, November and March.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: From your sense, what was the international legal community, what were their thoughts on this debate?
PLANTE: You know, I'd have to say that although I read various opinions, I'm not sure that I could tell you today what they were. But, the question I would have is -- whether the United States at any time, felt constrained by international legal opinion.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess that goes to -- a lot of the international legal community, in fact, if you look at Michael Getler's piece, he says on March 18th they finally published a piece that said most legal scholars disagree with the Bush administration's legal arguments. And if that's the case -- if all this time period international legal scholars are saying you have to get a second resolution, that seems to be a very important element that is not being contained in the stories.
PLANTE: But if it's a given that the United States is going to go to war in any case, which I've suggested we all felt it was. And if it's a given that the United States was not much interested in the inspections process after it became obvious that they were moving slowly and not finding much. And if it's a given that the preparations for war are already well underway, then international legal opinion, whatever it may be, however censorious it may turn out to be, would have little effect would it?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Looking in hindsight though -- you needed authorization to have a coalition, there seemed to be a lot of problems that resulted from that. A lot of anti-war movement -- this was their argument, the substance of which was not covered. If you look at what the inspectors were saying, 'There's little evidence for weapons of mass destruction. Where are they?' It seemed to me to be a huge red flag.
PLANTE: I'm not sure than anybody considered it a huge red flag, because -- In the context of the US government's approach to this, it was the UN security council which mattered, and only that. By succeeding in getting one resolution in the Fall of 2002, and promising that they would consider another one, even though they argued that legally, they did not have to. They were in their view, I think, covered. It might have been useful, I suppose, to suggest that international legal opinion was against this, but I don't think that you can say that it would have been a changing factor in the argument.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: The explanation that the Bush administration was giving for going after a second resolution that was merely a British political position, what was the details of the political situation? -- that Blair had promised his Parliament?
PLANTE: Well, Blair did make the promise, and the Bush administration was most anxious to keep Blair close to it, since Blair was a vocal supporter -- obviously -- of the US position. And so it went out of its way, or tried to accommodate Blair's needs. He had more trouble with his Parliament than Bush had with the US Congress.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you look at it now, is it your sense that there were no weapons of mass destruction?
PLANTE: All I can tell you sitting here today is that there doesn't seem to be any evidence of a current stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. But I know no more than the weapons inspectors, most recently Charles Duelfer, have told us. And that is that they can't find any. It's possible, I suppose, as some in the administration still suggest, that they could have been spirited out of the country. But, in any case, they're not there.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So if we do look back on this time period and look at the argument of the Bush administration where they were saying, 'They must disarm, otherwise we're going to war.' And if we look and see there's no weapons of mass destruction, that seems to be to be basing a huge decision on an assumption that may or may not be true. Is it the role of the media to question that assumption?
PLANTE: First of all, the assumption was that they did have weapons of mass destruction, and I don't think any reasonable person would suggest that they didn't believe that. Colin Powell put his reputation on the line at the United Nations. It now turns out that they, as we know now, received a lot of very bad intelligence. Intelligence that wasn't really checked or well-sourced. But even with that -- There were questions raised at the time about whether it was necessary to go to war. And whether in fact, the weapons of mass destruction that he had were easily -- if he had them -- were easily deliverable.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Even Hans Blix was saying that he may or may not have had them though. And even Scott Ritter was saying we destroyed 90-95% of their capability. Even the CIA declassified documents from the Gulf War Syndrome was saying that a lot of this capability had been destroyed.
PLANTE: That's all true -- But if you take it as a given, as I've already suggested to you that we did, that the administration was hell-bent on going to war, then you could only point out the steps that were being taken down that path. Despite the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction found, and despite the fact that the international community disagreed.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: From my perspective when I look back on it, after the vote was made on November 8th for the second resolution it seemed to be irrelevant whatever the weapons inspectors were reporting. Even if they were poking holes in the -- it seems to me that actual picking apart of the aluminum tubes, of Hussein Kamel who said they destroyed all the weapons of mass destruction released by Newsweek, that the Niger documents -- looking back in hindsight, should those have been -- What would you have changed in looking back on this time period, if anything at all? Would it have been the same?
PLANTE: You're basically asking me to suggest that the news media could have done something in this case, and I don't really think that the way we operate we could have. The news media in the United States are not generally argumentative about the processes of government. They may be skeptical, and generally are, but not argumentative. It's a whole different discussion on how we see our role. I mean, this is part of what we discussed going into this. But -- To look back and suggest that because of the UN resolution in November, because of the weight of international legal opinion, things might have been different -- is to suggest that the news media themselves, that is the daily reporting, would have brought this up. You're never going to see that in this country. If we're lucky, you will see specialists arguing this on the Op-Ed pages of the newspapers and on television documentaries. But it isn't the kind of thing that you see in regular news coverage -- Because argumentation is not part of our ethos.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Does that seem to be a big gaping hole that needs to be corrected though?
PLANTE: What needs to be corrected, in my view, is the lazy reliance on a stream of facts, which are presented to the public every day. There needs to be some interpretation of those facts. There needs to be some checking of those facts -- reality check if you will. But to turn around and make the argument that an opposition politician would make is not the function of the daily press. Those voices must be heard. But it is not the function of the daily press to bring them to the fore.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: It seems to me that when the Democrats and the Republicans agree, at what point can the press realize that international public opinion of other countries -- since we live in a globalized community now -- is there a way to have a global press taking in the concerns of other points of view other than just focusing on just the United States?
PLANTE: Those points of view are widely available --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: -- I'm sorry, What points of view? --
PLANTE: Global points of view are widely available to the United States to those who care to seek them out. But in the regular media context, they are not as often presented. You have to go look at them -- you have to go find them. But again -- Would presentation of international opinion, which was a factor in the news coverage leading up to the war, have made any difference? It was not totally ignored -- particularly in the context of how people felt in Britain, France, and Germany, and all over Europe about the prospect of war. It was widely reported that the Europeans were against the war overwhelmingly. That made little or no difference to American public opinion.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I think it was covered that there was a conflict, but the substance of the debate -- could you present the actual French argument that they were making on the floor? What were they saying?
PLANTE: You would not see that on American television.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm sorry -- You wouldn't see what?
PLANTE: You aren't going to see on American television what the French were saying in Parliament. No.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm not talking about Parliament. I'm talking about in the UN -- What were the French saying in the UN? --
PLANTE: Oh, we did talk about what the French were saying in the UN. We had regular briefings from Dominique de Villepin, who -- the foreign minister, and the French ambassador to the United Nations. They would come to that microphone, just outside the security council. And, they were seen regularly when the United States -- when the United Nations was debating the resolution.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But what was -- if you could summarize their argument, what was their argument?
PLANTE: The argument that was most often heard was that there is no consensus, that we need to let the inspectors continue their work, that France or Germany is not prepared yet to vote for another resolution.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And in hindsight were they right?
PLANTE: Well we know that there was no other resolution. But I mean, when you say, "In hindsight were they right?" What are you really asking?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Could the inspections have verified that disarmament had been completed?
PLANTE: If inspections had verified that disarmament had been completed to the satisfaction of all members of the security council, "Would the US have still wanted to go to war?" I think the answer is yes.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so then when you step back and say, 'Well if they had procedural violations where they failed to account for these chemical and biological weapons, and -- They destroyed them, but they didn't document it -- Is that enough reason to go to war?'
PLANTE: You would still, I suspect, have had the United States making the argument that based on the UN resolutions -- security council resolutions since 1990, since the first Gulf War, Iraq was in violation, not only on weapons, but on any number of other fronts, including human rights. They would have found Iraq wanting in any case. And they would have said that it was under the context of international law.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay... Now one thing you mentioned in your interview with Martha Joynt Kumar is commercial broadcast and the bottom line. What is the bottom line?
PLANTE: Bottom line for commercial broadcasting is commercials. Commercial broadcasting, as it exists in the United States, is about audience. And it is commercial, so time is sold to advertisers. Advertisers don't generally influence at the network level what's in the news. Although sometimes at the local level they can be a pernicious influence. But at the same time -- The need for an audience helps to drive the way we present the news. We can't take large chunks of time and just meander on about policy. We no longer have documentaries with any regularity. And most of what we do is done in a "short-attention-span" context.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Does that need to change? Do we need to have more real hard-hitting investigative journalism? Or is that going to be too boring?
PLANTE: That goes to a question about what the role of the commercial media is in the post-cable age. And I say post-cable because now you have many other ways of delivering information, most notably the Net. And you have cable and you have local stations. So what is the role of network news in this sort of new media age? We're still trying to sort it out. I mean, I can't say with any certainty what it will wind up being -- But I can tell you this -- With so many choices out there, the onus is on the viewer to find those sources of information which he or she believes he or she needs.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I think even you yourself said that the cable is doing a lot of repeating the official lines without a lot of analysis. So then is it the role of the television news to provide more analysis, or more -- A beat where they're actually looking at public record versus actions and seeing the differences between that. I mean, that could be a beat within itself.
PLANTE: Looking -- Performing more analysis, looking more deeply at questions would be a fine idea on television. Somebody should do it. It might work on public television. You probably won't see it on commercial television. Is it a good idea? Absolutely. Is it likely to happen on commercial television? I don't think so.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so, is it the role of journalists to make things that are not necessarily interesting, but yet very significant -- Is their role to try to find a way to make it interesting and dramatic?
PLANTE: Good point. In the competition for viewers, in the competition for readers, journalists must indeed try to make the material interesting without dumbing it down. But, in any case, journalists do have an obligation to get more deeply into material than you can in the context of a daily news operation -- of the daily news flow. Where do you do it? Well, you do it in the smaller magazines. You do it on cable television, on open-access television. You even do it if you're making documentaries on the Net. Now, the other argument which comes up immediately is -- What's the responsibility of the people who use the public airwaves? Well, if I were king, there would be more news and documentary time, but I'm not. And, the reality is that these are commercial entities, which are struggling for supremacy -- and sometimes survival -- in a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog world.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So is the public interest an externalized cost of the economics of the situation?
PLANTE: (PAUSE) Maybe. (LAUGHTER)
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: (LAUGHTER) Sorry...
PLANTE: The question of who serves the public interest is a good one. But, it's not easy to answer. We in commercial broadcasting try to serve the public interest in the context of what we're able to do. The public deserves more than we can always give them, but the argument is that there are many more people, many more -- I'm sorry -- The public deserves more than we can always provide them, but there are many more sources out there to give it to them. So yes, the public interest needs to be served. The question, which I can't answer, is how much each segment of the communications industry needs to serve the public interest.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I think there's a lot of sources, but a lot of those sources if you look at it -- not a lot of them are giving a lot of deep analysis, a lot of context, a lot of looking at -- investigative reporting. And so you have more reports, but that doesn't give you anything if you don't have that analysis still.
PLANTE: Right. But who determines -- Who determines what constitutes good public affairs reporting? Is it the government? I don't think so. Is it concerned journalists? Yes. What do they use to get it to the public? That's the difficult question.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Should we in other words be feeding broccoli to people who don't want to eat broccoli? Should you be doing it anyway, regardless of if you're going to lose money?
PLANTE: Look at the BBC in that context. The BBC has had to change the way it does business, far less so than we have had to in this country because it was never commercial to begin with. But nonetheless -- The BBC, which was always the "eat-your-peas" and "listen-carefully" network until it encountered competition from -- from commercial television, has had to change the way it does business to compete for eyeballs. And -- You can feed broccoli to people who don't want to eat it, and they're not going to eat it. The broccoli should be out there for those who want to help themselves, but you can't force feed it.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So when you look at -- Let's look at March 12th, I don't know if you remember but Elizabeth Smart was found. And that's the leading story. Why?
PLANTE: Probably because --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I'm sorry, I'm sorry --
PLANTE: The Elizabeth Smart story on March 12th of that year was the leading story probably because it was a human-interest story which was easier for people to comprehend, and certainly was good news -- Better than talking about the possibility of war, which was right around the corner.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Yeah, and that in a way is -- is it -- Why does that need to be a national story? Why do we need a top headline, 'This is a good news' -- Why do we need to wipe out everything that is happening at the United Nations to talk about Elizabeth Smart?
PLANTE: That's an argument -- The argument over whether a story like the Elizabeth Smart story should lead a news broadcast when the nation is on the brink of war is a philosophical argument that you'd have to have with people who put together news broadcasts. Most reporters would prefer that it not be the lead I suspect, but it was.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So editorially, in other words, there's a lot of things that happen that are beyond your control. Can you kind of --
PLANTE: Sure.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: -- elaborate on that?
PLANTE: Ask any reporter what they think of their editors or producers, and you'll get an earful. Because editors and producers do not always -- in fact frequently -- do not agree with the reporter's judgment about how important his or her story is. Because they're building a broadcast -- or laying out a front page with something else in mind, with how many people they can attract to see it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. Do you see that a lot of the reporting is reacting to events in the government as opposed to -- even if an event happens saying that's not necessarily -- especially on issues of foreign policy when there's one big story.
PLANTE: Reporting is much -- A lot of reporting is reactive to begin with. On foreign policy, you have to ask yourself sometime, "What happened to Haiti this week?" "What happened to the Sudan three months ago, before it became an issue?" As we speak it is something of a current issue. There are vast parts of the world which go ignored even when there are serious problems of hunger or even genocide. So yeah, there's a huge focus problem. And it's very selective. It goes with -- as one reporter pointed out recently -- with the zeitgeist. And the zeitgeist is whatever's happening in the collective consciousness in one place, whether it's Washington, or London, or Moscow.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: If the role of the journalist is to challenge power, should they challenge the framing of the government?
PLANTE: The role of the journalist is to bring facts to the public. The role of the journalist is to be skeptical. The role of the journalist is to be, sort of, anti-establishment -- to challenge, to question. That is almost always interpreted, of course, as being against the government -- Or in US political terms, usually interpreted as being 'liberal.' And usually it is about this ethic of suggesting that one should be skeptical of people in power. That doesn't mean that one is necessarily skeptical of the framework of government. Now if one is, then perhaps you take it to another level, and perhaps you're no longer a journalist. Perhaps you're either a revolutionary or a political thinker. Journalists exist in this country under the freedom assured by the First Amendment to ask questions, to challenge, and to say whatever is on their minds.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. A couple more -- That was really good... If you look at where we're at now as a country in the world. What is your vision for world peace? What we need -- What does this country need to do to get to a state where we're not fighting a war on terrorism or the war on terrorism is done, it's won. Or, how do we get to the point where we're all cooperating?
PLANTE: The vision of world peace is something that politicians talk about but seldom take the apparent steps -- the readily apparent steps to achieve. Whether it's possible is a big question mark. Whether this or any government is doing enough is also a big question mark. But -- Peoples' perceptions of what needs to be done to ensure world peace are -- can be 180 degrees apart. I give you, for example, the view of some people in the Pentagon at the moment that only the projection of massive US power will guarantee world peace -- Versus the view on the left, which holds that power is a destabilizing thing, and that we should reach out to other nations as equals. It's very hard to know where the balance should be there. But whatever my view is, isn't going to change it. This government and any government is going to pursue it according to its own lights.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But should that be an investigative report? We're addressing "This issue of world peace" for an entire week on CBS.
PLANTE: It would be interesting to know what one could put in such a report. I'd have to think about it. It's not necessarily a bad idea. You'd have to find the people to make the argument, to frame it. And you'd have to get somebody -- probably in government -- to say they were willing to deal with it. It's not necessarily a bad idea to look at. But it's very abstract, and we don't deal in abstractions particularly well.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, talk about issues that are very complex -- Do they just not get covered? There's got to be a way to do it. I mean, it's what I'm trying to do in a way.
PLANTE: Covering complex issues means that you either have to, for television, break them down into their simplest elements, and then try to illustrate those -- preferably with something graphic. Or give yourself a great deal of time -- something we don't have in commercial television -- and lay it out and hope that you can hold the audience's interest. This is a big if. You have to be compelling enough, if you're talking about a complex issue, to hold audience's opinion. Remember back to being in college when the best lecturers were able to hold your attention 50 minutes by being spellbinding in the accounts of what happened in the past, or making their theories understandable to you. That's what you have to do. And that's what you do in the documentary field. That's what you do in long-form documentaries whether they're on television or on film. That's what you do in a long magazine article. It's not what you do in a minute-and-a-half television piece.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So can you take a whole half hour, a whole 22 minutes of content and just dedicate it to one topic? Or would you lose your audience?
PLANTE: You can take a whole half hour -- or whatever of -- You can take a whole half hour -- You can dedicate it to one topic, and if you're good you won't lose your audience. If you're not, they won't watch.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Have you seen Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11?
PLANTE: I have.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: It seems like he could -- with his kind of looser view on objectivity -- he seemed to be able to do it. Is that something that -- there seems to be that the success of that film -- that people are really hungry for these complex ideas to be tackled?
PLANTE: I don't know that I'd take that out of it. I mean -- Michael Moore's view of objectivity is more or less non-existent. He's arguing a point of view. He's a skillful filmmaker. But he's a little loose with the facts, and a lot of cheap shots. That's fine. I mean, that's what he chose to do. And it is entertaining. But -- It's an argument. And that's fine. So he captures -- He captures the audience's attention, and they either like it or don't like it. But I wouldn't characterize it as a rigorous look at any -- it's not a rigorous argument.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But if you look at the success of the film, there seems to be a lot of people who are hungry for that. Would you agree?
PLANTE: I, you know -- Sure, people want to be entertained. He can entertain you. But in the process of that, does it change your mind? Depends on what you bring to the film. Not so much on the skill of the filmmaker, but on the mindset you bring to the film. If you're a committed anti-Bush person, you're going to love it. And if you're skeptical, you may find the film a bit iffy. And if you love Bush, you're going to hate it.