The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour; Fifteen Years of MacNeil/Lehrer. Part 2

yeah we're heading in the homestretch now we've saved the very best for last a peek inside the psyches of two cool collected broadcasters were revealed precious little of themselves in more than fifty years of the year in our conversation we were curious about the first time their paths crossed by chance it came in a moment every american at that time can pinpoint vividly the day john f kennedy was murdered in dallas in nineteen sixty three book when mia lehrer with their reporting the story whoa whoa whoa where cover the federally the dallas times harold and was reporting on security at airports for president kennedy's visit me it was a white house correspondent for nbc news writing an oppressive us just behind a presidential motorcade shots were fired what jumped off the press bus to notify nbc a gash to parkland hospital he phoned in live reports the network

everything was different for the kennedy assassination and the the protection of those was anything like it is now reporters were frequently it inside the ring of secrets and i was that morning in fort worth remembering kennedy came out to speak to the crowd i went round shoulder to shoulder with the president is he went around shaking hands inside the rink i did the same thing at love and i didn't like where we were captured several places like getting on the fence of love field and i was so new era when times at the press conference announced tuesday and i was in the jail that night at the press conference in a lawful and we know it the male eventually left nbc to produce documentaries for the british broadcasting corporation lehrer became city editor of the dallas times harold and then moved on to the local public television station k e r a local those of thousand of them and they both won him as a public

television news executive robert is a senior correspondent on leave from the bbc before the watergate hearing there as the host in early nineteen seventy three hundred years of rem and socialize it was arguably the most damaging to or december nineteen seventy three american festival provincial by comparison so he was world travelers everywhere foreign correspondent it more now in and trench coats and water and i'd been unknowable or a dough that's about it and it would become more southwestern he's become more and more you never saw a success in the state at first look they're an odd couple as a shotgun marriage of texas in canada i think the pairing of a canadian and attacks on the macneil lehrer report is that he is a rich wanted he logically because in both instances you have people who

are i think it'll actually geographically adventures prepared to enough to push back and see the rest of the world not as it is seen in washington you work at its to austin texas the single greatest surprise about these two very different men are so close they become a trusted each other is total extending even into the hereafter and it happens to him it's in his will that i will look after his kids investors and the minute yes the convention in television this competitive hard edged business we call television to think that the two guys like that working so closely together all the time in such an intense atmosphere all the time when marriage to become for aid to think that they would've gone to seventeen years without a crossword and to my knowledge it's never the crossword many people are not above either because of their own ambition or because they're forced to professionally

making their careers at the expense of their college careers and energetic back stabbing each other and that everything else but to realize if you're working with somebody who passed the power to either diminished or enhanced you and you know without even thinking about that this person will never do anything other than to a mansion will never do anything to diminish what a terrific way that is to go through professional for example and television everybody wants to be good ministers a president to be interviewed or some big horn figure or you want the big interview everybody celebrates that you know that slingshot if you can arrive at a situation where you can honestly say wow i'd like to do it but it's better for sure you do and really honestly say that i know that it's going to be going back the other way journey takes it and that is the task and naturally

sometimes he's doing a lot of the tales about i would regard renee i really like to do and sometimes i think i am i don't know but he doesn't have a lot of time i know that you were doing better than i do on a particular interview and it is so it's it's it is a really key to it is the overall we don't keep score i mean it's not i can't help iranians it is an example of a hand up of an interview that day you felt you would do better to jimmy fallon about an example of a hand up and really hurt me and it all but with pleasure to watch it watch him do it just in this set of circumstances that are going on and more along going to that i was able to get awesome interview with fidel castro robin

what talented and he knew that story of castro ten times better than earned it because he was he had been their years and years ago he was it was something of abiding interest to hamed the whole evolution of cuban all that i just knew he would do a better job of it is there is there is a point in your system which is a winter well it does presuppose that the leadership of the country you are always right did you are infallible now does not know it because when i'm asked about it doesn't just you know we haven't forgotten you we love you anyway record and i watched that but

also saying i would write despised interesting is do the male prize is larry for his creative approach to you know like send a novelist and vietnam war hero jim webb and eleven on how the us marine corps action there in october nineteen eighty threes we couldn't have gotten in the marines are extremely suspicious and perhaps understandably want the media would be doing to them because the administration is under a lot of fire for june where guardian us our special correspondent hasan near the top of those people he was under fire in her thesis and raising fees directed to that people heard that some delivery of survivor i think that sort of the case or oh oh poser and the very end of the piece he was courting shakespeare's henry the fifth that isn't lying on the vietnam experience it was up to the politicians

to make sure that it's on the king announced that the cause is right and the politicians are going to take the responsibility these men are trusting their very lives to the wisdom of our leaders our government's obligation to them which was too frequently betrayed in vietnam has to proceed with a clarity of purpose that matches their own trust and commitment that was aired ten days before the marine barracks were born and i know it when i mean for that and he won an emmy for a lot of readers jim webb announced long before became secretary of the navy and no message inside it was one of those ideas that is quite outside the mold of the way we would've normally done things running gm also plays a crew of more than two hundred and get the show on the air every night live to receive so we have people who are nice people were in sync with us philosophically and in sync with us journalistic when you care about what they do and who have asked the awakened in the middle of the night

and also quality we want a shop where people are happy to be working and where a naked ambition is not going to be the permanent home for getting ahead we want friends to work with just wanted to be a happy place and we want to have some human concern for the lives they rounded lives the people who work there that is a major priority for us and i think its reflection of the major tenets we want that congeniality and that trust to spread out in the water for a couple of guys who believed evolving and doing things their own way robin and gemma not particularly rebellious as youngsters their children and oppression who feel they are living out their father's dreams my father was a un was a romantic figure who wanted to be a writer and circumstances made it very difficult for him to be a writer and i have been able to be a journalist and a and a published writer

he heard here in a way that he didn't know about died too soon but he was a man of the sea was and he loved allah and so do i and i'm unable to own a boat and sailed in the way that you couldn't do he loved to travel and he just he was born with an itchy feet and wanting to travel and i've been able to do far more about around the world and he could why am i dad was concerned was the ultimate dream or my dad wanted to be somebody other than a great education leaders osama german immigrants but he wanted to be somebody he realized at a certain time in his life and then he went to work for here and so we lived through his songs the dead in nineteen seventy and for twenty years i've been grieving because i still miss him but i was like unless of say that and i think in my you know look at me look at me now by an idea knowing that right on fire and so well it

is a big thing for both of us we did we talk about this tim's father gloried in the success of his son's first novel the va lacks the story of the ragtag mexican army that we take the alamo the book became a hollywood movie he made movies antonio and they had a party unity guy subtle message you know don't go on canadians just make sure that my mom and dead you know get out of this but they can and us senate that a party for all the big shots and seven toyota show russia's come a rough cut of the movie and i conduct dow lost my wife kate and we were the party and there's a lot of drinking and everything we saw the rough cut my dad and had a little bit to drink in the fanciest hotel the fanciest ballroom in san antonio he came over and these can easily write that he said i just told somebody out the mac

lebron james weekley compared notes about their writing a pastime that has become an obsession between them have published ten books they never far from where prices is even on the weekends or rather his friends is working on a novel and he's just gone back to read to re read some stuff that he wrote several months ago and hasn't looked at it a while until a new guess there's nothing more exciting and to go back and read something that you wrote and fight again i sometimes really wonder how hard and jim were you know and i get an awful lot of credit on this anniversary for being in a dedicated newsman but i mean how many novels has gym right now and i don't have time to erect and reading how many books is robin written recently on his childhood or the great value of english listening to an awful lot of work for the bbc and they really work hard these two thousand is enough that's what it comes down to

respect and some on the power of this medium but it isn't enough to satisfy us in terms of firmness or desire expressed ourselves our best i wanted to be a writer from way back and that channeled into play reading my place didn't sell and i had become a journalist that's why i am a journalist and like you you wanted to be a journalist i didn't want a baby i never intended to be and i fell into it because i had a real effect as a reporter for the british news service reuters robin dreamed of literary deliverance i never got over the fantasy know sitting on that desk and that huge newsroom with two hundred told teletypes and typewriters going people spilling coffee and tea and shouting in austin messages going by the old fashioned it the newsroom or the fantasy that one of us supercilious englishman at the top of the desk as he hauls read his newspaper the daily telegraph he was always reading in my fantasy

as you play in the westin smashing review board from truitt coleman new we have a new point i would stand up and say yes and i'm leaving i needless to say we've seen as younger men now has a look ahead to this move some ten years ago about land use reform was a real program it may give us a clue about rather than gm will look and heaven forbid dress in the late nineties his styles may change but they insist their brand of journalism i would like the show to continue to do the job it doesn't know her for as many years as it's relevant to the audience it's a duty that was her we work in has changed there are many more news programs to choose from american viewers are changing their viewing and reading habits i think robin and jim have a long way to go they'd been together fifteen years but they're young

man and i think they got many very good years ahead of them i also think frankly that we are building an organization that is going to be in a position to carry this program on land and if they decide they want to retire i don't think of retirement maybe eminem for them the thing i love about mcneil lehrer is its capacity to grow and expand on in the original idea that was really good in the first place i mean nothing has changed about the fundamental idea of this program and that is to provide the public with enough information to make intelligent decisions about their their lives and their future we're just built on that and grown and needed better and better i have friends who either still look at the networks and the networks say to me and i don't want so i come padding us all the facts here but but to a person they're

all saying you know you really have ended up in in you know the one serious place is that stealing televisions but there's nobody was doing exactly what we do which is every night take him give a summary of the know just what's happened the last twenty four hours and take two three stories and calmly report on the work ginny to see the mission as the same as we have is trying in a reasonably quiet incoherent and we hope a lucid way to elucidate the big issues of the day and some of the smaller but fascinating issues of the day whether on tape or whether in the studio that's as long as people want us to do that wu i think that's a good mission underwater transmission would look a lot like you know we say that we did and our we don't have enjoyed celebrating the newshour and getting you know robin and give as much as we have their program for that does make them seem detached and serious but as you can

see they are both men a passion and genuine want in a profession where individuals can too often the ruthless their relationship is probably unique i'm asian market for the commercial networks cut out his evening news broadcast how difficult would be to find a substitute you can always look to another channel exactly with the newshour one of the year wrote its viewers find a replacement would be very hard i think what he's saying david is that nick naylor make one pair that does beat three of a kind of about one her brother jem have brought something very special for american television program we've been very happy to celebrate with all of you is mark sherer is david gergen thank you thank you

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