The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Ray Suarez looks at the important and contested presidential election in Yugoslavia. Spencer Michels tells the story of ebay, the online auction place. Gwen Ifill runs a two-general debate about retired military endorsing political candidates. Terence Smith talks to Bill Kovach about the state of American journalism. And Robert Pinsky recites a poetic ode to the Olympic games. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The opposition claimed victory today in Yugoslavia's presidential election. The United States and European countries called on President Milosevic to concede defeat. But his aides insisted he was ahead in the official vote count, still under way. They did say it might be close enough to require a runoff. At the U.S. State Department, Spokesman Richard Boucher said this.

RICHARD BOUCHER: The democratic opposition, the democratically committed forces of the opposition appear to be on their way to a convincing victory. The votes are still being counted. Even the count that is done by the opposition, because they have observers at polling places, observers of vote counts, and they're also phoning in their results. Even that process is still under way, but we believe that process to be credible. We believe it will result in a more accurate count than what might come out officially.

JIM LEHRER: The opposition leader is Vojislav Koctunica. He's a 56-year-old law professor who has never held public office. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Oil prices fell in the United States today. After the market closed Friday, President Clinton ordered a release from the strategic reserve, in part to stabilize prices. Crude was down about $1 at the New York Mercantile Exchange this afternoon. It closed at about $32 a barrel. Last week it had reached a ten- year high of almost $38 a barrel. Vice President Gore today issued a 74-page booklet on his Medicare. He tied it to an address to senior citizens in St. Petersburg, Florida. Among other things, he proposed doubling the penalties against health maintenance organizations that drop patients. He also attacked George W. Bush's health care proposals.

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: The other side seems to put a lot of trust in those HMO's. And that's simply an area where we disagree. Their plan would force seniors into HMO's, and their plan would make seniors go beg the HMO's and insurance companies for prescription drug coverage, even if the HMO's don't want to provide it. If I'm entrusted with the presidency, I will block any effort to turn Medicare over to the HMO's and the insurance companies. (Applause) It will be protected.

JIM LEHRER: Governor Bush has denied the Vice President's charges. He began a West Coast swing today focusing on education. He again proposed more money for literacy programs, college scholarships, and other initiatives for raising student achievement. He spoke at an elementary school in Beaverton, Oregon.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: America faces a reading crisis. It is the symbol of this administration's failure to confront the education recession. Confronting this crisis will be one of my most important priorities, one of my most important duties. Since 1992, even as education spending has risen, reading scores have fallen, and then have remained stagnant. And this is a leading indicator of troubles to come because, you see, children who never master reading can never master learning.

JIM LEHRER: Bush will also visit Washington State and California this week. At the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, today, American runner Michael Johnson won the gold medal in the men's 400-meter race. He became the first man to successfully defend that title. And it was announced American shot put champion C.J. Hunter tested positive for a steroid over the summer. He's the husband and coach of gold medal sprinter Marion Jones. He is not participating in the games because of an injury. Again, video of the competition was not available to us due to the Olympics television contract. We'll have an Olympics poem at the end of the program tonight. Between now and then, elections in Yugoslavia; auctions on the Internet; endorsements from the retired military brass; and the state of American journalism.

FOCUS - FINISHED?

JIM LEHRER: The Yugoslav elections: We begin with a report from Gaby Rado of Independent Television News.

GABY RADO: He's finished, says the slogan, and wishful thinking seemed to take home of the vast crowd of opposition supporters in the center of Belgrade last night. In the faces of the crowd, the hope and tension of a people who suffered ten years of isolation and hardship, to which those here blame one man, Slobodan Milosevic. The crowds chanted their defiance at the riot police up to the early hours and then dispersed. By this morning word had spread that despite polling irregularities, the scale of the opposition victory was even bigger than predicted.

VOJISLAV KOSTUNICA: (speaking through interpreter) We have won, and that's widely known. We have won in such a way in all segments of these elections -- local, federal, and presidential - that our victory is undisputed.

GORICA GAJEVIC: (speaking through interpreter) The figures so far clearly show a tendency that we be optimistic about the rest of the results and the probability that our candidate, Slobodan Milosevic, will win in the first round.

GABY RADO: Even before counting had begun, a wide range of abuses were reported by opposition observers; international monitors were not allowed to play a role. Alongside the claims of ballot stuffing and intimidation, all through the day western leaders declared they were convinced President Milosevic had lost.

ROBIN COOK, Foreign Secretary, Great Britain: Today Milosevic is a beaten, broken-backed president. We know he was preparing to rig the results. But the scale of this defeat is too great for even him to fix it. My message to him today is, be honest with your people. Don't cheat them. Get out of the way, and let Serbia get out of the prison into which you have turned it.

GABY RADO: One of the few places Slobodan Milosevic could be sure of a victory was in the small republic of Montenegro, and that's because the opposition boycotted the election. There were fears that both there and in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians were also ignoring the poll, there would be voter impersonation. President Milosevic's only comment has been the prediction of a bright future under his rule.

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, President of Yugoslavia: (speaking through interpreter) I expect that the political scene of Serbia will be clean, and that will enable faster economic development of our country.

GABY RADO: But the man he had one dismissed as army chief of staff, Montello Paretic, felt otherwise and called on citizens to demonstrate in Belgrade this evening. Criticism of Slobodan Milosevic also came from the Serbian orthodox church, which has in the past supported the regime.

FATHER SAVA: We only hope that Milosevic will in certain ways be replaced and that he will accept the will of the people.

GABY RADO: But the man backed by the west, Kostunica, may not be as compliant as hoped. He's a savage critic of NATO's bombing campaign last year, and he won't promise to send Mr. Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal. Tonight both leaders still insist they're winning.

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez takes it from there.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on the election in Yugoslavia, we turn to Daniel Serwer, senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of peace and former special U.S. Envoy to the Bosnian Federation. He returned from the Yugoslavian republic of Montenegro last week. And Laura Silber, a journalist and author; she wrote "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation," and for ten years reported extensively from Yugoslavia for the "Financial Times." Well, let me get a sense from both of you what you read in an election where even at this late hour, both sides are still declaring victory. Laura Silber?

LAURA SILBER, Journalist/Author: Well, I think while both sides are declaring victory, we clearly have one side who won, and that's the opposition. And we have the side of Slobodan Milosevic, who is claiming victory just because they're desperate, they're backed into a corner, and now Milosevic is probably at his most dangerous. We can expect anything from him.

RAY SUAREZ: Daniel Serwer?

DANIEL SERWER, U.S. Institute of Peace: I agree with that. This is the beginning of the story, not the end of the story. No one should expect Slobodan Milosevic to leave power tomorrow because he's lost these elections.

RAY SUAREZ: Sounds like you're both pretty pessimistic, even if the opposition sets up a margin of victory that would be hard to cover with shenanigans. Daniel Serwer, what are Slobodan Milosevic's options?

DANIEL SERWER: Well, he has many options. He can simply declare victory and not produce any evidence that the vote count is there to support that allegation. He could even cancel the elections, claiming, "look, they weren't free and fair, everybody has told you that." He could... he can make an effort to push the elections to a second round two weeks from now, though I doubt that, because he would really lose in a one-on-one contest with Kostunica.

RAY SUAREZ: Laura Silber, weren't these election at first scheduled for early next year? Why were they now?

LAURA SILBER: Absolutely. Ray, he thought... Milosevic thought that he would get the jump on everyone. He thought he had it all sewn up. The opposition was in disarray. Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav Federation, was also at odds with the opposition over ultimate goals of the relationship within the Yugoslav Federation. He thought he could easily beat the opposition. The opposition outsmarted Milosevic. And frankly, I'm positive now, I'm very optimistic because I think although Milosevic may try to do something dangerous, anything is possible, the Serbian people have clearly voted in an anti-Milosevic referendum. They voted in an overwhelming victory, they voted against him. I think this is a very, very important moment for Serbia and for the West in terms of ultimately gaining stability in the region.

RAY SUAREZ: So if I understand you correctly, you're saying at the end of this time line, whether sooner or later, it's Milosevic out of office?

LAURA SILBER: Absolutely. This was a vote against him. This is his first... first of all, the first time he has dared to come for a direct election since 1992. I think we can see that Mr. Milosevic, the people, and it's not just an urban crowd in Belgrade, it's not just the intelligentsia, this is a wide-spoken, very wide, broad coalition throughout Serbia. It's people in villages. He now controls only one quarter of all the municipalities in Serbia. So what he thought he would win, he thought he would tell the West, okay, you're going to have to deal with me for the next four years. Now he finds himself fighting for his political survive. And because he's an indicted war criminal, he's actually fighting for his very survival. So I think what's very key in the next few days is how those around him react, what they do, when will they start to dessert him -- how confident Milosevic is that those around him are going to say, "okay, we've had enough. We can't really pull this one off."

RAY SUAREZ: Daniel Serwer, do you share that view, that sooner or later he's out?

DANIEL SERWER: I share the view that this could well be the beginning of the end, but it's only the beginning, and the ultimate disposition of Milosevic isn't completely clear to me. And I think the next few weeks will be very, very rough. He will try to suppress opposition within the country. He'll try to rally his security forces, the police, the army to that cause. And he's been quite successful at it over the last year or so. The police used to hesitate to use violence against Serbs in the street. They no longer do that. So I think we're in for a rough few weeks if he decides to resist.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let's turn to the man on the other side of the ballot there, Kostunica. What do you know about him, Daniel Serwe?

DANIEL SERWER: I met Kostunica a couple years ago, had a long talk with him. There's no question that he's a vigorous nationalist. There also seems to be no question but that he's a clean politician, or at least he's seen that way in Serbia, and I think there's lots of evidence that he is what he appears to be, which is a straightforward, honest, vigorous nationalist, and it doesn't surprise me that the challenge to Milosevic comes from a nationalist side of politics.

RAY SUAREZ: Laura Silber, you had already mentioned there was an expectation that the opposition would be in disarray. How did they manage to unite behind this one candidate?

LAURA SILBER: Well, I think one thing about Kostunica, I've known him for over a decade and, above all, Kostunica is someone who is a very modest man, and in these days when you have the kind of corrupt, the absurdity that a small fraction of the population, Milosevic's men, have gotten rich, Kostunica is someone who is really a strong candidate against him. He's a strong opponent, because people see that he's not corrupt, that he walks without bodyguards, that he drives a battered Hugo, a little sedan. And that's why he's managed to really rally people behind him. He's also someone who is basically not controversial. He's someone from within the country, and I think that that's very, very important, and that was why the opposition was able to unite. And he's also someone that is not tainted by western money. And I think in the Milosevic campaign, that's played a very strong role. So all these factors coalesced to really make Kostunica a good candidate, although many of us might have had fears that he's a nationalist. I think we'll see, if he's ever allowed to take office, and that's a big question, I think he's someone that's going to play by the rules and who wants to, by his own admission, make Serbia a normal place the live. And he understands that's accepting certain international laws, rules, and regulation. And he's someone who's really staked his whole career on being a man of his word. And I think that's important to remember today.

RAY SUAREZ: With those references to his nationalism, and he's been widely referred to as such, in the past couple of hours, the United Nations, through the office of Kofi Annan, various foreign ministers from Western Europe and from the United States through the State Department have called on Milosevic to leave. And often in the calculus of Serbia, that's been pointed to by Milosevic, "see, see, this is someone who is backed by the West." Does this make Kostunica's job harder if he's trying to get his arms around this country?

LAURA SILBER: In some sense it does, but I think what we saw from Serbs throughout Serbia is a vote to end Serbia's isolation, to end this period of misery, of poverty, and really, although many Serbs obviously have not come to the realization of Serbia's role in the horrors of the wars in Bosnia and Croatia and Kosovo, I think what we're seeing now is a realization that people want to be part of the West. And so that while we have these people, Kofi Annan and various western politicians, welcoming Kostunica's victory, I think that somehow Milosevic's strident anti-western propaganda may have fallen on deaf ears because we saw the results or the results that the opposition is saying. So people were really saying, "okay we've had enough of your policies, Milosevic."

RAY SUAREZ: Daniel Serwer, in the last 24 hours, some of the parties I mentioned have been dangling the possibility of easing sanctions if Milosevic leaves. That hasn't worked in the past. Does it have a better shot at working now?

DANIEL SERWER: If he really leaves power and not just office because one of his options is to hold on to power and try to govern from the presidency of the Socialist Party or even from the presidency of Serbia eventually. It seems to me that the West has to be prepared to move very quickly now to be helpful to Serbia if, in fact, Milosevic is out of the way.

RAY SUAREZ: And you've just come back from Montenegro. What's the situation there?

DANIEL SERWER: People were nervous in Montenegro when I was there last week. They're nervous because they fear that Milosevic might move against Montenegro, perhaps as part of an effort to create an emergency that will rally the citizens of Yugoslavia to his side, claiming that Montenegro is a rebellious province and that they've got to come to heel. I think that he may have his hands full in Serbia for the moment, and that he's not likely to move too quickly against Montenegro. But everything depends on what the popular reaction is to these elections, the results, and if the people go to the streets. If people go to the streets in very large numbers, it's going to be hard for Milosevic to handle.

RAY SUAREZ: Daniel Serwer, Laura Silber, thank you both.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, buying on ebay; generals and politics; American journalism; and an Olympics poem.

FOCUS - EBAY - MAKING CONNECTIONS

JIM LEHRER: Spencer Michels has our story about an auction place called ebay.

SPENCER MICHELS: All this is sort of antique things that you could buy or sell on ebay.

DIANE HAMILL: Yeah.

SPENCER MICHELS: In every room of her suburban California home, Diane Hamill displays her antique treasures-- items she has picked up at garage sales and shows, and intends to sell over the internet.

SPENCER MICHELS: And what are these?

DIANE HAMILL: I bought that at a garage sale on Saturday, and I'm going to sell them on ebay.

SPENCER MICHELS: So you think you can make a profit on them?

DIANE HAMILL: I should be able to get about $40 or $50 for them. They're called flo-blue. They're about 100 years old.

SPENCER MICHELS: Oh really? And you paid about?

DIANE HAMILL: About $2 apiece.

SPENCER MICHELS: Wow. Hamill is one of 16 million people who are registered to buy and sell on ebay, an Internet site based in San Jose, California, that facilitates auctions of antiques, sports memorabilia, fine arts, pornography, music, electronics and 4,300 other categories. Ebay was founded by software developer Pierre Omidyar as a place where his girlfriend could buy and sell toy candy dispensers. The idea took off as millions of people became devotees.

DIANE HAMILL: I am going to list this swan. It's made out of glass, so I am going to choose the glass and pottery category.

SPENCER MICHELS: 2.2 million buyers and sellers use ebay on any given day. The process is fairly simple. Hamill wants to sell this glass swan for a minimum of $9.50. She fills out an online form, describes the swan, posts digital photos, and decides how long the auction will last. Buyers search online to find an item, then bid on it as often as they wish. The highest bidder receives it after paying by check or credit card, usually including shipping costs. Ebay, the middleman, collects 5% of the first $25 of the price, 2.5% up to $1,000, and less after that. There are millions of people who go on ebay, and they all seem to learn this.

DIANE HAMILL: That's what I kept telling myself when I would came up against something that I just didn't think I could solve. I kept saying millions of people have done this; I can learn it too. And I did.

SPENCER MICHELS: Like a lot of ebay users, Hamill used to sell at antique shows, where she'd set up card tables to display her wares and then bring home the unsold items. She prefers the Internet, and believes from her own experience that it is changing the way people buy and sell antiques.

DIANE HAMILL: My stuff is exposed to collectors all over the United States and the world. And they bid against each other, and I get higher prices.

SPENCER MICHELS: You would that think that if a lot of people went online with these auctions, that the antique shows would dry up to some extent.

DIANE HAMILL: They're starting to.

SPENCER MICHELS: The Antiques and Collectibles Association confirms the cutback in antique shows nationwide. At company headquarters, 1,300 employees keep the site operating technically, answer a torrent of email from users, manage auction sites in German and Japanese, and deal with an ever-growing customer base. Occasionally ebay finds someone selling something illegal, like marijuana or cocaine, or something absurd like human kidneys, or something unbelievable like a roomful of small children from Japan. It removes those items when they're discovered. Employees are encouraged to use the site themselves. One full-time employee concentrates solely on Elvis Presley collectibles, a hobby of hers that landed her a job here.

ROBIN ROSAAAEN, eBay: I paid $4,000 for Elvis' dental records from the old Palm Springs dentist that had those. And I happened to see them on ebay, and thought, I've got to have that. That's something nobody else would have in their collection.

SPENCER MICHELS: ebay recently invited a dozen users from around the country, including Diane Hamill, to spend a day at headquarters so company officials could pick their brains about the service.

DIANE HAMILL: I thought it was very important for the company to really understand that there are real people on the other side of these transactions.

SPENCER MICHELS: They heard from CEO Margaret Whitman, who is trying to cope with ebay's phenomenal growth since its founding less than five years ago.

MARGARET WHITMAN, ebay President & CEO: We've gone from, you know, two people in 1996 to over 1,300 people. And so it's really important for all the new people every day who come to work at ebay that they understand who our customers are.

SPENCER MICHELS: Mostly, these customers said they like the site, which many of them have started to use to run their businesses. Increasingly, ebay sales are made by small- or medium-sized operators whose whole income may depend on Internet transactions.

SPOKESMAN: If we started with...

SPENCER MICHELS: Patt Grethmann, for example, closed her gift shop, where she sold dolls and miniatures, to work exclusively using ebay. Despite their enthusiasm for ebay, the focus group members had some complaints.

PATT GRETHMANN: We need a better way to address the deadbeat bidder situation. Personally, I usually try and give people two or three weeks before I get upset about not receiving payment.

REY BARRY: I'd like to see ebay get into some sort of arbitration, mediation service staffed by volunteers.

DIANE HAMILL: I think one of the major problems that seems to be growing is the sale of reproductions and fakes -- in other words, fraud.

SPENCER MICHELS: Fraud has occupied a lot of ebay's time lately. In August, the FBI said online auctions were the number- one source of fraud nationally, and said it gets 1,000 consumer complaints a week. Last spring, police in Upton, Massachusetts, broke up an alleged burglary ring where stolen goods were put up for sale on ebay-- everything from cameras to coins, baseball cards, jewelry, and silverware. It was not the first time stolen goods were sold on the site. Ebay has hired former federal prosecutor Rob Chestnut to keep the site a law-abiding place.

ROB CHESTNUT, eBay Attorney: Ebay has got to be the dumbest place in the world for some crook to try to sell a stolen item, because it's so public. Any victim who has lost an item to theft, all they've got to do is to sit at their desk in their home and try to look it up at the web site. And if they find it, ebay's got a great track record of getting law enforcement quickly and catching people who do it.

SPENCER MICHELS: San Diego attorney James Krause is suing ebay on behalf of clients who say they paid for baseballs and basketballs signed by stars that they found on the web site. Those signatures turned out to be fraudulent.

JAMES KRAUSE, San Diego Attorney: There is this statute that a warranty must be given to purchasers by dealers selling sports memorabilia. And in the definition of dealer, it says auctioneers are considered to be dealers. How expensive it is or how difficult it is to comply, that's ebay's responsibility if they want to be in this business. All this is coming from ebay.

SPENCER MICHELS: Krause says that because its web listings make clear it is the equivalent of a bricks and mortar auction house, ebay is liable for ten times actual damages under California law for dealing in fakes. But ebay's Chestnut argues authenticity is the seller's responsibility; that ebay is only a facilitator.

ROB CHESTNUT: You know, the traditional auctioneer can take a look at the item, they can evaluate it, and then they are the ones that are describing the item and promoting it to the public. And ebay isn't an auctioneer in that sense. Ebay is really a lot more like a newspaper classified ad, or a big bulletin board on the Internet.

SPENCER MICHELS: Ebay claims it spends a lot of money educating the public, policing its site, and trying to catch fraud, even though that's not a legal responsibility. Officials say it's just good business, even though only one out of 40,000 listings results in a confirmed case of fraud. Last May, a painting on ebay that looked like one by famed abstract artist Richard Diebenkorn, was bid up from 25 cents to $135,000 after the seller placed bids himself to increase the price. That's called shill bidding. The painting was not a Diebenkorn, and was eventually removed from ebay, as was the seller. But shill bidding, an old practice, is a worry for the company.

ROB CHESTNUT: There are some technology tools that can help detect if the same person or the same computer is bidding on an item. We developed the first shill hunting tool in the industry last year. We're working on the next step now, and that is trying to figure it out before the listing is done, catch it in the act.

SPENCER MICHELS: CEO Whitman says ebay has initiated several safeguards to protect buyers and sellers.

MARGARET WHITMAN: While we don't assume the responsibility for the transaction between the buyer and seller, the reason that we have escrow, and insurance, and a trust and safety customer support team, and a legal team that works really closely with law enforcement is to make this a safe place to trade.

SPENCER MICHELS: Last year, ebay experienced serious technical problems that made the site unusable for a total of 31 hours. This year outages have been reduced.

MARGARET WHITMAN: We invested a lot of money after last summer's outage to make this site what we call utility-like stability.

SPENCER MICHELS: Whitman says 99.9% of transactions go off perfectly. That kind of record, and ebay's efforts to keep it that way, impress Lauren Cooks Levitan, a stock analyst with Robertson Stephens.

LAUREN COOKS LEVITAN, Robertson Stephens: It certainly is amazing that the company has been able to not only maintain their profitability, but actually been able to do so even as many competitors have tried to come in and take a piece of the auction pie. People like Yahoo! and Amazon have tried very aggressively to get into this market.

SPENCER MICHELS: Why do you think that is?

LAUREN COOKS LEVITAN: Well, the real reason is that they have the biggest base of buyers and the biggest base of sellers, and that's what each constituency wants.

SPENCER MICHELS: Beyond its buyers and sellers, the company is profiting too. The small fees it takes from thousands of Diane Hamills means it does not have to rely on selling advertising like many Internet companies. Last quarter this guaranteed revenue stream brought in $88 million, up 130% from the previous year. Profits for last year were nearly $11 million.

LAUREN COOKS LEVITAN: Well, ebay is the classic middle man. They are absolutely unique in that they are driving a huge portion of online commerce, several billion dollars in gross proceeds, but they're not having to take on any of the ugly aspects of it in terms of making the merchandising selection, holding the inventory, making sure it gets to the consumer. They're simply standing in the middle, making a platform that is viable for buyers and sellers to do good business, and they're taking a piece of that.

SPENCER MICHELS: CEO Whitman says rejects criticism that an online auction house is not the intended use of the information highway.

MARGARET WHITMAN: I actually it's the perfect application for the web. What the web enabled was a connection of many to many. And that's exactly what ebay enables is many, many buyers and many, many sellers, 2.2 million a day, who connect in a way they could not without the Internet.

DIANE HAMILL: It does look old to me, so it's probably not a fake or a reproduction.

SPENCER MICHELS: Despite lawsuits and charges of fraud on the Internet, ebay's success is changing the way many Americans run their hobbies, and making it tougher, especially for antique and collectible dealers not using the Internet, to compete.

DIANE HAMILL: This is their home page.

SPENCER MICHELS: Okay, what do you do now?

DIANE HAMILL: If I'm selling...

FOCUS - MILITARY ENDORSEMENTS

JIM LEHRER: Should former high-ranking military officers endorse a presidential candidate? Gwen Ifill looks at that question.

GWEN IFILL: When George W. Bush stepped behind a podium earlier this month to discuss military readiness, he came prepared. Retired Generals Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell were there to endorse him, along with other high-profile retired officers. But did these officers break an unwritten rule by venturing into partisan politics? We have two points of view. General Merrill McPeak was the chief of staff for the Air Force from 1990 to 1994. He is one of the retired military men who endorsed Governor Bush. And General Richard Neal was assistant commandant of the Marines from 1996 to 1998. Also now retired, he has endorsed no one. In the interest of full disclosure, Al Gore's campaign reports no high-profile endorsements from retired officers. General McPeak, you have endorsed Governor Bush. Can you tell us why?

GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: Well, I support him in general. I think he's right on the issues.

GWEN IFILL: Is it appropriate for a military officer such as yourself, who served in the current administration that's still in office to endorse the op circumstances as it were?

GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: Well, I would draw a sharp distinction really between two kinds of issues here. One is the question of politics versus party politics. Klauswitz said that war is a political act, that at the highest level war is indistinguishable from policy. There's really no way that senior military officers can avoid politics. It's always in the mix. So the real question is: How can senior officers avoid party politics? And too often many of these political issues have been made partisan by politicians. If you take an issue like ballistic missile defense or base closure or the current brouhaha about readiness, these are issues that we ought to be able to decide with some objectivity that have been politicized. So there you put senior military officers in a heck of a position. I mean, they have to be very careful. It's always a judgment call, and, for instance, I made 33 witness appearances in front of the Congress, and nobody over there wanted to know how to win a dogfight. They all wanted my testimony on highly charged political issues like gays in the military. So this is a judgment call. We hire senior officers hoping they're smart enough and have finesse enough to deal with these issues, but they are forced on them. They have no alternative to deal with them.

GWEN IFILL: General Neal, you have made the opposite judgment call. You have decided not to endorse anyone in this presidential campaign. Do you think it's appropriate?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: I don't think the issue really is appropriateness. I think what... I think first I begin, Gwen, by saying, look at the list of the 93 admirals, generals, politicians and just rank and file folks that have endorsed Governor Bush.

GWEN IFILL: Including members of Congress.

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: Including members of Congress. It's a wonderful list because you look at it, and you know those men and women have served their country well and ably. They hold the same core values that you and I have. They've just made a conscious decision to come out publicly and support. I think what would... I think what bothers me the most is I'm not really against a personal endorsement, an individual coming forward and saying, "I support this candidate or that candidate for the following reasons." I think what causes me pause for concern is that the coalition of 93, that includes probably fifteen or twenty very highly ranked officers and former officers in the military, I think that kind of sends the wrong signal. If you look at... I think it was a USA Poll that was run by Gallup about a week ago, and they asked the question about the American public and their degree of confidence in different vocations and professions, and the top of the list at 64% was the U.S. Military.

GWEN IFILL: And how does endorsing a candidate reduce people's faith?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: Well, I think it throws us into a fray, into a brawl that perhaps we don't want to get into. I think that if you look at that list again, you get down into Congress, and you're down to 24%. And you've got a great difference between the American military and the perception and degree of confidence the American people have on the American military -- have for the American military versus the politicians. We're throwing ourselves by forming a group, a coalition, into that fray, and I think we endanger that difference between advocacy and advice. And that worries me.

GWEN IFILL: How about that, General McPeak, by endorsing as a group, are you saying to people who are currently still serving in the military that it's okay to be partisan?

GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: Look, I think... this is another case where you have to draw a distinction. These are not binary issues, black and white. They're all judgment calls. But our founding fathers did make a binary decision. They said that they were going to combine the office of head of state with commander in chief -- thereby conferring the highest military authority on a civilian. They did that because they were very aware of the example of Oliver Cromwell or Julius Caesar, an enormously popular figure that arrives in the capital city at the head of an army. We have followed the rules.

GWEN IFILL: We just lost General McPeak. We'll get back to him in a moment. Does it matter, however, when George Bush calls -- General McPeak or calls another officer and says, we want you to endorse us, are they saying... What are they hoping to get out of that? What weight do they hope to deliver?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: Well, I think obviously... I think a general or admiral who has risen to four stars brings to the table, to the political campaign, whichever side of the aisle it, is brings a certain degree of confidence, enjoys a degree of confidence by the American public. I think they bring some definite views as to different issues that are affecting the military, from readiness, as General McPeak pointed out, all the way to weapons systems and acquisition programs. I think all of those things come into view, and obviously their opinion is well-sought.

GWEN IFILL: General McPeak is back with us. I want to repeat the same question to him, which is this whole notion of what it is that you bring when you endorse, do you think you're sending a signal that the candidates you're endorsing is a better person militarily?

GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: Gwen, let me conclude my thought there before I was interrupted.

GWEN IFILL: Certainly.

GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: I draw a sharp distinction between people on active duty, still at the head of forces, and retired general officers. I mean, I just flew up here from Portland in a little airplane, home built that I didn't put any guns. In I don't regard myself anymore as a menace to the republic. So my First Amendment rights to participate in the political process ought not to be restricted in the way we've all come to think active duty general officers should be restricted. Now, on the issue of what the candidates hope to gain, I think there is a Serb amount of expertise that retired generals, admirals, people who know the business bring. I mean, Candidate Bush has said our readiness is in decline. Candidate Gore has said we have the world's greatest armed forces. Both gentlemen are right. So in my neighborhood, if people want to know how to deal with this subject, they come around and ask me. And I think that's a pretty good idea.

GWEN IFILL: So why not ask him? Why shouldn't he be allowed -- as a group, as a military man, should be allowed to say what he knows?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: I think if you remember my opening comments. I didn't find fault with anyone that came forward and individually endorsed. I think what bothers me, again, is this idea of a coalition, of a group of generals and admirals coming together.

GWEN IFILL: Why is that different?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: The reason that bothers me specifically is I don't think you can say that while I'm retired, and obviously we have inalienable rights to be able to vote and to speak my piece, and I'm not going to have any impact on the uniformed military. I think that's naive at best, because I think what those generals and admirals do bring to the table is they're mentors, they're former role models, they represent the institution from which they came. They still have a significant impact on the uniformed military. And I think it puts the uniformed military of today, those that are on active duty, that puts a bigger burden on them and an unfair burden on them, I think, as they go about their day-to-day business of leading the young men and women of the armed forces.

GWEN IFILL: Now, there's a poll showed that 64% of the young men and women in the armed forces identified themselves as Republicans anyway. So what is the point?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: Well, that's dangerous. I hope that poll is wrong. And I hope we don't get into that thing that when one of those service chiefs goes or the chairman goes in front of a congressional committee to testify, as General McPeak said he's done 33 times and I've done on numerous occasions, I hope we don't get labeled as soon as we come and they sit down and they say, "well, this is a Republican one, so they're not going to be candid and frank. If this is a Republican administration, they're going to support whatever that administration tells them."

GWEN IFILL: General McPeak, the harshest critics of the kinds of endorsements you have made say that a lot of retired officers are prostituting their prestige. They say that that is taking it too far. Obviously you don't agree with that?

GEN. RICHARD NEAL: Nor do I.

GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: Well, I think for years there was a kind of a wall, a separation in this country. The professional military were proud, made a point of pride about avoiding politics. The reason was they considered politics such a disgusting process. I think politics is better now in this country than it was in the 19th century, and it doesn't make me feel bad to participate.

GWEN IFILL: Okay. General Merrill McPeak and General Richard Neal, thank you both very much.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Next, a conversation about the state of American journalism, and to media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: In a 40-year newspaper career with stints at the "New York Times" and "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" among others, Bill Kovach has been a prize-winning reporter and editor. For the last ten years, he was curator of the Neiman Foundation Journalism Fellowships at Harvard University. He retired this summer and is now chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. Bill, welcome. I suppose in the interests of full disclosure here, we should admit to the world at large that we worked together at the "New York Times."

BILL KOVACH: We had a great time.

TERENCE SMITH: Committee of Concerned Journalists: Tell me what it is and what its mission is. It suggests journalists have something to be concerned about.

BILL KOVACH: Well, we think they do. We think we do. It's a group of journalists, over 3,000 now, that was formed about three years ago when a group of some of the finest journalists in the country, people like Dave Halberstam, Gwen Ifill, John Carroll, the new editor of the "Los Angles Times," and a number of others got together to discuss their concern about what the new technology, the new communication technology and the economic organization of journalism that was being put together toserve this new technology, what it was doing to the values and the practices of journalism. And we decided to do a study, think about, talk about, and try to figure out how journalists maintain their balance in this period of change.

TERENCE SMITH: Did you, in your thinking and writing about this, or the committee, come up with what you think constitutes the greatest threat or problem for journalism today?

BILL KOVACH: Clearly the greatest problem is the speed with which information moves today, which overwhelms the ability of journalists to verify their information before they publish it. That's the most dangerous thing. We saw an example of this just the other day with this company in California, Emulex.

TERENCE SMITH: Mm-hmm.

BILL KOVACH: A phony press release was moved so fast that no one bothered or had the time to check it. The stock plummeted, what, 60% within a matter of hours? All because...

TERENCE SMITH: And it was a hoax.

BILL KOVACH: It was a hoax. It was untrue, but neither the first organization nor Bloomberg, nor any of the others that moved that story, had checked it before they posted it. So there was erroneous information, totally spurious information that moved through a system that hopes to be credible, hopes to be trustworthy, hopes to be believed.

TERENCE SMITH: You put that down to competition and pressures in competition?

BILL KOVACH: I put that down to competition, the competition, and the speed with which things are now expected to be done. And it's almost created a situation where it doesn't matter to be wrong so long as you're first. Being first to be wrong is just fine.

TERENCE SMITH: You and your colleague, Tom Rosenstiel, wrote a book about this called "Warp Speed," in which you talk about this frantic pace. But there's no way to roll this back, is there? I mean, you don't generally roll technology back.

BILL KOVACH: No way possible, and nor should you. I mean, it's a wonderful thing to have this kind of speed and this kind of information, but verification, verification, verification. The purpose of journalism is to provide information people can rely on. It's foolish to move so fast that you're putting out phony information. You'll destroy your own credibility eventually, destroy the seedbed of what makes journalism worthwhile.

TERENCE SMITH: We are now in the midst of a presidential election cycle. This is a time when the press is on overtime and maybe over- speed, and a very sensitive one from the political point of view. Observing it from your position, are voters getting what they need from the media in this election cycle?

BILL KOVACH: I think this has been an extraordinary year for election coverage. I really believe that the amount of information about the candidates, when you see the series that the "New York Times" has run on the two candidates, the "Washington Post" has run, a lot of the regional...

TERENCE SMITH: The biographical series?

BILL KOVACH: The biographical, historical series-- the public has no business not knowing what these two candidates are all about, because that information has been provided.

TERENCE SMITH: So you're giving good points to print. What about broadcast?

BILL KOVACH: Broadcast as well on that topic, but on the subject of the issues, on the subject of what this election is all about, I'm a little less generous. And just as a consumer of the information, I'm not getting what I need. I'd like to know a lot more about some of the issues, and not just where they stand, but where their organization, their party, their leadership is likely to take us. And I don't see a lot of that. I see too much about the details of the campaign as a mechanism, that journalists are inside the campaign, almost as though they're part of the campaign and they're speaking to me and to other members from the public in a jargon that is not very useful.

TERENCE SMITH: Almost as though they're inside the campaign? What do you mean?

BILL KOVACH: Well, it's all about how you position...

TERENCE SMITH: Process?

BILL KOVACH: ...How you position yourself, what the mechanics are in this state and in that state, which if I'm working in a political campaign, I'd like to know that. But if I'm a voter, I'm not sure I have any need for that information. I'd much rather know more about what these two people are going to do or what they propose to do or where the government is likely to go or where my society is likely to go.

TERENCE SMITH: Is there a danger in a setting like that of journalists in effect interviewing one another and talking in a tight circle with political consultants?

BILL KOVACH: We see it all the time. I mean, we just... My wife and I just came back from a trip to the west coast, and we read papers across the country. And each day, no matter which papers you picked up on the campaign, the stories were essentially the same. They were focused on exactly the same steps and touches, and it looked like the same reporters wrote them.

TERENCE SMITH: Turning to broadcast, there was controversy this past summer when the broadcast networks generally chose to downplay and reduce their coverage of the national nominating conventions. What did you think of that?

BILL KOVACH: Well, I think it's an abrogation of their responsibility and their duty, although I have to say, they gave Jim Lehrer a better audience, and I enjoyed it immensely.

TERENCE SMITH: We're not complaining about that, obviously.

BILL KOVACH: Not as a viewer, I'm not complaining about that. I just think it's... I just think it's irresponsible of the major news organizations to move in that direction when they do still have an obligation despite deregulation. They still do have an obligation to the public and an obligation to the process by which the American people try to become involved in their own governance.

TERENCE SMITH: Another great controversy these days is what is often described anyway as the blurring of news and entertainment into a sort of homogenized, difficult- to-discern product. Do you see it?

BILL KOVACH: Infotainment, all the time. It's the confusion of the two roles. They've-- they being the entertainment medium that drives this process-- learned a long time ago that the more near life, the truer a fictional thing appears, the greater the audience participation is. So they've always lusted for fiction that looks more like fact than fact itself, and that seems to be where they're headed -- the whole idea of this program "Survivor," which they've now turned into a news product.

TERENCE SMITH: Using news personnel.

BILL KOVACH: Using news personnel, and they use the participants in the show as subjects of the news programs morning shows to discuss what it was like to live through "Survivor." And the whole purpose seems to be to destroy any separation between truth and fiction, which has got to be fundamentally destructive of the news organizations that reside in their midst, because once the public takes the position, "I can't believe anything you have to offer me," we're in trouble.

TERENCE SMITH: Then the whole business is in trouble.

BILL KOVACH: We're in trouble as an institution.

TERENCE SMITH: Sounds like there's a lot to keep an eye on. Bill Kovach, thank you very much.

FINALLY - THE OLYMPICS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, an ode to the Olympics. Here is NewsHour contributor and former poet laureate, Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY: The original Olympic games of ancient Greece included familiar events like foot races and wrestling, as well as races in horse-drawn chariots and mule cars. The poet Pindar wrote many odes for choral performance with song and dancing, celebrating the Olympic victors. The importance of the games is clear from the opening of Pindar's first Olympian ode, celebrating Heoron of Syracuse, who won the horse race in 476 B.C. Pindar compares the games to the elements. "Water is supreme, and gold, like fire at night, stands out among all the substances that heighten human pride. But if you want to celebrate greatness and games, oh, my soul, you'll find no brighter star in the vastness of space than the sun, no contest more glorious than Olympia." In another ode, in Frank Mithitidge's translation, Pindar recalls the founding of the games by Hercules, and speaks of "the one who alone fools truth true, time." And the catalog of names, like a modern sportscast, is also like a glorious elegy on that theme of time. "And time, moving onward, has made it manifest, how Herocles set war's first fruits aside for sacrifice and ordained the five- year festival with the first Olympiad and its triumphs. Say then, who won the new crown, praying for victory in his thoughts and seizing it by his deeds in boxing, in running, in the chariot race? Running the straight dash, Oyonos was the best, Likminios' son, who came from Aidia at the head of the host. For wrestling, Ekemos had his home, Tigeia, proclaimed to the throne. Duroclos' Turins took away the boxing prize, and with the four- horse team, it was Saymos out of Mantanea, Haliorothios' son. With the javelin, Festor struck the mark. In distance, Nikaeas sent the stones spun from the whirl of his hand past them all, and as it passed his comrades in arms, sent a shout roaring after it. And then the radiance of the moon's beautiful eye made everything shine."

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday: The opposition claimed victory in Yugoslavia's presidential election, but aides to President Milosevic insisted he was ahead in the official vote count, still under way. And oil prices fell in the United States at President Clinton ordered a release from the strategic reserve on Friday. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.