Interview with ABC’s Robin Sproul

Interview Transcript
Conducted at Harvard University, 10/10/2007

Robin: Oh well so what I was going to say is that I may not have direct involvement in the decision on most of these but I think I can talk about, you know, you can see what’s usable and what’s not usable. Okay? Does that make sense?

Matt: Yes, yes it does. So I guess I’m going to start with some generic stuff before we get into the specific events. Alright what I wanted to tell you a little about the book, I guess I gave you the real quick and dirty, is that I know I told you a little something….(INAUDABLE)… redundant. Generally what we are doing in the book –I’m co-authoring this with a colleague from UCLA –and what we are doing is trying to create a typical standard model of public opinion….(INAUDABLE)…foreign policy what happens if you introduce a strategic media as opposed to a passive media in relationship to public opinion and foreign policy and how is that different in the traditional vs. the more partisan media. So those are sort of they are very broad events. You know there are various connections to this and I’ll talk about it. We are focusing on the rally around the flag phenomenon. The literature on the rally round the flag you know or you might say the phenomenon immediate impact shortest term response, right away, tends to be completely divorced from the broader literature on the question between public response (INAUDIBLE) ….so the question is, is that distinction justifiable?  Is it really the case that different things matter in shorter over the longer term. Is there some way to integrate these things into one framework? I’ll be more specific. I sort of feel like I should talk to you first and then be more specific afterward. 

Robin: Okay, that’s fine, that’s fine.

Matt: So the first question. One thing I’m curious about is ABC’s you know online versus broadcast, whether the editorial criteria for what is newsworthy, you know, would differ or would be basically the same or you know

Robin: It’s a it’s a different set of people making the decisions about what goes on abcnews.com, what goes on World News with Charles Gibson, what goes on Good Morning America, what goes on ABC News Radio, what so if you look at all of our platforms so to say, you know as we don’t like to call them anymore but we are still kind of stuck with that it, is there are the news comes in sort of to a central area, the coverage, its the same correspondence, its the same news gathering structure but what goes out and ends up on the air or online is different depending on how much airtime they have compared to what else is happening that day, you know, the web can put more out there because it is broader and deeper in some ways and you can keep putting content into it. World News has a limited time period. So what goes on World News is decided by the, you know, Charles Gibson, Charlie is the managing editor and he has an executive producer and he has a rim of people and then he has that group of senior level editorial people who have incoming at them all day long like my story is better and this is more important we ought to be thinking ahead to this from all around the world

Matt: Alright so I’m going to circle back to that but let me sort of move on and then put that into a different context.  Let me give you four hypothetical type of stories and then my question becomes which are relatively more or relatively less interesting and why. First story

Robin: Interesting to all of ABC news?

Matt: Newsworthy

Robin: Or just newsworthy?

Matt: Well by your sort of standards. You’re making these kinds of judgments…(INAUDABILE, but I think he says “in”)…your job. So the third

Robin: If I can just tell you, before we go into, before you ask anything, I don’t have a, and this is the way broadcast organizations, the structure of them all work. I’m a bring it into the house. So I can decide something is incredibly newsworthy and deploy money, resources, talent, investigators, I don’t have, I’m not a program. So I don’t have a venue for it.

Matt: Got it

Robin: So I will give you my perspective on

Matt & Robin: (THEY’RE TALKING OVER EACHOTHER) 5:18

Robin: And it’s easier for me to get that on abcnews.com than it is sometimes because there are just so many different areas on that website but that doesn’t mean…I can give you my best perspective

Matt: So a conservative republican attacks the President’s policy in Iraq, say, Hagel… (INAUDABILE, I think he says something “from the president”)…a conservative republican defends the President against attacks from, say, across the isle, a liberal democrat supports the President’s policy, a liberal democrat attacks the President’s policy.

Robin:  Okay, number one is the conservative republican attacking the President

Matt: Why?

Robin: Um because that has been so rare and because I mean but it would depend on which....

Matt: Lets say generically. Lets say a republican attacks the Presidents policy in Iraq, a republican supports it, a democrat attacks it, and a democrat supports it.

Robin:  Well I would think in both of them, the ones that are counterintuitive or present a point of view that we haven’t focused on as much, mean you can have a whole line of people who had supp- and it depends on what point we are in the story. If we are at the point in the story in which the republicans have held firm and suddenly you have a conservative republican who by all expectations would be expected to be holding firm whose broken away it’s a big story to us especially if it looks like its the beginning of the erosion of support that has been steady and by the books and by the expectations of the White House. And on the other side, similarly, as the democrat, a  liberal democrat, who is jumping to the President’s defense  you would certainly want to look at the reasons behind that and the democrats haven’t held as firm as the republicans had.

Matt: So number one to follow…(INAUDABLE WORD)… would be the republican breaking from the President and number two…

Robin: Yes. At most points of the story, yes, I would have said that because that would have been the most unusual. Number two would be sort of the liberal democrat who’s supporting the President…so, very close.

Matt: Does it have anything to do with which is the governing party in your mind?

Robin: Yes, yes

Matt: Because when you first said that I was thinking

Robin: Yes, yes because it’s the President’s policy. With Clinton it would have I would have led with the democrat breaking away from them if there had been that solid support

Matt: Is it a function with which party is controlling congress or which party is in the white house or both?

Robin: In this case its which party is in the White House because it’s the war and he’s the Commander in Chief and because they’ve held pretty firm and it would depend on you know what its compared –it’s all relative

Matt: Okay so the thing that makes the republican story a little more interesting is one there is a republican in the white house and two, the novelty is much greater, it represents a bigger change from expectation

Robin: Yes, yes

Matt: Would you distinguish between the back two?

Robin: Umm

Matt: republican supporting or democrat criticizing?

Robin: You know it’s like the plane took off and flew safely, you know. You know it’s not really news unless that were a big change for that person or it’s just so much in line with expectation.  That doesn’t strike me as being a news story that should break into a 20 minute content newscast.

Matt: So you wouldn’t you so that (INAUDIBLE??????????)

Robin: No, no, not necessarily

Matt: Okay, um let’s see

Robin: And just to be clear, it was a pretty big story when Warner and Hagel and some of the lions of the republican party who have great credentials and chops I mean you would, there are republicans and there are conservative republicans and there are conservative republicans; some of them who have a very strong policy influence –It’s a bigger story. There are things that would, there are insinuating circumstances that would make it more important within that same column of your general description and the same with

Matt: So it’s the characteristic of the speaker then

Robin: To a certain extent. If you are talking about a liberal democrat supporting the President who has no voice on policy, has never spoken up about, you know, about Iraq or that vs. somebody who, you know, can’t say that Lieberman is a democrat anymore

Matt: Somebody with stature?

Robin: Somebody with stature in politics, somebody who can have an impact on policy or could be leading others or put out there, really, through a caucus or somebody to start a movement in a different direction you kind of look

Matt: So in other words someone who speaks for more authority, someone who seems like they can have a greater affect on policy

Robin: Right, right

Matt: Lets see. Can I sort of, I guess that another way of saying what you are saying is that which stories are offered to you, the unusualness point implies, not everyday offered to cover of a republican eating their own or democrats eating their own or supporting the other side

Robin: That is certainly a factor, yes

Matt: Could you give me a sense of how many if in the milieu of story options you’ve got relatively how frequently or infrequently is it to get to have those most preferred type stories available to you and what’s sort of the decision sequence? If we don’t have this, we go to two and we don’t have that, we go to three. I mean how does that work?

Robin: We don’t set out everyday looking for a republican to trash the president or for a democrat to support you know. We don’t set out looking for the freak everyday. And a lot of, particularly, in Washington, you know, we get bombarded by you don’t have to look everyday somebody wants to try and move the ball down the field a little bit and they want you to put your spotlight on them and it’s all sort of compared to what and you measure relative importance. Does it have impact? Is it interesting?  And is it important, number one, and also is it interesting?

Matt: Is it interesting in part by different (INAUDIBLE)

Robin: Is it different than what we saw yesterday? Does it change the story in anyway? And will it have impact? Is there impact here? Impact makes it interesting, I think. A very minor member of congress who has no committee assignment and is somebody who has never spoken out about anything but social security comes out and talks about Iraq, it maybe the person would be interesting video but have no impact on the story.

   

Matt: Okay, now let’s go back to the abcnews.com vs. ABC. Would it be the case that that story is more likely to show up on abc.com because they have a bigger news hole? Because it’s still novel, but not impactful?

Robin: Yea it’s slightly more likely and it really would depend on again if it’s a story that would round out their coverage for that day? Is it something that they can play off another story? Is there somebody available to write it? It falls into a different sort of a formula. It’s less likely to make it on ABC News Radio news of the hour, 2 .5 minutes of content than it is on TV or abcnews.com

Matt: It’s more likely to make it on TV than on to the radio? Is that what I just heard?

Robin: Yes, because we would have more time

Matt: Oh news of the hour stories. Don’t they cover more news than (?)

Robin: No, no, no, not necessarily

Matt: Okay so what about from the perspective of a journalist what, are there perpetual implications for having a reputation of covering one of these types of stories disproportionately often. In other words

Robin: You mean

Matt: Well somebody attacking their own side vs. you know or I’ve given you sort of four boxes. Somebody who more predicatively finds themselves in two of the boxes

Robin: I think there would be if you consistently made that decision  but there are cases when Harry Bird or somebody who in the most predictable way  supports his side of the aisle is so eloquent and what he says has so much stature that you would cover that just because of who he is. So I think if we never paid attention, you know, if you were to extreme on the other side, yes, you would look like you never did anything except conflict and you know you never allowed the other side to have a say I think its, you know, again compared to what but we certainly do. So, yes, the answer to your question is yes, there would be a professional price to pay

Matt: It would be the same I assume for partisan press…(??????)

Robin: Absolutely

Matt:  Now actually I just realized that I never closed the loop on a part.  Is it reasonably reliable if you are interested you can find a story in which is there always a republican available to criticize president or a democrat. Is it common or uncommon are we talking about here

Robin: It’s gosh…are you talking about the Hill or you throwing in governors

Matt: I’m talking about in congress. You said

Robin:  You know you can pretty much always find someone to criticize –well I mean not on every single issue –but you can always find the party person who is, who will speak up and criticize the President.  You can get somebody to go

Matt: you’re talking about back benchers

Robin: Then you get into the impact. We don’t go looking for conflict for the sake of conflict but in fact, in telling a story that the president did X and said this about something, we would be more inclined to look for the think tank person who comes from a non partisan point of view who can put some perspective on it or you might be bombarded by some other interests groups or member of congress who really does have a very strong feeling or so carries a lot of weight or has 15 members of the democratic party in support of the President, you know, that would be something to say, “Well yea, . we should pay attention to that because that’s 15 members.” We don’t go looking for just find me any democrat who’s going to say he/she will support the President.  That’s not a motivating factor

Matt: …..who can actually be impactful is a criterion and if there is a…are in the majority party you have ability to affect the outcome

Robin: No. Because if that person has no

Matt: Because, assuming, you know, there are two people who are equally

Robin: It’s not just a reaction to go out and get somebody in the party to disagree

Matt: If the democrats in charge and you get a prominent democrat (REFER BACK TO TAPE)

Robin: Yes

Matt: Would you rather have, is it more interesting when the democrats are in charge

Robin: Yes because of potential impact and bi-partisanship evidence there, it does become a story it does show –it shows a) shows audience or whatever that there can be agreements, not always a fist fight, b) depending on what the issue is, it makes it more likely that that will be a successful issue

Matt: Do you think that, you know, I sort of gave you one of my premises. Do you have a sense of whether consumers of ABC Network news, TV, or radio show are getting a relatively accurate view of the partisan debate on given issues like the war? Is it accurately reflected or is it getting a skewed representation?

Robin: Well, you know, I, I’d like to believe that we work so hard to give an accurate reflection of the points of view. I don’t think that, you know, and the process goes through, let’s just take the TV program and the evening news. There are so many layers of people editing, questioning, and challenging that, you know, and answering on any given piece on any given night at least one person would say I wish we had done this more, I wish we had done that more and certainly we hear immediately from people whose points of view are not represented or they feel that they weren’t adequately represented. It’s a struggle with time constraints, you don’t have, its not a 1,000 word, 5,000 word piece; it’s a in a couple of minutes you try and go for a very short, very well edited, very short, very concise representation. It can’t be perfect. You know it’s not a perfect process.

Matt: Let me ask the question in a different way. Hearing the you know, hearing a bunch of not as interesting as let’s say Chuck Hazel taking issue with the President. If it’s the case that’s its fairly commonplace for democrats to criticize President Bush and republicans to support him on most issues most of the time….yet earlier in our conversation you said well if you know you have a prominent, impactful partisan acting contrary…doesn’t that distort

Robin: But you, when I say hone in on that, that’s a story that we would probably pay attention to, probably put on the air, assuming that its, and I think we did (INAUDIBLE, SHE SAYS WARNER…) but you never put it on as a stand alone story. Even when you are doing that story you balance it with other points of view or you try and explain in what lens you looked at that through and you have to have the President on air or the President’s spokesperson or the President’s point of view on that on why or why it is not. You might have Tony Snow have said, “We respect the Senator and we understand why he felt he had to do this.” You put it in perspective. So it’s not like you just put that person on because, ah ha, that’s something different.

Matt: Okay lets ground that scenario, for example summer 05 sometime, Hagel and Allen went on this week and that’s when Hagel first broke with Bush….So Allen on Iraq, Allan was very much supportive of defending him and…Hagel was criticizing…In the following week according to LexisNexis there were 270 TV stories on Hagel compared to 9 that even mentioned Allen …so my inference from that Allen was not

Robin:  Now in the Hagel..

Matt: Now it’s possible…It was the two of them on the show together

Robin: Were those stories which people edited off of our program?

Matt: Yes…No, no it’s not just ABC showing it

Robin: So people picked up on those

Matt: They picked…..Covered over and over and over again and Allan’s was barely mentioned

Robin: Well you know that ties into your theory. I’d put them both on. We had them both on. See you get stories and then you get follow up to stories and lets say if Meet the Press had a member of congress that broke from the pact and made news and then they had the balancing point of view up against it and we wanted to do a story about that, what had happened there, we wouldn’t necessarily go to there person, the George Allen of that team because George Allen isn’t the only person that would own that point of view but so I guess you would say the news there would be the Hagel and how you would put it context is the second part of that equation and I think that’s going to be all over the place, how people do that

Matt: You’re expectations would have been covered in a balanced story?

Robin: I, you know, my expectation for ABC is that we would put a balanced story on the air

Matt:……It would be put into a context to show that from which he is breaking

Robin: And it would be clear, probably, that the reason we would be doing the story is the Hagel part of that, not the Allen part of that.

Matt: Okay umm alright. Switching gears a little bit, with respect to the Iraq war there is a lot of about how relatively supportive news coverage was early on and I’m wondering if you have any sense or your organizations the press in general were in a position to challenge President’s claims early on. Is it a function of feeling of, personally if its true there was disproportionately favorable coverage in the early stages, if that’s true, would the reason be political pressure to take issue aggressively or maybe relative dearth of independent information that would allow credible challenging of the story

Robin: I have a couple of points on that. Number one is the relative dearth of information that would allow you to do that, that certainly was number one. Number two would be on stories of that magnitude we usually have in the political universe of Washington a very powerful opposing point of view or opposition party or interest groups that speak out with powerful opposition and/or evidence and/or something that independent that lets say we cant get the information, maybe there are experts, or think tanks, or democrats in this case and that was an attempt (TEMPT ?) that really wasn’t there to the extent that certainly there is now

Matt: So you didn’t have a consequential opposition voice

Robin: No, and number three, which is not an insignificant factor and is something that I’ve thought about a lot but have no research on it, is that in my experience, it was the first time on a major story like that we had enormous reaction from people over the internet. Life threatening, you scum bagged shit faced, you know, if Sam Donaldson who was anchoring this week then would ask a question –I saw the e-mails myself – like aren’t you being …isn’t that a bit disingenuous or what about, we would get hundreds upon hundreds of I ought to kill you, you are un-American, this is no time –the country was in a very raw, wounded, emotional state after 9/11. People used the internet to fight back against mainstream media. They didn’t want, you know, lets go get those sob’s, you know, we are marching behind our President. Then there was the whole issue of the American flags. And ABC was hammered, you know, we wouldn’t let our correspondents wear the American flags. It was the first time I really heard the words, you know, death threats and but just because it’s the combination of both things

Matt: I was going to say if that were true but you had credible contrary information you might still have reported it.

Robin: Absolutely would have reported it and I mean, you know, if we put a Muslim American on the show we would get thousands upon thousands of “You un-American,” really vile but I don’t think we had been through, that was a new process for us but absolutely if we had a had an opposing view point or a way to get that. You know we tried with the inspectors, we tried, you know, with the if anything, where we pulled the punches a little is that people were so stung by the…(RECORDING CUTS OUT)… people who were in the white house press corps at the time, we had Terry Merant Lazar(SP?) as our reporter, do feel like in an effort to be respectful –there was a big, big, big thing with people writing e-mails all the time about, you know, you have to be respectful of the President and, you  know, whether or not you agree with him  and I think  toned down the conversation, toned down the conversation and that’s what it said, “this is no time for our country to be looking like we are fighting” I think in toning that down and without those other things we’ve talked about, that most of those White House correspondent feel like they didn’t push as hard as they might have under different circumstances –that there, that it just didn’t seem like the time

Matt: In general in covering a major conflict, not necessarily 500,000 troops, this wasn’t 500,000 troops, but a substantial military conflict … so you take out the death threat part would the information part affect coverage? In other words, early in the conflict the administration says this is what happens, this is what we are doing, how easy or hard is it for the news to challenge that and does that change over time? I want to

Robin: I can’t think of another time where it was so impossible to get information and also you were dealing with an administration that was so shut down any internal disputes. You usually would at least, I mean about the only thing we could get is some generals who would never speak on the record saying, “I quit because I don’t think it’s going to work.” That’s about all, not that the reasons are bad but they didn’t, but they too were holding their punches because it you don’t look like you’re

Matt: There is clearly the not wanting to have people lynch you, but putting that aside. I think of cases…where there was no price….administration said what they wanted

Robin: Those are much easier to get information, to understand what is going on, to hear opposing points of views, think tanks weight in.

Matt: Is that true on day one as on day one hundred?

Robin: On what? The war?

Matt: ………………….Or these situations Panama, the first Desert Storm, does time make a difference?

Robin: In terms of how easy it is to get information?

Matt: In terms of the ability of administration to sort of influence how the journalists received what’s going on

Robin: In my experience, what we went through with the start of the Iraq war was different than any of those other things you have talked about because of the control

Matt: Is it a difference in extremeness or just a totally meek event I guess is the question. That’s what I am trying to get at is. My conjecture would be that the administration has a sort of monopoly of reliable information of what is going on in the other country and then overtime investigation reduces that information dominance and that would be generally true but to varying extremes. Like if you were talking about an obscure place in Africa where it’s dangerous for journalists to be like you know, it would be much more extreme than if you are talking about Europe

Robin: It’s much different. In Panama you have stringers, you know in Western Europe

Matt: So presumably it’s going to vary wildly from event to event

Robin: Yea it varies wildly, but yes, there was just, there was no way to get information on the ground in Iraq. There was no way to trust their own press. There was no, you know, I just don’t know how. I think we all felt like we were trying and that we tried in every way possible but when you, when you’re most (UNAUDBILE)  Hill committees are, you know, when nobody, nobody is calling you and saying this isn’t right

Matt: So what changed over time? I mean, sort of, what factors caused this to change? Who was leading whom? Was it a change in the public mood giving journalists more oxygen, or feeling more safe to say what they might have wanted to say or is it that overtime you were able to get that information and start challenging the administration?

Robin: Oh Oh Oh, what changed when we started to

Matt: When the tone of the coverage started to change. You know, who was leading whom here?

Robin: It’s that the facts on the ground changed. They suddenly, you know,

Matt: But you can make argument that the facts of the ground were a fiction from the get go.

Robin: Right

Matt: Let me just give you one perspective, giving you bullshit from day one. The facts on the ground did not change, just the realization of them changed

Robin: No, no. What I mean is that the facts on the ground changed when you have an insurgency

Matt: But the insurgency was all but a forgone conclusion, anybody paying close attention should have known that we were going to have an insurgency.

Robin: Well, why weren’t you speaking out? Why weren’t you calling ABC?

Matt: Well, nobody would have listened to me.  I was certainly arguing with people that this was going to end one way. But the thing is, it is certainly the case that the Pentagon zone war gaming suggested that this would be the outcome, in other words, there is nothing sure in social policy but it was highly likely that we would kick Saddam’s butt and we would rule (?) the day we did it

Robin: It was deep, internal (INAUDIBLE…she says something like “dimension, detention” )

Matt: It wasn’t just observation, willingness to interpret them changed

Robin: No, no. See I disagree with you because the willingness to interpret them after the fact changed

Matt: Yes

Robin: Yes, okay, but the tone of the story changed as the facts on the ground changed and that I mean we were in Iraq and we were watching one way of the military dealing with it and then over, you know, with certain events it became very clear that we were in the middle of not the civil war

Matt: So basically observation trumped the administration’s framing. You are saying this before we didn’t have anything to challenge it with now we’re watching…

Robin: Observation and more military people speaking out and

Matt: Well did more military people speak out or?

Robin: General Shemenski (SP?). I mean they’re starting

Matt: Well he was before the fact, wasn’t he? I thought that was before he was in dated. Remember

Robin: Oh you know no when did he

Matt: I thought he was in the run up when they were –I thought, maybe I’m wrong.

Robin: Now you’re making me question my own.

Matt: Sorry, but I get the point

Robin: It wasn’t that we had the same set of facts and we suddenly looked at it through a different prism. It was that it became a more transparent view of what the facts actually were, had been all along

Matt: Okay so you became better able to asses the reality of the events?

Robin: Right. Then some of the inspectors started speaking out and then Colin Powel. Over a period of time it became clear that it wasn’t, there weren’t people celebrating in the streets and this wasn’t hailed as a great victory, and that it wasn’t as build, that the things they said would happen didn’t happen and then it started to get worse and worse. And then you find, at one point we found out that the Pentagon founded their little press club over there and were paying for positive stories and, you know, we did have for a long time journalists out with units; not anymore, not anymore. I hate to tell that marine that was there the other night

Matt: Okay so independent verification starts to trump. Presumably you are still hearing the same stuff from the administration but you aren’t buying it. They’re still saying its working.

Robin: Right. In fact in January of 06, Dan Bartlett –in November/December –called me and said you know you are not doing, you are missing these positive stories on the ground and I’m inviting you and David Westin, who is the president of our news division, and we are taking you, we’re going to take the Washington bureau chief and the president of each network news because that’s where people are seeing the news. We want you there, we want you to see what’s going on, we want you to see some of these good stories. They developed like a whole what was going to be this White House guided tour of you’re going to be like a mini codel going over there. And we were leaving on a Friday and the Sunday before is when they were doing like a mini codel for Bob Woodrow, our anchor, and that’s when he got blown up. So you know we were still listening to the –you have to keep an open mind and I have to say that that’s not what we were hearing from our people on the ground. But we were willing to go back and look again, look again, look again. And we have sent, you know, Martha Radditz (SP?) has been there 17 times or something who is our sort of our premier Washington correspondent but on Iraq to get first hand information

Matt: So over time then you become more skeptical of the administrations lying, start questioning. You are still open to hearing it but the effect of your own observation starts to trump relatively more. I mean is that sort of. They’re saying this and what’s happening is that our observation is starting to weigh more heavily than their rhetorically

Robin: Because we finally could get some observation and then I think that probably we were more skeptical about good news stories because of the whole, you know, in retrospect we had sort of been, we were all burned, as a country we were a little bit burned on that

Matt: What about the surge? The administration actually well I don’t know if I should start with this. Maybe, why not? This is a clip, transcript from reliable sources. I guess I can just show you really quick. I bolded a few things

Robin: Alright, so Charles Gibson….

Matt: So really my question to you is does that characterization make sense to you?

Would those same stories have been more newsworthy earlier in the conflict

Robin: Would..no

Matt: Like the causalities

Robin: You mean a reduction in causalities?

Matt: Yea. I mean is it a function of where we are?

Robin: Yea, I do think it is a function of where we are. I think earlier on if you had a dramatic drop it would have been probably more of a story. The way Charlie did it as a lead story. But I also take the point of Barbara Star in that one month does not a trend make but when there are record numbers of deaths it would be across the board on the air, I think

Matt: Regardless of where we are?

Robin: Yea, I think that’s probably true

Matt: Even day one?

Robin: Yea, I think so

Matt: Okay so that’s a slippery slope. Two would be the record number of deaths initially

Robin: Yea

Matt: Okay in general if there is a big spike in casualties at anytime that’s going to be newsworthy but a drop in causalities would be more newsworthy early on before, I mean, its less newsworthy given you’ve got lots of months of increases

Robin: Also, and I think we’ve gotten comfortable (?? Gone through?) with a string of and this is without specific recollections that I can point you to, but I think there have been many times when the military has briefed suddenly that look at this we’re at the lowest number ever and the next day you spike again

Matt: Fool me once it occurs on me..

Robin: Yea I’d say there is a little sense of skepticism that we turned a corner because every time the language goes in that direction we fall back 10 steps. So I do think and it looks like some news organizations were a little more skeptical than ours about using it with a weight that would make it a lead story

Matt: I see. Would the administration claiming that the surge is working and is a success… Does that affect the likelihood that this declining causalities would be covered as an important story?

Robin: Yes that would make –I mean if you had a declaration that the surge was working and some evidence and these numbers –Is that what you are saying?

Matt: Well you have had declarations. If the administration, if the question is, you know if you have the administration saying the surge is working and this piece of information becomes available: there has been a one month decrease in causalities, you know, relative to what’s gone in the last year or two years. Does the fact that the administration is making an assertion that the surge is working make it more or less or newsworthy? Would it still be

Robin: I think it makes it more newsworthy because it may, it tells a broader story –it shows some evidence that what they are saying might be true. I think you have to be careful how you put it in context because it is such a volatile, emotional issue that every time you think it goes up, it goes back down. I mean you have to put it in context. But I think you could say I think it is a story that they say the surge is working and here are some new figures and then maybe you bring on some experts or something who try and give it their context on either side

Matt: If that had been the case, if we flash forwarded five months to when they actually said it was going to be working initially, when they kept moving the ball down the field (?) would administration claims that its working backed up by this evidence be a bigger story before they’re initial claims were not backed up evidence? Does that make sense?

Robin: No

Matt: So we’re in the surge. We say it’s going to work in a few months, look its working, and we get evidence here, a drop in casualties. That’s one scenario. Scenario two is we are getting a surge, now its working yet the evidence says otherwise, now look its working yet the evidence says otherwise, now look its working and the evidence says yes for one month.

Robin: I think that makes you even more skeptical

Matt: But which story is going to be

Robin: Remember about the little boy who cried wolf?

Matt: Yes, right. No, no, no –I know, but, which story would be featured more prominently?

Robin: The first one.

Matt: The fact that this one month spike happens after 8 months of not spike dampens the story

Robin: Yes, it makes you more skeptical

Matt: Okay, are these sort of positive administration claims differently newsworthy than they were a year or two, three years ago?

Robin: Yes and I think the deeper you get into a situation where you have been through a string of claims that one after the other, the other, the other isn’t positive, how could you not be skeptical but its our job to say what they are saying and to give it the proper context and to put in people who do know what is going on. We do have more of a robust, you know, sourcing on all of it now than we did at the very early pre war days

Matt: What you are saying is that you would treat it with more grains of salt

Robin: Yea and the further you go down the road, the more that’s going to be the case

Matt: What about the likelihood of airing another Tony Snow assertion that the surge is working

Robin: What about the what?

Matt: What about the fact of coverage as opposed to the tenure of coverage

Robin: Well, I think, I don’t, you know. We’re not Fox news. We don’t do that tone

Matt: When I say tenure of coverage I mean greeted with skepticism. Its one thing to say that they claim that the surge is working and they won before we have any contrary evidence and we just report it and we may not be pushing that hard to counter it vs. after we feel like we’ve been burned 20 times and the 21st time, okay, we’ll report it but we are going to evaluate it a little more aggressively

Robin: I don’t think it would make us hesitate to put that positive trend on the air but because of the string of events I think we would go out of our way to have somebody with authority and who can say let’s see –not our anchors say “Well let’s just see in another month” –but have a member in congress or somebody who has some stakeholder of some kind. Either, is it a military family group, is it a member of congress, a senator on the armed services committee, is it, you know, a former general, is it your military consultant, Tony Cortisman (?Sp) for us, who is a military expert. You look for a way to put it in context so that you are not misleading people or buying into another false start.

Matt: Yea

Robin: But that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t put it on the air because at some point maybe there will be good news

Matt: Suppose we’re in a situation where, leaving aside the one month drop in causalities where things are as negative as they have been but you are seeing more democrats and republicans supporting the war. How would that affect the way it’s being covered?

Robin: I think that we would report that more democrats and republicans are supporting the war. I mean, I’d think that would be a story.

Matt: Would you still be doing, “this is what we are observing on the ground?”

Robin: Yes, absolutely, if we thought that they were all supporting it and nothing we observed was backing what they were saying, of course, we would, yea

Matt: So in other words you would be saying that they’re saying this, BUT. So it would not be that different from what’s going on now. Because the administration saying this but

Robin: But if you started to have a ground swell of support from the Hill, that would be a big story

Matt: Would it change the frame of the reporting of the story?

Robin: Not from the scene, no, because you would then go to, you know, I could see, well, we would probably talk about. I can see framing that story now. You would have the, your Hill reporter saying what’s happening and why its different, what’s changed, what they’re saying has changed, then you would go to reality check to our national security correspondent and then you go to your correspondent in Baghdad or you probably send a bigger correspondent to Iraq to try and report further. Again, context, but its our job to say if we really thought that there was no basis in (of?) fact on that, we would still put it in the air but we would absolutely put on that we couldn’t see any basis in (of?) fact in our reporting.

Matt: Basically it’s the same story with respect to the administration. They’re saying it so we’re going to report that they’re saying it but our skepticism is going to be a function of how much independent information we have and what that’s telling us.

Robin: Right, right, but if it’s a group of congressional republicans and democrats who have no expertise, no authority, and no impact, we would probably not put it on the air

Matt: But in a way almost if you have authoritative, bipartisan grounds swell support in the absence of change on the ground, that is a very interesting story if for nothing more than its bizarreness.

Robin: Yes it’s a great, great political story and bizarre but then you become Missouri, the show me state. Show me. You know, “show me, show me what you are talking about.”

Matt: Okay, okay

Robin: So bizarre, can’t even imagine it but

Matt: What I’m trying to get at is what extent are elites able to dominate the frame independent of direct observation

Robin: Not independently of, but elites and because they can impact the direction the country is going and I think they have a voice that other people don’t have. I do think they drive the coverage in some ways, not all ways, but in some ways.

Matt: Okay, okay, well I think that’s pretty much it. I think I can show you

Robin: Did I disprove it?

Matt: Well, no, no, I

Robin: Oh you didn’t ask me about all these things

Matt: Oh my gosh. I totally forgot the events. I told you I’m a novice at interviewing. What I really want to know about each of these events is your reflection of how important they were perceived by ABC news by each of these events

Robin: Okay, okay. The election, which clearly the administration was pushing for coverage of, but it was a terrific story. It was really, it’s the purple finger moment, it was emotional, it was a sign of, remember were we where in the story at that point. We waited and waited and waited and it took months to get this election going; but it was very emotional, it was a big turnout and it was a sign of a democracy budding. It was a huge story and I think it was huge to all of our platform shows, we put resources on it, we spent money. Nobody was running around saying, I don’t think there were many people you could even find to interview saying that this was a bad story.

Matt: No, but what about people saying that this is a false alarm, that this is not really going to affect anything.

Robin: Well probably and we did a lot with, in Maryland and some other places with ex-patriots, you know the absentee ballots –no exit polls though. Well again, very hard to get at the Sunni boycott but we did to a certain extent and I think it’s easy to, I think we’re thinking about it after the fact and.

Matt:  And it’s hard to put yourself back

Robin: I’m trying to put myself where we were then and it was a false start but it was a huge story

Matt: But it was not perceived as such at the time because saying that it’s a huge story almost implies it’s an impactful thing and if it’s a false start, that by definition, is not impactful. So it, they must have thought it would have been impactful

Robin: Yes. We thought it would be impactful. Absolutely. We thought it was a big turning point. And I think the administration did too. I think it was an absolutely sincere

Matt: Oh they had lots of sincere thoughts, no question

Robin: Okay this is a no brainer. You know what, neither John nor I remember how we covered that. But you know what, I can tell you, is your question, is that a big story?

Matt: Is it a big story and why and what does it represent?

Robin: If I remember correctly that was a day when you just started out and there was one series, and then another few hours and another few hours? You know, when you are in the middle of it you don’t know what it represents but it seemed like and I don’t have all the details of what was put on the air, and I haven’t read any of our transcripts, but I would always argue that when these bombings, killing innocent people in the series of them, you don’t know where, if its the start of something huge, you have to pay attention to it. I don’t think that we probably stayed on that story and the significance week after week, but I think that day, it’s a big story. I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t a big story.

Matt: Okay

Robin: Oh Haditha, yea.

Matt: Actually happened at a different time than when it was covered

Robin: Yes. Now I will say, just my memory was no good…John…so on that date in November, the military put out a press release when it had happened, saying, the IED had killed one marine, wounded two, and killed 15 civilians and that so there was no coverage because that was basically routine in a war and you know as he’s saying in hindsight should we have been asking whether a roadside bomb should have killed 15 civilians but whatever the press release was wrong and it was some human rights group from Haditha who turned over the video tape to Time and they broke the story and we were the first to broadcast the tape. John says he personally covered the story for months and then he goes into what happened with the court case and all of that. Basically these guys are sort of getting away with it. But that’s a very, it’s a big story.

Matt: And the procedure is indicative of the way things are going in Iraq? Or just a big story internally?

Robin: You know, you have to report on and we do, and military hates this as you can imagine, and I can’t remember if this is the first one between (INAUDIBLE) all of those but we haven’t behaved honorably in all areas and, you know, I feel like we all feel bad because we don’t know how to get at it, at covering civilian, Iraqi deaths. That’s a horrible hole that we wish and the military doesn’t help us with that nor does the Iraqi government have any structure to help us, but we thought that this was a huge story.

Matt: What about the Samarra (SP?) Shrine bombing?

Robin: Oh well that was huge because that set off you know when you have a religious and that we treated as a huge story and it was heavily reacted to and we covered it for a long period of time

Matt: Okay and then Hamdenia?

Robin: Now what John says, is that in contrast with Haditha, this story was covered from the start because the marines wanted to prove that they could report about themselves and that they were going to be transparent and he remembers, he says, “I remember breaking the news that the accused marines were sent to the brig at camp Pendleton but because it was the same day we broke some news about Haditha,” but then he says, “this one became a larger story because it was being seen as part of a pattern.” And then once you have a pattern of misbehavior that just becomes a bigger story

Matt: Let’s see which one were we just on?

Robin: Now Mombodia (SP). I wasn’t familiar with this one. This is was big news again in the context of Haditha and Hamdenia (SP). The story didn’t break until June 30th because soldiers started talking about it in a post traumatic stress disorder counseling session. He said, “This one faded a way a little because it became over shadowed by the North Korea July 4th test of their missile.” And he says, in his case, you’ve got both of these stories going and North Korea overshadowed it and so on the international front this got a little less play than it maybe should have.

Matt: And the last one?

Robin: Oh well that I don’t need him for. Well I mean that because it had been talked about forever and because it came so swiftly after the election and you had republicans who were angry because it didn’t come before the election because they think it cost them the election and the house and senate.  It was so overdue. He’s such a big character in everything in our country for several years and so controversial. White House controversial, within the Pentagon, within the military, within the administration, you know, state vs. Pentagon. It was just a story of a big fall.

Matt: In every case except one you’ve answered these in the confines of the story without relative to what it meant for the bigger picture, the only real exception were the several that involved misconduct. Is that you think about them? Purely internally in terms of how interesting the story is in its own context. Oh I guess that’s not true. In the election you said that we thought that it was implying something, a turning point.

Robin: Right, turning point.

:

Matt: Any of these others in terms of their significance for the bigger picture or is it purely this is dramatic?

Robin: Well I think on Rumsfeld, maybe my lead was dramatic, but clearly the reason it was so dramatic is that people hoped, I mean our audience, I think