Perspectives; Alan Simpson

This is perspective Sun Mercury News. On today's show a little media bashing. My guest is former United States senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming. He spent 18 years in Washington speaking his mind even when it got him into hot water. First he was a media darling described by one reporter as a refreshing breeze in the halls of the Capitol. But when Simpson started talking bad because he thought some journalists got their stories wrong. Then they called him a tart tongued politician who as Sam Donaldson once said rides the press like he's breaking a Bronco. Simpson has written a book now about it all called right in the old Gazoo a lifetime of scrapping with the press. He's always funny and colorful and ok sometimes he does have a point. Alan Simpson takes on the press again. First me. This is New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Laura turning with perspectives. My guest is the former U.S. senator from Wyoming Alan K. Simpson and his new book is called right in the old Gazoo a lifetime of scrapping with the press. Senator

thanks for joining us. It's a pleasure. Laura it's a great honor and a privilege and I'm here in Boston with grading papers today an all new experience for me. Well how has the change been from politics to academia. It is been so swift so so so so in and we're so immersed. You leave the U.S. Senate come here to Harvard. We're living it. Elliott House on the campus the second floor apartment a little tiny fireplace a little place like it was better than anything we had on the G.I. Bill. Ann's taken a course in British imperial history trying to find out how our two great grandfathers were both born in India. We found out they were both Scotch and English Sanam over there because they didn't want to go oh that's that story and sell and then I'm teaching a course called the creating of legislation Congress and the press under the auspices of the Shorenstein Center. Press

public policy politics and Marvin coward as my mentor I teach two thirty's to four Tuesdays and Thursdays we're reviewing the positives and the negatives. Various issues like immigration and the press impact on that how they helped a great deal and that they're going to get into some of the self criticism of the media they're tougher on themselves now than I used to be. Why do you think that is. I don't know but I'll tell you when I started to write the book about six years ago when I was asked to write the book by the publisher Morrow Company I can tell you so much has changed in that six years because I and I sit in the seminars here at this center and listen to the two of them criticized themselves and really honestly examine themselves and it's quite dramatic. The things like the Food Lion case and and lying and James Fallows book so many months ago

there's a lot of a lot of honest criticism that comes within their own craft and that's of course the only way it will ever change you. I have no desire none to restrict or curb or limit. I just you know get the stickit Mary like they still get mine. Your book is full of anecdotes about your scraps at the press over the years. Let me ask you this. What bugs you the most about the media right now. Well that's a good quick with a quick question I'll give a quick answer I must say it's kind of a duality. The one the grinds for me is the anonymous source to pick up a paper and you're reading an article everything positive is attributed and then you get to the point where it says but unnamed highly placed sources this is a certified 58 karat jerk and that won't that won't get it done that that is or the most salacious or harsh or nasty or cutesy stuff is an

unnamed source and I tell you if the American people and bored journalists don't like it when I say it but the American people think the anonymous source might be the reporter. Well would you concede that in some cases it's difficult to get people to talk on the record about things that are truthful. But with which they can attach their name for whatever reason. Yeah but then I also address the self criticism to those of our craft and I think any politician who continually goes about his or her work saying now look this is all off the record are disgraceful as far as journalists who use the anonymous source. Maybe I'm a green pea but that's the way I feel about that. But in the pursuit of truth as journalists like to see themselves as doing would you in any case see where anonymous sources might be necessary. I mean what about the most famous anonymous source of all which I would say was Deep Throat in the Watergate case. Well I see for every one of those highly dramatic while. And that's what we had a panel the other night on ABC or for an hour and a half on food line.

They brought up the whole cost her plane crashes. We're not talking about that. Sure that I'm not an absolute just in fact show me a guy who's 100 percent or and I'll show you a guy I want to stay away from. I have there are places I suppose in wartime in times of national security but as the guy said the other night a different Palace he said while he said the Holocaust is a little different than macaroni solids. Where would you draw the line in terms of importance of the subject matter. Well you could draw the line with things like civility or the right to privacy. Precious right to privacy which people prattle about all the time I saw Robert Bork destroyed on the basis that he was an invader of privacy while some jerk from the media was going through his video store found out where he rented his videos to find out what he was ranting about that was. Well I think a lot of us would concede there are jerks in the media at large jerks in my line of

work too. We get the blame for him. I mean you you as a guy as a classy journalist print and electronic and your background are very astute and able journalist and you know who you know who people on the street think you're connected with. Sure. RIVERA And all the tabloids with me. I'm opinionated perverse Henri. But I don't lie and I'm equated with some of the goofiest doods in the Congress that have ever been in the Congress. That's the way it works. Well what do you do to distinguish yourself from them. You just state your case state your piece and that's what good journalists are doing now there. They're divorcing themselves from from the quote tabloids but no you know I don't know how you people are going to get along I mean you can't you have so much competition and you have to get there first and to watch don't think America didn't didn't

almost They weren't laugh and they weren't laughing with you they were laughin at you on here here. The present the United States and I'm not of my party but he is my president and I respect that. And here we are all we get is a continual babble in the background of O.J. Simpson. That's tedious that isn't news. Then of course the guy that will win the award at the next press bank was the guy I was reading cards who were held up by somebody stand in front of a window who cares. Nobody nobody cares about that. You mean when the verdict was announced in the civil case involving Simpson is that what you're talking about yeah right. Yeah. When they held up cards that said yes or no I know this guy but this guy has said now that he was a scoop you say and the scoop in these times I guess is 30 seconds. And and nobody cares. I don't think I'm going to ask you this from a business point of view Senator if people have concluded that this is what America wants to hear and read. Why blame the messengers.

I've always thrown it back. I get that one. Have you ever heard people say that a great book great movie changed their lives. What the hell do you think of a wretched follow book to somebody or a movie does that then not change their lives. I think they throw it away. Well no they don't they read it because you and I probably read it you see this is a this is a level where journalists really as if as if a piece of trash came into their hands to sully their psyche that they would toss it away. Hell they read it just like everybody else. And so there's a level of arrogance that you asked me the second part of it I'll tell you what it is it's plainly elitism and arrogance. It's like we don't make mistakes and if we do we never ever say anything except the marvelous phrase we stick by our story. Now that's a galling little statement. But aren't you saying though that the pressure to decide what America should read. I mean if you're saying well you know I don't I don't think we should feed people a daily diet of O.J. Simpson even if they

wanted to or you know it's sort of like telling people what kinds of books they should and shouldn't read one don't let them make that decision. Well you know we're in then we get into things I suppose like censorship. I don't speak of censorship I don't want to do anything to the press but let me tell you anyone that can speak of journalism in high blown phrases today. Is really a that's a phrase that boy they don't like because they've used it on all of us many times it's called they just don't get it because everybody in America knows that this is not about journalism it's about making money and making money means you do entertainment or else Primetime Live would not beyond during prime time. If it were simply news it is not news it is entertainment. So why why have this hypocrisy this fooling of ourselves. I wish you could have seen the people who were in the wings the other night of this hour and a half

live town meeting with Koppel. I saw some of the stiffest looking humorless people on both sides. The ABC people and the food line people just milling around lawyers comptrollers accountants stick figures. Plastic people just all of them. One of them saying we're not in the entertainment business we're not in it to make a profit the other saying we do everything right we never make a mistake we're never a rotten piece of chicken I mean. And then both of them with highly paid media people who could who could slip the issue and all the spam stuff that goes well it's fascinating. Well now of course what we're talk about here the Food Lion case was where ABC just lost a big court case in which a couple their producers had posed as employees at food line and they ran a report that alleged mishandling of some

products but you know certainly you would acknowledge that was a healthy discussion of the issue for ABC to conduct. It was an and I think Ted Koppel tried desperately to show that he was trying to be unbiased even though Roone Arledge was his boss. And Diane Sawyer his colleague in contemporary and Don Hewitt someone he'd known and I think that's that's another thing I say in my book if if a journalist would just say look I want to ask you questions about nuclear power but Simpson I think nuclear power is just about the worst thing in God's green earth and will lead to the destruction of humanity. That would be maybe good so that we know the bias we all have biases and there's the other one where you a journalist can say I don't have a bias. There are politicians of any sensible or a joke and understand the biases of a reporter within 10 minutes.

My guest is former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming we're talking about his book it's called right me old gazoo. It's about his lifetime of dealing with the press hasn't always been pleasant has it and who have had to talk about Nina Totenberg Senator when will you know will be here this one of which she's going to do a class with me and I think she's scheduled for the twenty seventh of February I'm not sure of the date but she's committed and she and I are going to be there and she will speak. I will introduce her and tell her that she and I have been to some real scraps and that we got hammered around both of us opened up like a can of tuna and then let them know that democracy is sloppy and messy and intense and harsh sometimes. But the basic thread of it all this is a return at least to civility. Why don't you tell us what happened between you know and Nina Totenberg that night during

Nightline during the Clarence Thomas you know I'll have to leave out a lot of the words This is a family show you know. And anyway I had watched me and it covering. The as she is she's very capable she covered the Supreme Court should cover the judicial nominations obviously that's an obvious offshoot of that. And I'd watch her interview. Ralph Nader is a man who had high biases and prejudices against Bork and against Thomas he's one of the ones that said well we're going to Bork Thomas too and I thought all over my dead cadaver anyway. I watched that in the interviews would take place. Oh do we know Clarence Thomas was in a church where they speak in tongues and oh I wonder what he's reading and wonder what this and on and on and on. And meanwhile we've confirmed Clarence Thomas four times four times this man have been confirmed in the U.S. Senate. And all of them after this event that need to heal and the the

hill alleged took place I mean of course you're talking about his having been confirmed for other positions on various courts. That is correct. He was a he was confirmed these were all subject to Senate you know information the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the the the District Court of the District of Columbia another separate one four times. And all of them came after this supposed that they happen and then of course the FAA enough of that Anyway I listened in the in the interviewing these people and you know. Thomas. Rosco of the century. So we were on Nightline and I think Paul Simon was on there. And finally I got a belly full of and that's where I get a lot of trouble I said. Why do you even try to admit that you're unbiased you've been cut. Clarence Thomas is a bicycle tire now for about 40 days. And to come on and tell us that you're just a reporter I said just won't cut it Don. Oh she said you can't

you can't talk to me like that. You can't make those accusations. I said well I am. So anyway after the show we sighed and then I said Nina. What I said in there I really meant and I have here in my pocket the code of ethics of journalism it talks about privacy the precious right of privacy in this. And she said. Then I said why you people love to dish it out but you can't take it and she won't know. Why Inger and she had a few words for you she did and said even if you blame are you are you know on a watch or egg on the entire population of the United States. You know I mean you see this is the part this is where all journalists eventually go. It's it's they don't know how it feels. Intel and they never will tell us somebody's ripping their skin off. They love to dish it out. I mean they have a they have a desire to be this the sacred ones who wander

among us with their Jesus shoes on to save us from ourselves. And then you nail lamb and boy I tell you there's a defensive mechanism that kicks in that a shrink would have to find. Well Senator Yeah I dish it out too. I do. Yeah but I you you learn to take it. I mean I got to take it. I'm in public life. You know when you when you get nailed or when you those in your craft get nailed the first thing we hear is about the First Amendment. Well that's always good. Oh I can't believe it was a savage assault. Or is a savage assault on the public's right to know or it's the chilling effect I mean we've all been there all of us who who had the slings and arrows but anyway I was fed up and they're irritated as all can be and I looked around see where Paul Simon was why he disappeared like squash vines in the winter time he was gone. So what do you think is afraid of you. He just wanted out he can see that the two of us were in a rich discussion.

And me and they called me later a few weeks later and she said well you and I both been hammered around a little have when I said boy we sure have she said Would you like to go to the National Press Club dinner with me as my guest and I said I'll do it. We'll do it so we stuck together that night and she won the award that night she didn't know she was going to receive it when she invited me for the outstanding investigative reporting of the Clarence Thomas hearing. Why did you agree to go with there isn't that with all due respect sort of hypocritical because you know I got a phrase in life hatred corrodes the container it's carried down. Now you show me a guy the sitting around here in our line of work said Don't get mad get even and I'll show you a guy with gas holsters B.O. heartburn and a real master in life. And when she called. You know hell I'd been hammered flat. She had been hammered flat some of her journalistic colleagues dug up some wonderful things about her past I thought that was a dazzling bit of loyalty splattered all over the front

pages saying that they you know did you know that Nina did this. It was an easy call for me because I don't sit around and think of how to get even I don't sit around and brood. If I have business to do with someone I do the business with that person. And I thought it took a lot of guts for her to call and say as she did we've been hammered around and I had I had my read that I thought that that was much more than my acceptance the courage was hers. You're listening to Perspectives a New Hampshire Public Radio and my guest today is the former United States and from Wyoming Alan Simpson who we're talking about his book on the press it's called right in the old zoo center you think you have a thin skin. Well sure. Sure I do. Yeah I'd say that in the book. So this book your defense mechanism on that. Look the book is The End. It's all in the book.

You're to know you've been credulous and this is a typical journalistic response because you don't like to be criticized. You are you are out among us. You are to save us from tainted meat. You are the ones that will save us from this and that you are you are. And nobody appointed you nobody appointed you but that's what I see that you are doing God's work. And if the rest of us will just shut up and let you do it we will be the better for I don't lie now you know you will know that I do know I do know. I have listened to journalists for 31 years. And if they if there is a thin or skimmed group in society then journalists they have to be pointed out to me. Well you know I think a lot of people would say you know it's Alan Simpson who's the media darling he's on all the talking head shows. He's a master of sound bytes he's funny he's entertaining makes us laugh makes his point I mean you've used the media.

I never used them they came to me and I I never came to Washington to find power don't don't chuckle. I am a legislator. I love legislating and I'm very I was very good at it. I would like to see things done. I didn't go there to be president or vice president or king or emperor I didn't go to be the leader I never would have run for majority leader I was the assistant majority leader under Bob Dole for 10 years which was a tremendous honor. I have been treated like a king by the media. I really have. So in this book when I point out this stupefying business of the Strom Thurmond issue where the you know the people who were interviewing were dead and the things I draw on in the book are things that to me are totally Pauling sources of the hunters versus the hunted. The fact that there is a code of ethics that it's made fun of by journalists and I name the journalists who make fun of it. Those are some of your old contemporaries on the Washington

Post. And so I just lay it out it's not about killing the Massinger or whether Nellie Bly was doing God's work or Upton Sinclair when he wrote about the meat packing industry we're talking about today. But do you think maybe it's sort of a blanket indictment of the profession. I mean you would agree there are many journalists who wouldn't agree for example with that young woman you met fresh out of Columbia Law School who said she was to hunt down people just like you Senator Simpson now. Come on. Well. How can I go back to Columbia J-school how how how much I get to tell them the anecdotal thing. But but are don't and others do it that's what was there's a disconnect. Once you get into and I'm good at it too. The other night as I say I keep getting topical on the food line. Suddenly we're talking about the whole a cost and we're talking about journalists don't report the planes that fly they report there was a crash Well we're not talking about

that. So I learned long ago that when somebody tells a horror story that's used and they're used in all ways to do several things you either use the emotions of it. Emotion fear guilt or racism. Now people don't like it when I say that but I can tell you after 31 years of legislating You either pass or kill a bill with the use of a deft Blanda of emotion fear guilt or racism. So here that's how it works. And so I learned long ago whenever somebody would start talking about well Senator Surely you're not going to let that person die. You wouldn't take money from the mouths of babes or ruin the senior citizens I say wait a minute. I'm not talking about those people I'm talking about the guy who's got a home in Sun City and a cabin in the big orange and three cars and making 70 grand a year in retirement and will drive you know hundred miles to a Perkins Restaurant to get the

20 percent ARPU discount. That's who I'm talking about. Well then they say well you're outrageous you're a fink you're you're. See this is fascinating to me and that's where I come in and I said it the other day. You hear the phrase service connected disabled veteran. Well you know it makes your heart pound while I have a veteran I was in for two years I went over seas that make me a war hero compared to half. I know guys who served less than eight months never left can't Beetle Bailey. The draw every single benefit that a combat veteran draws us so when you tell that then you're marked as a fink disk and you know you're all I've been called everything everything totally everything. And that's what I say. Well Senator Simpson thank you very much for talking with us and for being so cordial to a journalist. Well I am cordial or some very good ones and and I have the highest regard for the profession I just get to name a few a few does in my book.

Thanks again it's thank you John. Thank you very much. Alan Simpson is a former United States senator from Wyoming. Respect is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. Our show is produced by David Darman. I'm Laura Karen and thanks for listening and for so long do you think you are my everything. 3. Yet you're afraid thing I. Just saw me ski. Up memory. Nude from your most high. Keeps all soul far up. My hand I'd be your downfall my. Mail your cool whole heart. And other love for my time I. Read your heart. And blues.

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