The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Highlights Reel

oh i'm robert macneil onto nineteen sixty evenings a year every weeknight mcneil lehrer report comes from the studio in new york and one in washington and three years on the air jon lehr and i've established a format which is achieve some recognition as a different way of treating the news on television those of you familiar with the format and the program will recognize it live guests representing different points of view with me at this desk or with gin in washington analyzing for half an hour just one story often we interconnect with a third said they were proud of that format it's unique in television and we think we pioneered something but we recognize from the beginning but for some stories it has limitations those stories need more visual treatment the audience needs to be carried to a place to share an experience to witness an event to meet people in a manner not possible in the studio we're not interested in picture for pitchers say there's too much of that on commercial television we call it visual wallpaper and we don't want it but when a story

or part of a story is better told in pictures we do want to tell it that way and is our resources of primitive we've gradually move that way varying the basic format with a variety of others as our program develops we want to increase this variety not only a large is our journalistic dimensions but it offers the audience the pleasure of variety of change of flavor so i want to show you how we've done that with certain stories this past year in one group are stories we first laid out in short documentaries that analyzed here live in the studio one of the most dramatic was the intensive police search for the so called son of sam mass killer in new york it was annoyed subject receiving very sensational treatment by the commercial media we chose to examine quietly with the inspector in charge of the investigation and his team the process the police were using to track down the killer two days after our science and killed his last

victim the psychologist tell us that this man is paranoid schizophrenia erotic they say very likely to be the type of question keeps to himself an awesome lives alone work and it's a very silent member of a family you'd be regarded as autumn some of what is this possibility some psychologists tell us that he's a little a job such as a mechanic a machinist ricardo person is attracted to places where young people can get his victims usually a loan from the female victims whose primary purpose into iran from the age of seventeen years has a twenty one seat and one is beyond that age are all the us less than twenty one years on his

last killing some of sam made the mistake the police had been waiting for and was captured he fit in precisely the profile inspector have outlined the american bar association ordered that program it's nineteen seventy eight certificate of marriage we applied that technique report on film followed by studio analysis on a number of other stories from boston the desire of local government to remove public housing projects that have become slums demolition of public housing in st louis in nineteen seventy two at the time those who move the crime ridden mostly vacant thirty three buildings share but six years later the images still haunts on federal officials other city want to erase their public housing failures but with a long waiting list for people want to get into public housing the federal government is saying you can't tear them down from around the country for inflation affect the wives and pleasures of children tough on the kids they avoided by social called what the hell is gone up but we really felt that

it was filled with our economy nowadays kids don't have the money to pay for the candy and this is very of a price as far as kids are concerned heading into new roads and invalid isn't go very far when you pay twenty cents sam and pittsburgh the dangerous neglect of thousands of american bridge is this is the founder of range of fifty one year old structure use one twelve thousand cars every day it's rated number three on pennsylvania's critical letters angelina the matter with his bridge it's generally overall picture of that it's that word is replace you can see behind me the water coming through the deck of the steel it is very nature of a lot of corrosion lot of members broken completely rusted away from west

virginia jim lehrer on the problems of amtrak shrinking passengers services it does forty and once again the question is the cycle of reproduction or explain why beef prices have risen so sharply in the cattle business the crucial element is supply americans' appetite for beef has grown steadily with consumption doubling over the past two decades but in the past three years the cattle

herds have been reduced more sharply than in any time in this century the cutbacks came after several years of staggering losses due to lower beef prices drugs and the squeeze of inflation cost of machinery and equipment the cost of labor on just about anything you can put your finger on including taxes and interest a lot of the last three or four years and i suppose that that leaves me in the situation or whatever i could produce a cab for five years ago i can no longer produce a cafe break even have that same venue and tomorrow on the road again with the economic crisis facing long distance buses these are intercity bus is hardly the sex objects of american transportation that they have suddenly become the object of markets or bus ridership is down on the image on expenses of the

competition around it's a combination of these in each of those programs the short documentary report was followed by live discussion to pursue the points raised in the film and a few programs we decided that the story desert of four documentary treatment it's a change of pace for the audience and the story is best told out there one of the most successful was the issue that dominates much of the politics of the west how to divide up the water it's centered on a real character a seventy year old doctor danielle and campaigning in california's imperial valley for a former federal water policy educating the public like a pamphleteer of american revolutionary days young finds you must overcome fear with a novel ways of assessing public opinion

nobody will help me take the paper shot of lanai run for office mops vote for me in nineteen sixty three only after two years after ireland about it and only one year after the people and about two and those letters i ran right on a specific problem i'll run for assessor collector of the imperial irrigation district as a gallup poll when you're both a gallon you mean you want the sixty acre limitation reforms say eighty seven percent of the votes were for me another biting dissents we would've been damage it not at that time the people have to take my word for it and believe me that there were such a warm the war was on the site i wanted to see where we were always thought was situation and a lot of people are now beginning to page out of what's happening the imperial valley with over four hundred and fifty thousand acres and production is the fifth largest agricultural county in the united

states the county's total gross income in nineteen seventy six was over five hundred and twenty million dollars was twenty cops in the million dollar category got a lead the list followed by alfalfa lettuce cotton wheat sugar beets cantaloupes and so ninety percent of the lettuce americans eat in december and january each year it's in the imperial valley when the roads are named after your father's you've lived in the imperial valley long enough to know the price at which hard work and water approaches fertile fields from dry land out bachmann and john boehner are such men bachmann now seventy one raises wheat sugar beets and head on some three thousand acre thought that we could build up something and then no their medicare they're trying to tear down and an id like a massive the videos are on a tear down because the

robot can survive under without an outside job on honor and sixty acres now i would like to change the pace a bit by looking at a piece of americana that is funny and yet it tells a lot about changing values and that way we don't treat us a song potato chips tomatoes i screamed the air and turkey's a couple of the new one and then we'll end up of wbur poll in and our poetry and a battle plan and obama and they began to leave my ego won't let people are fit i wonder how the turkey got its name there's no simple answer to that one

version is in columbus he was in india was further confused and thought turkeys were pickups so he named them talk which in the tonal language of india means peacock jewish merchants is so the birds once they arrived in europe allegedly changed the name to talking the hebrew word for peacock turkey was eventually anglicized turkey and isolation is that some europeans can fears the new bird with a guinea fowl which was then being imported from turkey befriend shall ever thought the bird came from india that's banned in french the apostrophe got lost along the way the modern french word for turkey became banned the french were probably the first to be amused by the target and they used it as a symbol of stupidity but they enjoyed eating a court and a jury trial the french chef now you may wonder why turkey has been home of the french classic what was brought to you up in the seventeenth century by spanish explorers who aided in mexico and thought it was so good they brought it to europe and was even well known to the great chef kat

brown and we have saved the world the physiology of taste have different from france during the revolution when he came to america and he shot his own wild turkey near hartford connecticut and it corrected himself or his hoax so the french have taken over turkey to leave and have a turkey pan greased are taken from the tale of by the one in the us to wait dido dined on the back of a flying french turkey the do the nineties often domino and now you know just about everything you need to know about a target you didn't understand that the french tongue twister world is spelled correctly we hope in the transcript turkeys are funny because turkey's are done so dalma baby turkeys have to be taught to eat and drink and people watched them they can craddock against the fence and smother each other will sit on their nest without moving and starve

themselves to death unless product turkey's attacking unprovoked and run around aimlessly and sudden fright at something as innocuous as their own shadows another change a form that we've used far more sparingly than we would like is to present a major newsmaker where he is we believe that our approach to such interviews is quite different from the network's trial today israeli prime minister baghdad today criticized what the egyptians have been saying about him and his people and they encountered were some comments of his own about egyptian president anwar sadat accusers about of making some irrational statements and questioning the egyptians real motives were suddenly pulling out of the peace talks last week they get remarks came in a conversation with robert mcneill in a quiet setting of the prime minister's private option to roosevelt it was the first interview begun has granted says the talks were suspended it was filmed this morning and then transmitted back here by satellite well

are you not concerned that world opinion might seem as just that gesture in very simple terms whereas yours your position is much more complicated requiring on the precise wording of resolution to four to the united nations and has just that's just your like therefore carry the day just in public relations firms those some of his advisers would like to get in that night doesn't know my friend i think they only succeeded in losing the use of your vacation because all these problems and roads and lens on life when presidents of the us is to go back to the skating line to the west of the scene in the nineties should be the palestinian state that we are now convention because then all citizen vows will be in the range of the conventional thriller

which is bent on the destruction of his low so that the delegate things and knows it's a dream and any moment in showbiz and that its physical danger of the chemical formulation segment of our lives the capital of the republic of south africa and the seat of its government that government in the four million whites it rules find themselves increasingly isolated by the world community are pursuing an official policy of the party or separation of white and black races but south africa's prime minister john foster has just been given a fresh electoral mandate for that policy tonight from his office in pretoria a conversation with john foster tonight on the eve of his talks with president carter a conversation in williamsburg with a sharpie right as you know president carter isn't the only one who will be a watchman them are

an estimated fifteen thousand or so demonstrators are also supposed to be there some demonstrating for you some against you as was the case for the second hour are you disturbed over the fact of that your visit is causing such a ruckus i'm confident i'm disturbed me because having that issue will inquire about the nature of those who demonstrate against you would find that wearing masks and there i would be very much interested to see armenians are behind those mosques during those interviews required are using the international satellite and we could only get the shot run by taking a mobile unit to williamsburg that's also necessary when we feel an event is important enough

to cover live commercial television as their playoff and squeeze their stories into one or two minutes for instance we were on the air live for the historic panama canal boat and its aftermath and the connecting capitol hill and panama city goodman from capitol hill here in washington were a short while ago the senate of the united states' voter approval of the second panama canal treaty the wand which turns ownership of the canal itself over to the republic of panama in the year two thousand tonight with three key players on the senate panel senator alan cranston and jane garnett and dennis deconcini a lot of the dynamics behind the boat itself and the reaction both here and in animal mr dale which americans don't always feel proud well we never none of the world of the things that was done for generations the negotiation that led to these treaties began fourteen years ago and i continued on a pole the

ministrations for president i'm proud of a reach their conclusion long public pressure from park proud that we as a people as shown in the fall and open debate about the difficult foreign policy objectives that we will reach a decision at all in the best interest of our nation let's listen another extraordinary story where's the romney is a more a trial in miami the teenager who pleaded tv violence is an excuse for murder on television have the only cameras in the courtroom and we get rid of the pain circuit court eleventh judicial circuit florida and poured a county

a number seventy seven to five to one twenty three a state board members is running out for tomorrow project we the jury in miami dade county over find the defendant ron albertson mara as to count one of the indictment guilty of murder in the first degree so say we all hinge on that one hulu risk agree finally there are stories which compel a journalist print or electronic to reach a little further for a note of eloquence the death of hubert humphrey seem to call for something a little different as columnist joseph kraft road watching him on the day of his tribute in the senate neither in the senate nor in the country show we see his white soon again if ever

more than two thousand years ago asteroids in a man's words should be measured by the amount of himself that he's given to his people by that measurement there are probably fewer americans whatever their politics would not great hubert humphrey's was very high is clearly a lifetime of giving himself it has been it's b no