Bob Schieffer On The Role Of The Press, Challenges In White House Coverage Today
BOSTON (CBS) -- On Tuesday, veteran CBS journalist Bob Schieffer was at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library to discuss his new book. Before his panel began, he took some time to discuss the current state of journalism and the presidency.
Here are some on highlights from his interview with WBZ-TV's Paula Ebben:
I have to ask you right off the bat, what was your reaction to this year's White House Correspondents' dinner?
I thought it was just awful. I think it is time for CBS -- I'm speaking just for myself, not for CBS -- I think it's time for us to disassociate ourselves from this dinner. Every year, we find ourselves making excuses for what somebody said at the correspondents' dinner. That doesn't represent what journalism is all about. And to provide a platform for something that's just obscene, vulgar, I mean, why would we want to do that? Some people are saying well let's do some reforms. As far as I'm concerned we can just shut it down and be done with it and go on to something else. What this is is we've just dealt ourselves a self-inflicted body burn to our credibility and I don't see an upside at all for us out of this.
Let me take you back, in the wake of Watergate when you were the White House Correspondent during the Ford administration in those years as you mentioned, as tough as it gets, after the country having come through Watergate -- a lot of people will say this president does lash out at the media. He makes no bones about it, on Twitter, verbally. As a White House Correspondent, how would you have handled that?
The role of the press, look, there are two different roles. The politicians, the government officials, they deliver a message, the role of the press is not to be the opposition party, we're not there to argue with the public officials, we're there to check what they say and find out if it's true and that's what makes our democracy work. That's what makes us different. We give people independently gathered information that they can compare to the government's version of events and then they make us their minds what to do about it.
Do you think it's getting too personal at times inside that White House briefing room? And then with reporters on their Twitter feeds, for instance, some of the things they'll say about the president?
It's just different. We've never had something like this. You know, I covered Washington for a long long time and people have always said to me: 'You've covered the four big beats but I bet the White House was the most fun, right?' And I said, 'Well, it was fun but at the White House everybody works for the same guy. You get up on Capitol Hill, they're all independent contractors, that's where you get the news.' But that's no longer correct because there are many factions inside this White House right now as there are up on Capitol Hill. They don't like each other, they all have their own agendas, and they are all cutting on each other 24 hours a day. So it's a totally different kind of White House than we've ever had before. I mean the president talks about the fake news, the White House is quite clearly, just simply an unreliable source. Just because somebody in the White House tells you something, doesn't mean that's what the policy is at the moment. And they might not know what the policy is at the moment, but you've got all these competing factions there. I think a big part of Donald Trump's problem is not always about policy, it's about process. They have no one there that simply understands the process of how Washington works, and they have nobody there to help them with that.
At times there has been a big debate on the CNN chyron, they will point out the president said this today, that's actually not true, they will point out inaccuracies. As you said before, it's the job of the press to assess what's going on and separate fact from fiction. Do you like that kind of journalism?
Not particularly. But I don't really want to criticize them. You know, we're all dealing with this just enormous amount of news now. It just never stops and now that we're in a digital age, as we're shifting from print to digital, there's just so much news now to process and there are going to be mistakes. It's just more than a human being can do to get all this cataloged and categorized and dealt with as it should be.
The New York Times [on Monday] got the leaked list of Robert Mueller's potential questions for the president. Do you think we could end up in a situation where the president is accused of obstruction of justice, and he completely denies it and refuses to cooperate?
I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, to me, the most intriguing part of that is who leaked that? I think I'd be pretty certain in saying I don't think that came from the special prosecutor, I don't think he would have put out 'here's what I'm trying to find from this guy.' And the Times said it came from a person outside the president's legal team. These questions were apparently written by the president's lawyers after these conversations. They compiled this list, but to who's advantage was it for that to be made public? Usually, it's not too difficult to figure out who leaked something. The person who leaked it is the person who stands to gain from the leak. Who gains from that? I cannot figure it out. I've thought about it all day today after hearing about it. I can't figure out --- somebody obviously leaked it, but why? And who was it?
What do you see, after what we went through in 2016, looking at the next race for the White House, can you possibly imagine?
I don't know. I don't know but I think what we need to be focusing on right now is this mid-term election this year. You know, we always say that every election is the most important one in history. This mid-term election may well be one of the most important, certainly mid-term election. I'm not predicting that the Democrats are going to take the House, but I now think that that is possible. I didn't think that six months ago. There are just so many things that are just pumping energy into our political process, starting with those kids down there in Florida. I think those kids may well be the Freedom Riders of our time. I don't know if they'll pull it off or not but I think they're having more impact on this debate over guns than anybody has been able to generate up until now. You add to that the Me Too movement and women, the Black Lives Matter, there are just these various forces it seems to be a lot like 1968 when the country almost came apart so I don't know how that comes out but I think it's going to be very very significant.
In Schieffer's book, "Overload: Finding the Truth in Today's Deluge of News," he discusses the growing number of news sources available to readers today in the digital age.
