Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Q: What was it like when Nixon dismissed you and you refused.

Let me pause and say... I'm here today in the spirit that we have so many problems in the world. We're gonna talk somewhat about technology and the internet, mainstream media... But it's important to know that in the forefront of my mind is that the problems are the problems. The way we put them forward is secondary. A many great men and women are in great danger in faraway places....

I was a CBS news correspondent for 10 years at the whitehouse. I was pretty proud to walk through the gates of the whitehouse. I made a lot of mistakes.... But I saw myself as being an honest broken of information, and be in a wee small way, to be a surrogate for people who were working that day... I never saw myself as challenging Nixon... I just wanted to find out what was really going on... rather than what the president and the people around him wanted us to believe was going on.... What he was saying were the facts were not just being disproven...

What I tried to do, in my own small way , was pose small questions that say, Mr President, you're saying one thing, and the evidence is building in another direction. What say you? He would try to throw you off balance... But it may have appeared I was challenging him, but it was on the basis of the facts. You never met anyone who has more respect for the office of the presidency than I do... But the prez of the US was a member of a widespread criminal conspiracy.... Those were the facts. When someone says Watergate, that's what we mean - a widespread conspiracy that he wasn't just a part of, but the leader of.

Do you think the climate of modern journalism is that the opp exists to do what you did?

It's important for you to know that I don't exclude myself. In the last five or six years, in some important ways, American journalism has lost its guts.... There are notable exceptions, but in many cases, journalists have adopted to go along to get along... The whole game of access journalism has degenerated into what I believe to be a perilous state.... Sometimes access is important.. The danger - and it's real and present - of being accused of being anti patriotic or not supporting the troops - these are very serious charges. But we brought this on ourselves, partly because.... for example, patriotic journalists will be on his or her feet, asking the tough questions, following up with tough questions. My role in the press is to be, sometimes, a check and balance in power.... Now that sometimes happens in American journalism still but it's getting rare.

Q: but beltway journalists seem to protect their positions, don't want to jeopardize it.

In many important ways, is what we need is a spine transplant. There's always been some of us in Washington, in the 1930s when I was a child - and it's not true that I was reporting when Sam Houston was killed... What's happening in recent years is that the nexus between powerful journalists and people in corporate power has become far too close. It was transparent in the Libby trial. I don't accept myself within this criticism. But it happens when you get too cozy with your sources, you take care of me and I'll take care of you. In Washington.... You want a good, high powerful source to talk to you and appear on broadcast, but negotiating you get closer and closer to the source. You can get so close that you become part of the problem. Now let's have it clearly understood that powerful people use journalists - and they'll use them to the full extent possible until the journalists say, woah, that's too far. But journalists use sources... A great deal of time the reporters uses the source and vice versa. But the second the source believes the reporter can be pulled in and be apart of the team, that's too far. And when the reporter feels they're part of the establishment and need to play team, that's too far as well. Journalists have to rethink the whole business or relationship with sources. It's true to a certain extend that you're only as good as your sources. But it's impossible for them to totally seal you out. During Watergate, they were saying don't talk to rather, seal them out, we'll strangle them. But it didn't work. We'll start going to congress, the pentagon, go outside. And when you get some information, you call and say this is the 15th time I've called, I'm going on air tonight with info that's not flattering. If he wants to get his word in, call back before 5:45. It isn't true that you have to go along, otherwise you can't find information. I can just sit here on my butt, sip saspirilla and call my sources. If you begin to think that, then you're in trouble.

Q: is it important to ask the followup question?

I do think journalists need to go through a long list of questions - do we still believe that the best journalism is independent with a capital I, fiercely independent... ready to ask the tough questions and have the gumption... Do we still believe it's important enough that if the president... doesn't answer a question, do you set your own question aside and ask, Mr. President, you didn't answer that question... Do we still believe that barring a very few natl security secrets, that the documents of government belong to we the people and not the people in power... That no matter how in office, this person is not descended from a sun god. This person is part of we the people. And part of what the journalist does is check on him.

Now sometimes, what they say is going on is really what's going on... but do we still believe that's the role of the journalist, or now have we taken the position... that we're conveyor belts: take up what the president says and (relay it back). ... very often what will happen is if you play it safe... I know this is tough stuff, but if I broadcast this, I'm gonna pay a price for this... So maybe I should just water it down.... Do we still believe that our job is to be independent with a capital I, to be investigative. I've never liked the phrase investigative reporter because I consider it to be a redundancy. Investigative reporting, that takes a hard news, capital I attitude is an endangered species. One reason it's gone out of fashion- when was the last time you saw an hour long investigative documentary that's on the big six news and broadcast stations? It's gone badly out of fashion. One reason is that the old business, the corporatization of news. The companies that own the news outlets have gotten bigger and bigger, and news has gotten smaller and smaller. The gap between the leadership of the corp and the news has gotten so wide as to there being little to no corporation. And the interests of the corps - they make airplane engines, billboards, etc- it's the corps that have gotten large, and more distant. Feeling most of the time they'd rather do away with it entirely, but they have business of their own to do in Washington - regulations eased or stopped. Example: TV stations want to own more stations with more coverage. They need regulations with the FCC, etc. You get the drift here.... Many of these corporate folks are decent people, but there mindset is do what's good for the corp as a whole.

Investigative reporting makes someone unhappy. And if youre' the head of one of these giant corps, a lobbyist will come to you - let me tell you, you guys in the news department are taking the hide off the people I need to work with. It is something we all need to think about. I've invested my whole career in commercial journalistm, and I do believe competition leads to better journalism. The real competition has narrowed in the way that some very large corps, maybe no more than five of them, control more than 80 percent of mass communication. They're not seeking more competition - not less. What we've seen in my lifetime. We're seeing increasingly less competition... I raise the question, do we have as much competition in the major outlets that we need to be healthy. The press has a really important role to play as a watchdog. Not as an attack dog, which goes for the throat. A lapdog just crawls up in your lap to hear you say nice dog. But a good watch dog barks at everyone who's suspicious. Not that they'll always be right, but that they'll always be barking, and that's an important role.

Q: It creates a vacuum for someone raising a challenge. In the blogosphere, that's what's increased our audience for their news - to get people who aren't on the inside.

Let's don't have any misunderstanding.. The internet is a tremendous tool not for just news... but for information and education, what ed morrow used to describe as illumination. Its potential is unlimited. I think the Net is now about to be at a stage that if elvis were the early stages and the beatles moved it forward, we're now at the beatles stage. Does it have problems? Of course. Some people I meet think of the Net only as the blogosphere. But there's a whole lot more than that. The Net as a whole, unlimited potential. I have no idea where it's going, but my experience as reporter is whatever you think will be in 15 years, it'll probably be in three to five years instead. Keep in mind the Wright brothers flew, a reporter said, in 75-100 years, we may fly coast to coast.

It's easy to overgeneralize. Are there irresponsible blogs? Of course. Are there ones that are really good analysis and editorials? Yes. Valuable? Yes.. And some that do it themselves wearing out shoe leather, going to the libby trial, true. But the blogs are so large, there's a tendency to overgeneralize. Responsible journalism is of integrity, seeks to find facts and truths, speaking truth to power. I do think there's a power to anonymity but I don't have a solution to it. If you have a biz competitor you want to undercut, you can go online and use a blog to cut him up anonymously and there's no accountability. If you spend long enough, you might be able to figure it. There are problems to overcome... but given time, the marketplace will balance this. But sometimes that takes a very long time, and in the interim, reputations can get ruined. The ability to be anonymous and say scurillous things is a problem as a whole.

Q: how does new media speak truth to power?

One way is to stay on it. To hold people accountable. For example, if you think the right presidents aren't being asked at a news conference, then a constant putting out, these are the questions that aren't being asked - can have an effect. Holding a press corps isn't just news conferences. These are major truths that aren't being told. It's the old biz of so many raindrops eventually make a dent in the rock. We have to increase accountability, up and down the line. Bad things happen, but in the end no one is accountable, or just the people at the lowest end, not at the top. This is a problem with all govts, but it existed less with ours before, and we could have less again if we keep asking.

Another thing that can be done.... The form so often that I practice myself is that a prez says this. Instead of saying to yourself, what a blob of steaming horsehockey. You may say that to yourself.... When was the last time that major media said, the govt said this, but that's a lie. I don't remember that happening. When the facts clearly demonstrate it, I think that kind of direct language might be preferable to the kind of sideways dance that's often done.

Q: did journalism take a hit during the Libby trial?

This goes back to what we were saying before about the closeness of journalism to the system... Insofar that this toxic gas gets loose, we need to mark very well how dangerous that is for journalism and for the country as a whole. Not too long ago, it was clearly defined what off the record, or on background, or deep background was. You had in your own head what the guidelines were. It was incumbent of the source to say, on what basis are we talking? The presumption was that it's on the record unless you say so. Journalists wouldn't say as an opening gambit, I'm going to protect you. Depending on what it was, you might say, talk on background. That this is info I can use but won't ID you as the source. He might say that's not good enough. The next level is deep background - you can use this, but you have to use it on your own. Not source it. Then there was off the record. The definition was I'll tell you, but you're not free to use it under any circumstances. Try to develop it further, but otherwise it didn't happen. This conversation didn't happen. And they can send me to jail and I'll never tell. Not too long ago, those were the rough rules of the road. If those aren't the rules now, what are they? How can we get info from sources and still keep our own sense of integrity for ourselves and the audience. I prefer a system that everyone can understand, and that you start with the presumption that it's on the record.

What's preferable for a journalist... It's like the 10 commandments. You know them, believe they're the best we can live up to. Journalists need a capital I branded texas style on your forehead - independent. I don't take myself seriously but I take myself seriously... The role of a journalist... It isn't a technicality about how journalism works.... Do we still believe that the single most important thing in a constitutional public... is to have an informed citizenry? That the only way we decide to go to war... these are the important things. The way we help people is to give them as much info as we can, and we have to go to the ideal of the independent journalist than the cozy-up, don't ask kinda journalism that many of us have engaged in in the last few years.

Q: is this because of the loss of the fairness doctrine?

It's been exacerbated by it. It's because people haven't been privy to enough information to make a collective right decision.... I'm a journalist and I'm trying to ask the right questions, and come to venues like this to ask the right questions. There are people who believe that journalists are already too aggressive and independent. That's obviously the direct opposite of what I believe. Or people who say I've been in govt my entire life and we know better, compared to some working guy in Boston. But that's not the American Way. Give me the facts, the truth and let me make up my mind. I and my neighbors will make a decision about what to do. That's what journalism is supposed to do - is to fill that gap.