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This week, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters something they didn’t know. To wit: he will soon be stepping down, for good, from the podium. Reporters might have seldom gotten what they wanted from his daily briefings. But taken as a whole, his tenure speaks volumes about the state of the presidency. At least it does to Bob.
Over the course of several decades, investigative reporter Jack Anderson managed to break some of the era’s biggest political stories, and to alienate some of Washington’s most powerful men, among them J. Edgar Hoover. Now, it appears that Anderson’s antagonism with the Feds has followed him to the grave. The FBI is demanding access to Anderson’s papers… and the family is refusing. Brooke speaks with Anderson biographer Mark Feldstein.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in history. But two decades later, Chernobyl’s human toll is still disputed. And if the picture is unclear now, it’s nothing compared to the days and weeks following the explosion. Bob talks with longtime CBS Moscow correspondent and Soviet historian Jonathan Sanders about the journalism that Chernobyl left in its wake.
February, 1957: Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro is assumed by his government and many news outlets to be dead. In fact, Castro is hiding in the jungle and eager to meet with an American journalist. A cable is sent to New York Times editorial writer Herbert L. Matthews, urging him to come to Cuba. But was Matthews, who had a tendency to over-sympathize with his story subjects, the best man for the job? Brooke speaks with Times reporter Anthony DePalma, author of “The Man Who Invented Fidel.”
These days, partisan politics are everywhere – dinner parties, the editorial pages, movie previews, and even children’s literature. But can simple prose and bright illustrations help explain the confusing world of politics? Or is it just colorful propaganda? Are children developmentally equipped to understand politics? Bob talks to Katherine DeBrecht, author of Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!, and to Jeremy Zilber, author of Why Mommy is a Democrat. And he gets the expert opinion of psychology professor Dr. Andrew Getzfeld.
This week, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced. Almost immediately, some slammed the awards as showing an anti-Bush bias. Escaping the controversy was Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan, winner of the prize for criticism. But a closer look at her writing shows that in Washington, even getting dressed in the morning can be a political act. Brooke chats with Givhan about what’s under our leaders’ clothes.
Highlights from Past ShowsThe war in Iraq was temporarily displaced from the headlines this week by speculation about a U.S. invasion of Iran – speculation triggered by Seymour Hersh’s latest jaw-dropper in the New Yorker. While many have wondered about the true intentions of President Bush, others couldn’t help but question those of Hersh’s sources. Slate defense analyst Fred Kaplan joins Bob with some possible explanations.
This week it was revealed that Scooter Libby said that Vice President Cheney said that President Bush said … that he should leak information from the secret National Intelligence Estimate, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Questions abound, and Brooke is joined by Josh Gerstein, who broke the news in the New York Sun, to discuss what the new facts mean for the President and for Patrick Fitzgerald’s ongoing investigation into who leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
