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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Kerry bags a goose and gets endorsement from wife of Christopher Reeve; President Bush in Pennsylvania trying to win the state on Election Day

Aired October 21, 2004 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. At the center of the program tonight is a question. Is Iraq becoming so dangerous that responsible news organizations will soon find it too risky to cover?
This is no idle question. As we'll report later, some organizations are already pulling people out and every news organization, including this one lives in fear that the phone will ring with the news that a reporter or a photographer or a producer has been kidnapped or worse.

Imagine if we all do stop, if we pull out. How will you know what your sons and daughters are being asked to do, how they're living or dying? How will you know if your government is telling the truth or, for that matter, how will you know if our enemies are telling the truth?

In truth we are only able to tell part of the Iraq story these days, important parts of the story for sure but other parts of the story, both good news and bad are simply too dangerous to go after. The implications of that are the centerpiece of tonight's program.

We begin, however, at home with the campaign, the president in eastern Pennsylvania, so to our Senior White House Correspondent John King with the story and the headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, if the president loses Pennsylvania it certainly will not be for a lack of trying, his 40th visit to the state today since winning the White House, 41st on tap in the morning, more stops here than at his ranch in Crawford, Texas -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, John.

A headline too from CNN's Candy Crowley who continues her coverage of the Kerry campaign.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: John Kerry went hunting today. He bagged a goose but it's not really what he was looking for -- Aaron.

BROWN: Candy.

Finally to Iraq and the beginning of the school year, how is it different this year compared to last? CNN's Jane Arraf covering that joins us on the videophone, so Jane a headline. JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, Iraqi children are back at school but despite all the money destined for Iraq more than a third of those schools are in dangerous disrepair -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you.

We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up on the program tonight as part of our reporting on the risks of covering this war we spend time tonight with the photographers where getting the photo almost always means risking your life.

And later, a bit lighter for sure, Nissen becomes a poet and now we know it and we'll thank the Red Sox for it.

And, while not a poet, the rooster is truly a genius with words especially those on the printed page, morning papers wraps it up tonight, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with the small variation on an old political proverb. A voter here and a voter there and pretty soon you're talking about winning the White House. Just a few could make a difference, a precious few by now, but not just any old here or there.

Nobody's after the swing voters in Sacramento, California or the Catholic vote in Buffalo, New York. They're instead chasing suburbanites near Philadelphia and outside Youngstown, Ohio looking for goose hunters.

Two reports tonight, first CNN's Candy Crowley with Senator Kerry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): An early morning in rural Ohio, a gaggle of geese and a gun-toting John Kerry. The Democratic candidate bagged a goose Thursday morning. Wednesday night he let the cameras in to watch him watch the Red Sox game, all part of an effort to show voters what advisers call John Kerry, the guy.

The idea is to persuade voters wondering about John Kerry that he is a) a normal guy and b) won't take their guns away. Democrats have long felt the rural vote is theirs if they could convince gun owners they are not after their guns.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I understand he bought a new camouflage jacket for the occasion, which did make me wonder how regularly he does go goose hunting.

CROWLEY: For the record, his campaign says the Senator borrowed the camouflage. Anyway, by the time Kerry got to Columbus he had ditched the camo for a serious suit and a speech on scientific and technological innovation.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That if George Bush had been president during other periods of American history he would have sided with the candle lobby against electricity. He would have been with the buggy makers against the cars and the typewriter companies against the computers.

CROWLEY: This was not about electricity or computers but about embryonic stem cell research, a subject infused with the human side by Dana Reeve's first public appearance since her husband's death.

DANA REEVE, WIFE OF CHRISTOPHER REEVE: And I'm here today because John Kerry, like Christopher Reeve believes in keeping our hope alive.

CROWLEY: As much as the morning hunt was about rural male voters, the afternoon was about women, a voting block that had traditionally been more Democrat than Republican but has yet to fully warm up to John Kerry.

Candy Crowley CNN, Columbus, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The president, meantime, spent part of his day in Pennsylvania, a state that will either be his Omaha Beach or his Dunkirk depending largely on how several thousand people choose to vote. They are fairly well off, socially moderate, security minded and they may feel like they wish they could vote for one part of each candidate but they can't.

So, from the suburbs of Philadelphia tonight, here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The background is part of the message, the president's goal to heal a major campaign weakness.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to healthcare, Senator Kerry's prescription is bigger government with higher costs. My reforms will lower costs and give more control and choices to the American people.

KING: Five million Americans have lost health coverage during the Bush presidency and Senator Kerry has a big advantage on the issue, a problem for Mr. Bush in places like the Philadelphia suburbs critical to victory in Pennsylvania.

In appealing for a second look, Mr. Bush said his approach would limit the government's role but make healthcare more accessible and affordable by, among other things, expanding tax-free medical savings accounts, allowing small businesses to pool together to buy coverage and setting limits on medical malpractice awards.

BUSH: He has voted ten times against medical liability reform during his Senate career.

KING: The Catholic vote is also a target and Mr. Bush met with Cardinal Justin Regali (ph), Philadelphia's Roman Catholic Archbishop, and among the church leaders who says Catholics have a duty to vote for candidates who share the Vatican's opposition to abortion. It's a delicate balance. Courting social conservatives is critical yet can hurt Republicans in the moderate suburbs.

WILLIAM GREEN, GOP MEDIA ADVISOR: Where he needs to be in the Philadelphia suburbs is primarily on the economy and not so much the social issues. The social issues play here in western Pennsylvania and the central part of the state.

KING: Republican polling shows Mr. Bush down a few points in Pennsylvania.

BUSH: It's time to put up the signs. It is time to carry Pennsylvania.

KING: If he loses, it will not be for a lack of trying, this Hershey rally part of his 40th visit to the state as president, more to come before Election Day.

(on camera): Like abortion guns is an issue that can play one way here in the Philadelphia suburbs yet very differently in the central and western part of the state, so perhaps no surprise that while there was no mention of the episode here at the Hershey rally the president mocked a morning hunting trip taken by his opponent saying that even in camouflage Senator Kerry can't hide from his liberal record.

John King CNN, Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: But healthcare and stem cell research, while important, are in the end side issues to terror and the war and the war each day is a constant backdrop for everything on the campaign.

In Baghdad today, the highest ranking soldier in the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal was sentenced to eight years in the stockade. Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick was also demoted to private and dishonorably discharged. Yesterday he pleaded guilty to abusing detainees. Sergeant Frederick also admitted what he did was wrong but claims he was just following orders.

The American artillery assault on Fallujah continued today, shells landing on what the military called an insurgent stronghold. The military says seven people died. Three were wounded.

Also today a Sunni cleric with a following threatened an uprising if the U.S. launched an all out offensive into Fallujah. He said the city is safe and is not harboring the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The instability in Iraq is often framed in terms of whether it will delay the election set for January, a valid concern to be sure but not the only consequence of note.

The unrelenting violence has taken a huge toll on the efforts to rebuild the country and there are many examples. Tonight we look at one. Nearly half of Iraq's population is younger than 18 and for the second time since the fall of Saddam many are beginning a new school year.

Reporting tonight from Iraq, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): A new day of Iraqi classes is rung in at this primary school in Kirkuk for 250 first through sixth graders. At the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) school in this middle class neighborhood, Principal (UNINTELLIGIBLE) shows us around. There are only three toilets. The water tank is broken so there's no water in the bathrooms.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) in the sixth grade says their notebooks are such bad quality the pages rip and they can't read what they write in them. The desks are battered. The students say they need pencils and erasers and they haven't been given new textbooks.

The Iraqi government says half of Iraq's primary schools have no toilets. More than a quarter still need major structural repair. The problems are both money and security.

U.S. military officials on the ground say money that was to come in from the U.S. funded project and contracting office, which oversees $18 billion in reconstruction funds has been delayed. U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations which would normally help more have reduced operations due to the ongoing violence in parts of Iraq.

At this school, U.S. soldiers unpack supplies donated by American aid organizations. To help with community relations, the soldiers give the packages to Iraqi police to hand out, notebooks, rulers, erasers, colored pencils. They're the first most of these children, Arab, Kurds and Turkoman have seen this year. The 25th Infantry Division 2nd Brigade combat team was spending $48,000 of its own funds to renovate this school.

CAPT. DERRICK BIRD, U.S. ARMY: It means electricity and plumbing and just overall paint jobs as well as drinking water, electricity to put in fans, heaters, stuff like that.

ARRAF: If the school had more money they'd expand and maybe someday buy computers, says the principal. After they've been through, students want to feel there's something new in their lives, she says.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: One of the big problems is that UNICEF, the U.N. agency that would normally take a leading role in schools pulled out all of its international workers after its headquarters was bombed last year and hasn't cancelled its program but that lack of international staff and fears of security have sharply slowed them -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, I want to just turn you a little bit here. As you know, I think, we're later in the program going to talk a bit about the dangers for reporters in trying to cover the story. Number one, are you embedded tonight with the Army and, if you were not, could you have gotten to Kirkuk to report the story?

ARRAF: Unfortunately we couldn't, Aaron, and every company makes its own decisions and every journalist to a certain extent, although less so these days makes their own decisions. But as we've seen from recent State Department warnings road travel is a major problem.

One of the values of being embedded is not just that we get to places like this. It's that we can actually talk to people once we're here because we are under some sort of protection, plus it leaves us less vulnerable to being attacked on the road if we're with the military. It's a very sad state of affairs but it does allow us to do things here in the Sunni Triangle that we wouldn't otherwise do -- Aaron.

BROWN: And candidly does it -- does the fact that you're embedded limit you in some ways to what you're able to do, who you're able to talk to, how you're able to do your work?

ARRAF: I think, Aaron, it might have a few months ago but one of the things I've been really struck by in the last few weeks is that to be perfectly honest it has actually widened the opportunities we have to talk to people and that's perhaps a function of the dramatic state of affairs in Baghdad.

We have been able to do stories with this particular Army division that are not necessarily favorable to the Army or to the military simply because people here have the view that there's no good news or bad news. If it's true, you can report it and what they care about are the facts.

We've been able to do stories on larger numbers of civilian casualties and the military has reported stories on people who have been the victims caught in crossfire of U.S. attacks, things you normally wouldn't expect. So here, anyway, this time around in the Sunni Triangle it really has increased the opportunity. We actually have to talk to ordinary Iraqis -- Aaron.

BROWN: You know I say this to you in e-mails all the time. I'll say it now again here. You're just doing great work and stay safe. Thank you, Jane Arraf in Kirkuk tonight embedded with the Army.

Ahead on the program, Jeff Greenfield always gets tough assignments, doesn't he? Who else would suffer through a major league playoff game just to talk about politics?

Also, part four in our series on the issues. Tonight we look at education. We take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Central Park South on a cool night here in New York.

Later in the program we'll explore baseball as poetry, we really will.

First though baseball as politics, a break we imagine from politics is, oh, horseracing or prize fighting or war for that matter, a break only because our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield didn't spend the day at the races just a night in the Bronx.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): How could you, some sharp-eyed NEWSNIGHT viewers asked having spotted me and my son at the stadium Wednesday night. Was I slacking off my political job by watching the Red Sox make history, of course not.

(on camera): I was hard at work absorbing the critical, invaluable political lessons to be learned from Boston's improbable triumph, lessons we would all do well to remember in the campaign's closing days.

(voice-over): First, the leather-lunged loudmouths of the all sports media are just as thick headed as those of us in the political arena when we enunciate immutable laws.

You heard 100 times that no team in baseball has ever won a post series after falling behind three games to none. As history that was true but unlike say Newton's second law it didn't tell us anything about what could happen, a double bounce into the stands instead of on the field, a run didn't score and, bingo, Boston won game five and headed back to New York.

Remember that when you hear for the 100th time that no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. If Bush wins Pennsylvania or Michigan, he wouldn't need Ohio.

Is it true that wartime presidents are always reelected? Yes, if you count two in the last century and two others, Truman and Lyndon Johnson, were so unpopular they didn't even try to run. Knowing the past, good idea. Assuming it tells us about the future, not a good idea.

Here's a second rule to keep in mind, rabid partisans are simply not good judges of reality. In the eighth inning of game six, Alex Rodriguez appeared to have turned the game around when a ball flew out of a Red Sox fielder's glove. When the umpires ruled he had slapped the ball away they called him out. The fans went nuts. Riot police were deployed.

The replay showed the umps were clearly right but there's a reason we call them fans. It's short for fanatic. You can be sitting 400 feet away from home plate but you know the ball your pitcher threw was a strike way better than the umpire six inches away.

The lesson, we see it every day in our e-mail, we're covering up the blatant lies and trickery of George W. Bush. We're in the tank for Senator Kerry because we haven't ripped the lid off his mendacity.

Do not get me wrong. We are capable of making plenty of mistakes but the last people to offer a measured look in what we do are the people who view this campaign as the ultimate battle between good and evil.

(on camera): So go ahead call this slacking off. I call it political research. In fact, I think I should expand this research up at Fenway Park this weekend.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And, as we mentioned a moment ago, we're doing a bit of an experiment tonight trying to answer the question will promising poetry keep you from going to bed too early? We hope it does. The Red Sox have inspired Nissen to flights of fancy in verse and it's pretty cool even if she'll be keeping her day job, we hope. That's coming up.

And so is this and it's serious stuff, the growing impossibilities of covering Iraq, difficult to do. When is it too dangerous for reporters to even leave their hotel rooms?

And in the case of photojournalists, hotel room reporting is simply not an option. Risk is always there.

And around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As we said at the top tonight the centerpiece of this program looks at a couple of questions. Is Iraq becoming too dangerous for reporters to cover and if that happens, and this is essentially the important question, what are the implications?

No news organization, including this one, wants to admit that it can't cover a story as important as Iraq. In fact, we can cover it. We can cover the big events, the big attacks, the broad strokes of the insurgency, the government but it's getting harder to do even that let alone the smaller stories, good news and bad, that paint the larger picture.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): It wasn't just a single time when rockets slammed into the supposedly safe hotel in Baghdad where he was staying. That was trouble enough. It was the accumulation of all the other threatening incidents that made him glad his tour in Iraq had come to an end.

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF, "WASHINGTON POST": There have been home invasion, kidnappings in the capital, mortars flying very close to buildings where journalists are staying, so there's never a moment where you feel like you're completely safe.

BROWN: For many journalists in Iraq these days just doing their job can result in life and death situations, so much so that even the largest newspapers and broadcast outlets have severely restricted the movement of their reporters in the field.

SUSAN CHIRA, FOREIGN EDITOR, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Primarily, like many other journalists, our staff is mostly moving around either to different parts of the country via embeds with the American military or very carefully in selected ways to specific places but more and more it's hard for them to get out and do the job the way they prefer to do it.

BROWN: And that means mostly a great deal of time spent in hotel rooms not on the streets, not talking to people, not reporting.

CHANDRASEKARAN: Increasingly, I've had to spend, you know, hours and days in my hotel room effectively reporting by remote control, sending Iraqis out to go to places where I once used to be able to go myself.

BROWN: Several major European news organizations have already pulled their reporters out of Iraq and whether to stay or go is a subject of ongoing debate and discussion.

CHIRA: I'm in daily contact with our Baghdad Bureau and, you know, just agree to keep talking to each other to weigh what they feel is acceptable. It's all a terrible risk but what's an acceptable level of risk and what's an unacceptable level of risk.

BROWN: Also at risk, of course, is the lack of an on-the-ground eyewitness (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to an increasingly complex and costly and dangerous insurgency and increasingly unmonitored war.

CHANDRASEKARAN: You lose a degree of thoroughness, of an ability to ask follow-up questions. I mean there's something to be said for being able to look people in the eye and talk to them and really see yourself what they're saying to ask those necessary follow-up questions and it's totally unsatisfactory when you have to sit back in a fortified hotel room and rely on others to do some of that work for you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined now by veteran CBS news correspondent Barry Peterson, Mr. Peterson just back from Iraq and he joins us tonight from San Francisco. And from Anaheim, California, Christopher Dickey the Mideast Regional Editor for "Newsweek," it's good to see you both.

Barry, what sort of stories do you think you were not able to tell?

BARRY PETERSON, CBS NEWS: I was really frustrated because it was so hard to get out and we've got to emphasize that we did go out. We would go out but we would do it carefully. We'd check out the neighborhood. We would use our Iraqi people without going into great detail to make sure we were safe.

But it was like a hit-and-run mission. We would go out. We would do our interviews. We'd be as quick and efficient as possible and dash back and I always had the feeling that even though we got the sound bytes from the Iraqi side, just ordinary people, that's the story I felt that's really not getting covered because it's so hard to get there.

BROWN: You've done a fair amount in a distinguished career of war reporting. How is reporting this war different from reporting others or are they all different?

PETERSON: Well, this one there's no place that's safe, you know. When I was in Sarajevo, somebody would say, OK, don't go between those two buildings. That's a sniper alley and you kind of knew the rules. In this case no place is safe nowhere you drive. Anytime you go outside you are putting yourselves and the rest of your team in danger and we had to discuss this every time we wanted to go somewhere. We had to talk and do a risk assessment.

And I will say that in the end we almost always went because we felt the story deserved it but we didn't get out as much as we should have because you can't travel in any kind of safety in Baghdad. No place is safe.

BROWN: Chris, you said to us earlier that this was the most important story and the most dangerous story going. How much of this is the magazine farming out essentially to Arab stringers or Iraqi stringers as opposed to your own guys?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: Well, not a lot. We certainly use Arab stringers and local people to a certain extent but we try and go and report on scene as much as we possibly can.

The problem is it's impossible to go a lot of places unless you're with the U.S. military these days and you keep hearing this that the only way to go around is to be embedded with the troops. And while Jane was talking earlier she was saying, you know, sometimes you can get more that way.

BROWN: Yes.

DICKEY: But, in fact, it's pretty hard to get people to talk to you frankly when you've got a couple of guys with helmets and flak jackets standing behind you.

BROWN: Is the -- how cognizant are you, Chris, first of the danger you put sources in by simply talking to them?

DICKEY: Well, I think you're always worried about that. You're worried about everything at every minute when you're moving around in Baghdad. It's a little easier -- in fact, let's say it -- it's a lot easier for print reporters than it is for photographers and certainly for television crews.

BROWN: Yes.

DICKEY: This is a problem that we saw coming a long time ago, that there would -- that, as the war intensified, there were going to be kidnappings. It was going to get tighter.

And there was even a question over last winter about whether some reporters should start carrying guns. You stay away from that finally. I don't think anybody, I don't think any journalists are carrying guns in Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq these days. But you finally -- you get more and more detached from your sources and you just can't -- you can't talk to them anymore. You can't get to them without endangering them and you.

BROWN: Barry, did you ever think of carrying a gun?

BARRY PETERSON, CBS NEWS: No. I'm a journalist.

BROWN: Yes.

PETERSON: I believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. But...

BROWN: Yes, but.

PETERSON: Every time we went, there was a guy fully trained with a gun who went with us.

And he was very -- the guys who were our guards were very frank. He said my job is to save your life if the situation allows it, and he was very honest in telling me that sometimes it might not. And that's just the risk you had to take.

BROWN: And, actually, one of the guys who worked with you is a guy that baby-sat me pretty carefully in Kuwait just before the war. And he's not somebody to mess with, but either are those guys, the bad guys over there, and they do seem to target journalists. Why are they targeting journalists?

PETERSON: I think what they're really targeting is anybody who's an American, who's a foreigner. And let's face it. We're fairly high-profile people. We're going to get publicity.

That's why they targeted Danny Pearl, because they knew that kidnapping an American journalist was going to be a high-profile catch. And we had to be doubly aware of that, as I'm sure Chris feels very much the same way. You didn't want to put yourself in the situation, but you also didn't want to get into a situation where you became the target.

I came to tell the story. I didn't go there to become part of the story.

BROWN: Yes.

PETERSON: And that's a constant issue.

BROWN: Chris, are we -- let's just take this back to the beginning, in a sense. Are we -- as we approach the elections, certainly, are we coming to a point where all of us, no matter -- we're all -- I think those of us who do this work are willing to take some risks in what we do, but are we coming to a point where we're not going to be able to effectively tell the story of Iraq in a way that matters to our viewers and our readers?

DICKEY: Well, I think we're already at that point.

When you have to move around the country only in the company of troops or of your own armed guards, it puts a barrier between you and the people. And what does it say to an Iraqi if you go to interview him -- and nobody's protecting him -- nobody's taking care of him -- he doesn't have a hard car to drive around in. And thousands of Iraqis are kidnapped, have been kidnapped over the last year or year and a half in Baghdad alone, so there's a sense of greater and greater distance, not only between the United States government and the people of Iraq, but between all Americans and all foreigners and the people of Iraq.

And it's very uncomfortable if you're a journalist, because you basically -- you have to win the confidence of people. You have to get them to talk to you, to confide in you, to feel that they know you and can relate to you, and none of the circumstances that we're describing right now lend themselves to that kind of trust and that kind of confidence.

BROWN: Chris, good to see you again. Thank you.

Barry, thanks for what I know is a long drive. And thanks for your work for a long time.

Barry Petersen of CBS and Chris Dickey of "Newsweek" magazine.

Still to come on the program tonight, more on the dangers facing journalists, this time those armed with cameras.

And, later, Nissen steps up to the plate and I think knocks one out of the park, baseball in poem.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We pick up where we left off at the break with the growing danger for journalists in Iraq. As Chris and Barry and Jane Arraf earlier said, we find ourselves in an imperfect situation trying to do the work there. That grim reality shapes what we read about in Iraq and also what we see.

Consider this. In the universe of photo agencies, Getty Images and Corbis are the major players. It's not an overstatement to say the pictures their photographers take often becomes the images history remembers. In Iraq these days, getting the images is very dangerous work.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT PETERSON, "THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": I am Scott Peterson. I write for "The Christian Science Monitor." I am a photographer for Getty Images. I've been coming to Iraq regularly since 1996.

This Iraq today is unrecognizable compared to the one that we were working in 18 months ago. We're now getting to a point where we're really not able to do our job. There are hardly any photographers here anymore. People who are here who are on staff, many of them have been ordered to only take photographs if they're embedded with American troops. The satisfaction in that is that you see really on the ground how American forces here are dealing with Iraqis, what the Iraqi reactions are, both for and against. And you're able to record that.

Over the weekend, there were five churches that were targeted and damaged. One of them in particular completely burned out. It was a Catholic church. It's right downtown in Baghdad. And I made two trips there. So we had initially this quite bleak scene of just a few people cleaning up. And the next day, there were maybe 40 or so people who had gathered. They sang. The priest spoke to them.

It turned out that one of the children, a baby that was just one month old, was due to be baptized on that day. You've got very powerful, emotional stories going every day. And we just have so little access to that. And I think that is very frustrating.

THORNE ANDERSON, FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER: My name is Thorne Anderson and I'm a freelance photographer. I'm associated with the Corbis News Photography Agency.

If you are a photographer who is interested in international foreign policy for the United States, at this point in time, unfortunately, that means that you're probably a war photographer. I didn't set out to be a war photographer. I've made I think now six individual trips to Iraq. And each time I've gone back, I found it more dangerous to work there. Each time, I find that my movements are more limited.

Covering the uprising in Sadr City was quite difficult, because, in effect, you had to embed yourself with the Mahdi militia if you wished to work there. But, on balance, it was much easier to work on the Iraqi side than the American side if you wanted to get a full picture of what was happening in Sadr City.

In Najaf, it was quite a different story. I went into the shrine and spent three days there during the American siege. It's simply too dangerous to cover the worst violence that's occurring in Iraq. Ramadi, Fallujah, much of the Sunni Triangle, this is a black hole for news coverage right now. I would argue that, though many Americans may believe that they're only seeing the worst news from Iraq, that in fact they're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

When the United States goes to war, they need to see what that looks like. And sometimes that means the journalists take extraordinary risks to make that happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Part of the Iraq story tonight.

Ahead on the program, No Child Left Behind and no issue forgotten. The candidates on education tonight.

And a little bit later, a pretty smart bird that doesn't need anyone's help. Well, no, actually, he needs my help, doesn't he? The rooster stops by with the morning papers. This is NEWSNIGHT. What else?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Each night this week, we're devoting a segment of the program to a quick look at one issue central to the presidential campaign, one issue per night, tonight education. How well we teach our kids is, fair to say, a measure of many things. Rising tuition, gaps in performance among students and teachers alike are two areas of concern for lots of parents, both candidates proposing changes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I say to every child, no matter what your circumstance, no matter where you live, your school will be the path to promise of America.

BROWN (voice-over): George W. Bush made education reform and the No Child Left Behind act his first legislative priority. The act required that all states set and meet academic standards, measured by testing. If schools did not improve, parents could send their children elsewhere. In return, federal funding for education has risen to record levels.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, ready, go.

BROWN: The president proposes for a second term increasing the number of required tests, creating a fund to reward effective teachers, and forgiving more college loans for math, science and special education teachers who agree to work in low-income communities.

In addition, President Bush supports vouchers that would allow parents to apply public money to private school tuition. To help with the rising cost of college, the president would agree to allow more volunteers to earn college money in the AmeriCorps program and increase funding for other education loans and grants.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and it demands accountability from parents, teachers and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and it treats teachers like the professionals that they are.

KERRY: Are you ready? Everybody ready?

BROWN: John Kerry supported the No Child Left Behind act, but says that Mr. Bush has never fully funded it, and that he will. Senator Kerry supports improving the required tests, putting more resources into so-called failing schools, and creating a national education trust fund to keep education funding out of the yearly budget battle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what we don't finish in class, you're going to finish for homework. BROWN: The Democrats would raise the pay of many teachers, but require increased teacher testing and a streamlined process to fire those who do not perform. Their plan would provide federal guarantees for school repair and increase after-school programs.

Kerry is opposed to vouchers, saying they hurt public education. To combat the rising costs of college, Senator Kerry proposes a tax credit for a portion of college tuition and a plan under which two years of community service would earn enough money to pay for a state university degree.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Tomorrow, we will wrap up the series on issues with a look at energy policy, a quick overview there. Oil prices, as you know, at record highs. Americans feeling the bite at gas tanks and airlines feeling it big time. So what are the candidates proposing? That's tomorrow on the program.

Still ahead tonight, Nissen on debt, the count, 3-2. The pitcher winds up. Nissen swings. And you will have to come back for the rest.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, as you know, there's no crying in baseball. There is, on the other hand, poetry, just rarely the kind you recite, though there are exceptions, "Tinkers to Evers to Chance," for one, or "Casey at the Bat," which says in so many words what every baseball fan knows, that the game more than most is about loss on the verge of glory and hope in the face of defeat.

OK, every fan knows it, but the fans of the Boston Red Sox know it by heart. So, with a tip of the cap to them and a nod to Ernest Lawrence Thayer, the author of "Casey," here's Nissen at the bat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Beantown team Sunday. They trailed the Yankees 0-3 in A.L. series play. The night before, a loss, 19-8, had been their shame. A pall-like silence fell upon the Sox fans in that game.

But Boston fans do not give up, do not give faith a rest. They cling to hope, which springs eternal in the human breast. They thought, if only we can win one game, then two, then three, we're once more in the pennant race, just like 2003. History was not on their side. Some think the Sox are cursed. It was in 1920 that the Boston bubble burst. That year, a Red Sox pitcher named Babe Ruth was for a fee sold to the Yankees in New York.

And since, some say that he, the great Sultan of Swat, the Babe, baseball's diamond prince, doomed Boston. The Sox have not won a World Series since. For decades now, the Red Sox have edged close, only to see their series hopes dashed cruelly by the dreaded team Yankee.

But, Sunday night, the Red Sox won, beat New York 6-4. And, Monday night they won again, a 14-inning chore, which brought them to New York on Tuesday, down two games to three. If they could win, the Red Sox would make baseball history.

It was a nail-biting game of drama, pitch, swing, whack, a homer that bounced off a fan, a Yankee run called back. The Boston pitcher, Schilling, from an injured ankle bled, turning his Red Sox socks an even deeper shade of red. With Sox ahead, some Yankees fans through fits and other stuff. NYPD in riot gear deployed in case things got rough.

And in the end, post-midnight, Boston won it 4-2, which forced a crucial seventh game. Who would win it? Who? It's rivalries like this that give sports its pulse and zest, two teams upon a field of play striving to be best. For nine innings, or 14, millions are transfixed in the service of small hopes that just won't be deep- sixed.

What happened in that seventh game? Most people know by now. The Red Sox took an early lead, played hard, scored big, and how. BoSox pitcher Alan Embree finally brought it home. O, frabjous day, calloo, callay. Wait, that's another poem.

What of the choked-up Yankees and their fans, unused to losing? There's sympathy, of course, but philosophic musing. You can't win all the time and maybe that's the lesson here. There is no joy in Bronxville. Now they wait until next year.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What is there to say, but this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers around the country, around the world. Lots of good ones tonight. So here we go.

"Christian Science Monitor," down at the bottom if you can. "Israeli Army Faces a Revote From the Right. It's Not the Army's Job to Throw Citizens Out of Our Country, Out of Their Homes.' This is a great and troubling story, the decision to remove settlers, 8,000 settlers from Gaza. The army will participate. Rabbis in Israel told servicemen don't do it. This has a potential really of tearing the state of Israel apart. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on it.

"The Oregonian" out west in Portland. Local story leads. "Polls Show Tax Repeal Slipping." This is a county income tax deal. And then a really good story idea, kind of a reality check on the flu. There's been a lot of hyperventilating about the flu of late, so they put it on the front page and that's a nice idea. "The Washington Times." Why I did like this? Well, I like it. I don't know. "Bush, Kerry Turn to Religion in Final Weeks. Candidates Evoke Faith on the Stump." "Pastors Take Stand on Issues, Leave Voting to Congregants." Well, you know.

"The Detroit News." "Home Prices Decline For First Time Since '93. Metro Detroit's Drop Blamed on Glut of New Homes, Economic Malaise, Impact of Prop 8." I don't know what Prop 8 is. I didn't think home prices ever went down, except in New York apartments.

How we doing on time there, Jenny (ph)? Thank you.

"Boston Herald." "Go, Sox." World Series coverage. "Triumph and Tragedy" is the headline. A woman, young woman died. She was killed by a nonlethal police bullet -- I mean, I know how crazy that sounds, because she was killed by it -- in the celebrating last night in Boston, which is horrible, right? Anyway, Boston remains the official team of NEWSNIGHT, for at least another hour or so. And then we'll decide again.

"Stars and Stripes." "Head of Unit That Refused Mission Relieved of Duty." This is a story we first reported last week.

I want to get "The Chicago Sun-Times" in. "Laura Bush: Teresa Didn't Need to Apologize." Is this a much-ado-about-nothing story? Come on. "Good, Bad and Ugly" would be the weather in Chicago.

Tomorrow is Friday, so we're all back here, 10:00 Eastern time. We would appreciate it if you would join us for that. Will you?

See you then. Until then, good night for all of us.


Aired October 21, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. At the center of the program tonight is a question. Is Iraq becoming so dangerous that responsible news organizations will soon find it too risky to cover?
This is no idle question. As we'll report later, some organizations are already pulling people out and every news organization, including this one lives in fear that the phone will ring with the news that a reporter or a photographer or a producer has been kidnapped or worse.

Imagine if we all do stop, if we pull out. How will you know what your sons and daughters are being asked to do, how they're living or dying? How will you know if your government is telling the truth or, for that matter, how will you know if our enemies are telling the truth?

In truth we are only able to tell part of the Iraq story these days, important parts of the story for sure but other parts of the story, both good news and bad are simply too dangerous to go after. The implications of that are the centerpiece of tonight's program.

We begin, however, at home with the campaign, the president in eastern Pennsylvania, so to our Senior White House Correspondent John King with the story and the headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, if the president loses Pennsylvania it certainly will not be for a lack of trying, his 40th visit to the state today since winning the White House, 41st on tap in the morning, more stops here than at his ranch in Crawford, Texas -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, John.

A headline too from CNN's Candy Crowley who continues her coverage of the Kerry campaign.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: John Kerry went hunting today. He bagged a goose but it's not really what he was looking for -- Aaron.

BROWN: Candy.

Finally to Iraq and the beginning of the school year, how is it different this year compared to last? CNN's Jane Arraf covering that joins us on the videophone, so Jane a headline. JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, Iraqi children are back at school but despite all the money destined for Iraq more than a third of those schools are in dangerous disrepair -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you.

We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up on the program tonight as part of our reporting on the risks of covering this war we spend time tonight with the photographers where getting the photo almost always means risking your life.

And later, a bit lighter for sure, Nissen becomes a poet and now we know it and we'll thank the Red Sox for it.

And, while not a poet, the rooster is truly a genius with words especially those on the printed page, morning papers wraps it up tonight, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with the small variation on an old political proverb. A voter here and a voter there and pretty soon you're talking about winning the White House. Just a few could make a difference, a precious few by now, but not just any old here or there.

Nobody's after the swing voters in Sacramento, California or the Catholic vote in Buffalo, New York. They're instead chasing suburbanites near Philadelphia and outside Youngstown, Ohio looking for goose hunters.

Two reports tonight, first CNN's Candy Crowley with Senator Kerry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): An early morning in rural Ohio, a gaggle of geese and a gun-toting John Kerry. The Democratic candidate bagged a goose Thursday morning. Wednesday night he let the cameras in to watch him watch the Red Sox game, all part of an effort to show voters what advisers call John Kerry, the guy.

The idea is to persuade voters wondering about John Kerry that he is a) a normal guy and b) won't take their guns away. Democrats have long felt the rural vote is theirs if they could convince gun owners they are not after their guns.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I understand he bought a new camouflage jacket for the occasion, which did make me wonder how regularly he does go goose hunting.

CROWLEY: For the record, his campaign says the Senator borrowed the camouflage. Anyway, by the time Kerry got to Columbus he had ditched the camo for a serious suit and a speech on scientific and technological innovation.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That if George Bush had been president during other periods of American history he would have sided with the candle lobby against electricity. He would have been with the buggy makers against the cars and the typewriter companies against the computers.

CROWLEY: This was not about electricity or computers but about embryonic stem cell research, a subject infused with the human side by Dana Reeve's first public appearance since her husband's death.

DANA REEVE, WIFE OF CHRISTOPHER REEVE: And I'm here today because John Kerry, like Christopher Reeve believes in keeping our hope alive.

CROWLEY: As much as the morning hunt was about rural male voters, the afternoon was about women, a voting block that had traditionally been more Democrat than Republican but has yet to fully warm up to John Kerry.

Candy Crowley CNN, Columbus, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The president, meantime, spent part of his day in Pennsylvania, a state that will either be his Omaha Beach or his Dunkirk depending largely on how several thousand people choose to vote. They are fairly well off, socially moderate, security minded and they may feel like they wish they could vote for one part of each candidate but they can't.

So, from the suburbs of Philadelphia tonight, here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The background is part of the message, the president's goal to heal a major campaign weakness.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to healthcare, Senator Kerry's prescription is bigger government with higher costs. My reforms will lower costs and give more control and choices to the American people.

KING: Five million Americans have lost health coverage during the Bush presidency and Senator Kerry has a big advantage on the issue, a problem for Mr. Bush in places like the Philadelphia suburbs critical to victory in Pennsylvania.

In appealing for a second look, Mr. Bush said his approach would limit the government's role but make healthcare more accessible and affordable by, among other things, expanding tax-free medical savings accounts, allowing small businesses to pool together to buy coverage and setting limits on medical malpractice awards.

BUSH: He has voted ten times against medical liability reform during his Senate career.

KING: The Catholic vote is also a target and Mr. Bush met with Cardinal Justin Regali (ph), Philadelphia's Roman Catholic Archbishop, and among the church leaders who says Catholics have a duty to vote for candidates who share the Vatican's opposition to abortion. It's a delicate balance. Courting social conservatives is critical yet can hurt Republicans in the moderate suburbs.

WILLIAM GREEN, GOP MEDIA ADVISOR: Where he needs to be in the Philadelphia suburbs is primarily on the economy and not so much the social issues. The social issues play here in western Pennsylvania and the central part of the state.

KING: Republican polling shows Mr. Bush down a few points in Pennsylvania.

BUSH: It's time to put up the signs. It is time to carry Pennsylvania.

KING: If he loses, it will not be for a lack of trying, this Hershey rally part of his 40th visit to the state as president, more to come before Election Day.

(on camera): Like abortion guns is an issue that can play one way here in the Philadelphia suburbs yet very differently in the central and western part of the state, so perhaps no surprise that while there was no mention of the episode here at the Hershey rally the president mocked a morning hunting trip taken by his opponent saying that even in camouflage Senator Kerry can't hide from his liberal record.

John King CNN, Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: But healthcare and stem cell research, while important, are in the end side issues to terror and the war and the war each day is a constant backdrop for everything on the campaign.

In Baghdad today, the highest ranking soldier in the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal was sentenced to eight years in the stockade. Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick was also demoted to private and dishonorably discharged. Yesterday he pleaded guilty to abusing detainees. Sergeant Frederick also admitted what he did was wrong but claims he was just following orders.

The American artillery assault on Fallujah continued today, shells landing on what the military called an insurgent stronghold. The military says seven people died. Three were wounded.

Also today a Sunni cleric with a following threatened an uprising if the U.S. launched an all out offensive into Fallujah. He said the city is safe and is not harboring the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The instability in Iraq is often framed in terms of whether it will delay the election set for January, a valid concern to be sure but not the only consequence of note.

The unrelenting violence has taken a huge toll on the efforts to rebuild the country and there are many examples. Tonight we look at one. Nearly half of Iraq's population is younger than 18 and for the second time since the fall of Saddam many are beginning a new school year.

Reporting tonight from Iraq, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): A new day of Iraqi classes is rung in at this primary school in Kirkuk for 250 first through sixth graders. At the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) school in this middle class neighborhood, Principal (UNINTELLIGIBLE) shows us around. There are only three toilets. The water tank is broken so there's no water in the bathrooms.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) in the sixth grade says their notebooks are such bad quality the pages rip and they can't read what they write in them. The desks are battered. The students say they need pencils and erasers and they haven't been given new textbooks.

The Iraqi government says half of Iraq's primary schools have no toilets. More than a quarter still need major structural repair. The problems are both money and security.

U.S. military officials on the ground say money that was to come in from the U.S. funded project and contracting office, which oversees $18 billion in reconstruction funds has been delayed. U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations which would normally help more have reduced operations due to the ongoing violence in parts of Iraq.

At this school, U.S. soldiers unpack supplies donated by American aid organizations. To help with community relations, the soldiers give the packages to Iraqi police to hand out, notebooks, rulers, erasers, colored pencils. They're the first most of these children, Arab, Kurds and Turkoman have seen this year. The 25th Infantry Division 2nd Brigade combat team was spending $48,000 of its own funds to renovate this school.

CAPT. DERRICK BIRD, U.S. ARMY: It means electricity and plumbing and just overall paint jobs as well as drinking water, electricity to put in fans, heaters, stuff like that.

ARRAF: If the school had more money they'd expand and maybe someday buy computers, says the principal. After they've been through, students want to feel there's something new in their lives, she says.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: One of the big problems is that UNICEF, the U.N. agency that would normally take a leading role in schools pulled out all of its international workers after its headquarters was bombed last year and hasn't cancelled its program but that lack of international staff and fears of security have sharply slowed them -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, I want to just turn you a little bit here. As you know, I think, we're later in the program going to talk a bit about the dangers for reporters in trying to cover the story. Number one, are you embedded tonight with the Army and, if you were not, could you have gotten to Kirkuk to report the story?

ARRAF: Unfortunately we couldn't, Aaron, and every company makes its own decisions and every journalist to a certain extent, although less so these days makes their own decisions. But as we've seen from recent State Department warnings road travel is a major problem.

One of the values of being embedded is not just that we get to places like this. It's that we can actually talk to people once we're here because we are under some sort of protection, plus it leaves us less vulnerable to being attacked on the road if we're with the military. It's a very sad state of affairs but it does allow us to do things here in the Sunni Triangle that we wouldn't otherwise do -- Aaron.

BROWN: And candidly does it -- does the fact that you're embedded limit you in some ways to what you're able to do, who you're able to talk to, how you're able to do your work?

ARRAF: I think, Aaron, it might have a few months ago but one of the things I've been really struck by in the last few weeks is that to be perfectly honest it has actually widened the opportunities we have to talk to people and that's perhaps a function of the dramatic state of affairs in Baghdad.

We have been able to do stories with this particular Army division that are not necessarily favorable to the Army or to the military simply because people here have the view that there's no good news or bad news. If it's true, you can report it and what they care about are the facts.

We've been able to do stories on larger numbers of civilian casualties and the military has reported stories on people who have been the victims caught in crossfire of U.S. attacks, things you normally wouldn't expect. So here, anyway, this time around in the Sunni Triangle it really has increased the opportunity. We actually have to talk to ordinary Iraqis -- Aaron.

BROWN: You know I say this to you in e-mails all the time. I'll say it now again here. You're just doing great work and stay safe. Thank you, Jane Arraf in Kirkuk tonight embedded with the Army.

Ahead on the program, Jeff Greenfield always gets tough assignments, doesn't he? Who else would suffer through a major league playoff game just to talk about politics?

Also, part four in our series on the issues. Tonight we look at education. We take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Central Park South on a cool night here in New York.

Later in the program we'll explore baseball as poetry, we really will.

First though baseball as politics, a break we imagine from politics is, oh, horseracing or prize fighting or war for that matter, a break only because our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield didn't spend the day at the races just a night in the Bronx.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): How could you, some sharp-eyed NEWSNIGHT viewers asked having spotted me and my son at the stadium Wednesday night. Was I slacking off my political job by watching the Red Sox make history, of course not.

(on camera): I was hard at work absorbing the critical, invaluable political lessons to be learned from Boston's improbable triumph, lessons we would all do well to remember in the campaign's closing days.

(voice-over): First, the leather-lunged loudmouths of the all sports media are just as thick headed as those of us in the political arena when we enunciate immutable laws.

You heard 100 times that no team in baseball has ever won a post series after falling behind three games to none. As history that was true but unlike say Newton's second law it didn't tell us anything about what could happen, a double bounce into the stands instead of on the field, a run didn't score and, bingo, Boston won game five and headed back to New York.

Remember that when you hear for the 100th time that no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. If Bush wins Pennsylvania or Michigan, he wouldn't need Ohio.

Is it true that wartime presidents are always reelected? Yes, if you count two in the last century and two others, Truman and Lyndon Johnson, were so unpopular they didn't even try to run. Knowing the past, good idea. Assuming it tells us about the future, not a good idea.

Here's a second rule to keep in mind, rabid partisans are simply not good judges of reality. In the eighth inning of game six, Alex Rodriguez appeared to have turned the game around when a ball flew out of a Red Sox fielder's glove. When the umpires ruled he had slapped the ball away they called him out. The fans went nuts. Riot police were deployed.

The replay showed the umps were clearly right but there's a reason we call them fans. It's short for fanatic. You can be sitting 400 feet away from home plate but you know the ball your pitcher threw was a strike way better than the umpire six inches away.

The lesson, we see it every day in our e-mail, we're covering up the blatant lies and trickery of George W. Bush. We're in the tank for Senator Kerry because we haven't ripped the lid off his mendacity.

Do not get me wrong. We are capable of making plenty of mistakes but the last people to offer a measured look in what we do are the people who view this campaign as the ultimate battle between good and evil.

(on camera): So go ahead call this slacking off. I call it political research. In fact, I think I should expand this research up at Fenway Park this weekend.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And, as we mentioned a moment ago, we're doing a bit of an experiment tonight trying to answer the question will promising poetry keep you from going to bed too early? We hope it does. The Red Sox have inspired Nissen to flights of fancy in verse and it's pretty cool even if she'll be keeping her day job, we hope. That's coming up.

And so is this and it's serious stuff, the growing impossibilities of covering Iraq, difficult to do. When is it too dangerous for reporters to even leave their hotel rooms?

And in the case of photojournalists, hotel room reporting is simply not an option. Risk is always there.

And around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As we said at the top tonight the centerpiece of this program looks at a couple of questions. Is Iraq becoming too dangerous for reporters to cover and if that happens, and this is essentially the important question, what are the implications?

No news organization, including this one, wants to admit that it can't cover a story as important as Iraq. In fact, we can cover it. We can cover the big events, the big attacks, the broad strokes of the insurgency, the government but it's getting harder to do even that let alone the smaller stories, good news and bad, that paint the larger picture.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): It wasn't just a single time when rockets slammed into the supposedly safe hotel in Baghdad where he was staying. That was trouble enough. It was the accumulation of all the other threatening incidents that made him glad his tour in Iraq had come to an end.

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF, "WASHINGTON POST": There have been home invasion, kidnappings in the capital, mortars flying very close to buildings where journalists are staying, so there's never a moment where you feel like you're completely safe.

BROWN: For many journalists in Iraq these days just doing their job can result in life and death situations, so much so that even the largest newspapers and broadcast outlets have severely restricted the movement of their reporters in the field.

SUSAN CHIRA, FOREIGN EDITOR, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Primarily, like many other journalists, our staff is mostly moving around either to different parts of the country via embeds with the American military or very carefully in selected ways to specific places but more and more it's hard for them to get out and do the job the way they prefer to do it.

BROWN: And that means mostly a great deal of time spent in hotel rooms not on the streets, not talking to people, not reporting.

CHANDRASEKARAN: Increasingly, I've had to spend, you know, hours and days in my hotel room effectively reporting by remote control, sending Iraqis out to go to places where I once used to be able to go myself.

BROWN: Several major European news organizations have already pulled their reporters out of Iraq and whether to stay or go is a subject of ongoing debate and discussion.

CHIRA: I'm in daily contact with our Baghdad Bureau and, you know, just agree to keep talking to each other to weigh what they feel is acceptable. It's all a terrible risk but what's an acceptable level of risk and what's an unacceptable level of risk.

BROWN: Also at risk, of course, is the lack of an on-the-ground eyewitness (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to an increasingly complex and costly and dangerous insurgency and increasingly unmonitored war.

CHANDRASEKARAN: You lose a degree of thoroughness, of an ability to ask follow-up questions. I mean there's something to be said for being able to look people in the eye and talk to them and really see yourself what they're saying to ask those necessary follow-up questions and it's totally unsatisfactory when you have to sit back in a fortified hotel room and rely on others to do some of that work for you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined now by veteran CBS news correspondent Barry Peterson, Mr. Peterson just back from Iraq and he joins us tonight from San Francisco. And from Anaheim, California, Christopher Dickey the Mideast Regional Editor for "Newsweek," it's good to see you both.

Barry, what sort of stories do you think you were not able to tell?

BARRY PETERSON, CBS NEWS: I was really frustrated because it was so hard to get out and we've got to emphasize that we did go out. We would go out but we would do it carefully. We'd check out the neighborhood. We would use our Iraqi people without going into great detail to make sure we were safe.

But it was like a hit-and-run mission. We would go out. We would do our interviews. We'd be as quick and efficient as possible and dash back and I always had the feeling that even though we got the sound bytes from the Iraqi side, just ordinary people, that's the story I felt that's really not getting covered because it's so hard to get there.

BROWN: You've done a fair amount in a distinguished career of war reporting. How is reporting this war different from reporting others or are they all different?

PETERSON: Well, this one there's no place that's safe, you know. When I was in Sarajevo, somebody would say, OK, don't go between those two buildings. That's a sniper alley and you kind of knew the rules. In this case no place is safe nowhere you drive. Anytime you go outside you are putting yourselves and the rest of your team in danger and we had to discuss this every time we wanted to go somewhere. We had to talk and do a risk assessment.

And I will say that in the end we almost always went because we felt the story deserved it but we didn't get out as much as we should have because you can't travel in any kind of safety in Baghdad. No place is safe.

BROWN: Chris, you said to us earlier that this was the most important story and the most dangerous story going. How much of this is the magazine farming out essentially to Arab stringers or Iraqi stringers as opposed to your own guys?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: Well, not a lot. We certainly use Arab stringers and local people to a certain extent but we try and go and report on scene as much as we possibly can.

The problem is it's impossible to go a lot of places unless you're with the U.S. military these days and you keep hearing this that the only way to go around is to be embedded with the troops. And while Jane was talking earlier she was saying, you know, sometimes you can get more that way.

BROWN: Yes.

DICKEY: But, in fact, it's pretty hard to get people to talk to you frankly when you've got a couple of guys with helmets and flak jackets standing behind you.

BROWN: Is the -- how cognizant are you, Chris, first of the danger you put sources in by simply talking to them?

DICKEY: Well, I think you're always worried about that. You're worried about everything at every minute when you're moving around in Baghdad. It's a little easier -- in fact, let's say it -- it's a lot easier for print reporters than it is for photographers and certainly for television crews.

BROWN: Yes.

DICKEY: This is a problem that we saw coming a long time ago, that there would -- that, as the war intensified, there were going to be kidnappings. It was going to get tighter.

And there was even a question over last winter about whether some reporters should start carrying guns. You stay away from that finally. I don't think anybody, I don't think any journalists are carrying guns in Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq these days. But you finally -- you get more and more detached from your sources and you just can't -- you can't talk to them anymore. You can't get to them without endangering them and you.

BROWN: Barry, did you ever think of carrying a gun?

BARRY PETERSON, CBS NEWS: No. I'm a journalist.

BROWN: Yes.

PETERSON: I believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. But...

BROWN: Yes, but.

PETERSON: Every time we went, there was a guy fully trained with a gun who went with us.

And he was very -- the guys who were our guards were very frank. He said my job is to save your life if the situation allows it, and he was very honest in telling me that sometimes it might not. And that's just the risk you had to take.

BROWN: And, actually, one of the guys who worked with you is a guy that baby-sat me pretty carefully in Kuwait just before the war. And he's not somebody to mess with, but either are those guys, the bad guys over there, and they do seem to target journalists. Why are they targeting journalists?

PETERSON: I think what they're really targeting is anybody who's an American, who's a foreigner. And let's face it. We're fairly high-profile people. We're going to get publicity.

That's why they targeted Danny Pearl, because they knew that kidnapping an American journalist was going to be a high-profile catch. And we had to be doubly aware of that, as I'm sure Chris feels very much the same way. You didn't want to put yourself in the situation, but you also didn't want to get into a situation where you became the target.

I came to tell the story. I didn't go there to become part of the story.

BROWN: Yes.

PETERSON: And that's a constant issue.

BROWN: Chris, are we -- let's just take this back to the beginning, in a sense. Are we -- as we approach the elections, certainly, are we coming to a point where all of us, no matter -- we're all -- I think those of us who do this work are willing to take some risks in what we do, but are we coming to a point where we're not going to be able to effectively tell the story of Iraq in a way that matters to our viewers and our readers?

DICKEY: Well, I think we're already at that point.

When you have to move around the country only in the company of troops or of your own armed guards, it puts a barrier between you and the people. And what does it say to an Iraqi if you go to interview him -- and nobody's protecting him -- nobody's taking care of him -- he doesn't have a hard car to drive around in. And thousands of Iraqis are kidnapped, have been kidnapped over the last year or year and a half in Baghdad alone, so there's a sense of greater and greater distance, not only between the United States government and the people of Iraq, but between all Americans and all foreigners and the people of Iraq.

And it's very uncomfortable if you're a journalist, because you basically -- you have to win the confidence of people. You have to get them to talk to you, to confide in you, to feel that they know you and can relate to you, and none of the circumstances that we're describing right now lend themselves to that kind of trust and that kind of confidence.

BROWN: Chris, good to see you again. Thank you.

Barry, thanks for what I know is a long drive. And thanks for your work for a long time.

Barry Petersen of CBS and Chris Dickey of "Newsweek" magazine.

Still to come on the program tonight, more on the dangers facing journalists, this time those armed with cameras.

And, later, Nissen steps up to the plate and I think knocks one out of the park, baseball in poem.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We pick up where we left off at the break with the growing danger for journalists in Iraq. As Chris and Barry and Jane Arraf earlier said, we find ourselves in an imperfect situation trying to do the work there. That grim reality shapes what we read about in Iraq and also what we see.

Consider this. In the universe of photo agencies, Getty Images and Corbis are the major players. It's not an overstatement to say the pictures their photographers take often becomes the images history remembers. In Iraq these days, getting the images is very dangerous work.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT PETERSON, "THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": I am Scott Peterson. I write for "The Christian Science Monitor." I am a photographer for Getty Images. I've been coming to Iraq regularly since 1996.

This Iraq today is unrecognizable compared to the one that we were working in 18 months ago. We're now getting to a point where we're really not able to do our job. There are hardly any photographers here anymore. People who are here who are on staff, many of them have been ordered to only take photographs if they're embedded with American troops. The satisfaction in that is that you see really on the ground how American forces here are dealing with Iraqis, what the Iraqi reactions are, both for and against. And you're able to record that.

Over the weekend, there were five churches that were targeted and damaged. One of them in particular completely burned out. It was a Catholic church. It's right downtown in Baghdad. And I made two trips there. So we had initially this quite bleak scene of just a few people cleaning up. And the next day, there were maybe 40 or so people who had gathered. They sang. The priest spoke to them.

It turned out that one of the children, a baby that was just one month old, was due to be baptized on that day. You've got very powerful, emotional stories going every day. And we just have so little access to that. And I think that is very frustrating.

THORNE ANDERSON, FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER: My name is Thorne Anderson and I'm a freelance photographer. I'm associated with the Corbis News Photography Agency.

If you are a photographer who is interested in international foreign policy for the United States, at this point in time, unfortunately, that means that you're probably a war photographer. I didn't set out to be a war photographer. I've made I think now six individual trips to Iraq. And each time I've gone back, I found it more dangerous to work there. Each time, I find that my movements are more limited.

Covering the uprising in Sadr City was quite difficult, because, in effect, you had to embed yourself with the Mahdi militia if you wished to work there. But, on balance, it was much easier to work on the Iraqi side than the American side if you wanted to get a full picture of what was happening in Sadr City.

In Najaf, it was quite a different story. I went into the shrine and spent three days there during the American siege. It's simply too dangerous to cover the worst violence that's occurring in Iraq. Ramadi, Fallujah, much of the Sunni Triangle, this is a black hole for news coverage right now. I would argue that, though many Americans may believe that they're only seeing the worst news from Iraq, that in fact they're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

When the United States goes to war, they need to see what that looks like. And sometimes that means the journalists take extraordinary risks to make that happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Part of the Iraq story tonight.

Ahead on the program, No Child Left Behind and no issue forgotten. The candidates on education tonight.

And a little bit later, a pretty smart bird that doesn't need anyone's help. Well, no, actually, he needs my help, doesn't he? The rooster stops by with the morning papers. This is NEWSNIGHT. What else?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Each night this week, we're devoting a segment of the program to a quick look at one issue central to the presidential campaign, one issue per night, tonight education. How well we teach our kids is, fair to say, a measure of many things. Rising tuition, gaps in performance among students and teachers alike are two areas of concern for lots of parents, both candidates proposing changes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I say to every child, no matter what your circumstance, no matter where you live, your school will be the path to promise of America.

BROWN (voice-over): George W. Bush made education reform and the No Child Left Behind act his first legislative priority. The act required that all states set and meet academic standards, measured by testing. If schools did not improve, parents could send their children elsewhere. In return, federal funding for education has risen to record levels.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, ready, go.

BROWN: The president proposes for a second term increasing the number of required tests, creating a fund to reward effective teachers, and forgiving more college loans for math, science and special education teachers who agree to work in low-income communities.

In addition, President Bush supports vouchers that would allow parents to apply public money to private school tuition. To help with the rising cost of college, the president would agree to allow more volunteers to earn college money in the AmeriCorps program and increase funding for other education loans and grants.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and it demands accountability from parents, teachers and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and it treats teachers like the professionals that they are.

KERRY: Are you ready? Everybody ready?

BROWN: John Kerry supported the No Child Left Behind act, but says that Mr. Bush has never fully funded it, and that he will. Senator Kerry supports improving the required tests, putting more resources into so-called failing schools, and creating a national education trust fund to keep education funding out of the yearly budget battle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what we don't finish in class, you're going to finish for homework. BROWN: The Democrats would raise the pay of many teachers, but require increased teacher testing and a streamlined process to fire those who do not perform. Their plan would provide federal guarantees for school repair and increase after-school programs.

Kerry is opposed to vouchers, saying they hurt public education. To combat the rising costs of college, Senator Kerry proposes a tax credit for a portion of college tuition and a plan under which two years of community service would earn enough money to pay for a state university degree.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Tomorrow, we will wrap up the series on issues with a look at energy policy, a quick overview there. Oil prices, as you know, at record highs. Americans feeling the bite at gas tanks and airlines feeling it big time. So what are the candidates proposing? That's tomorrow on the program.

Still ahead tonight, Nissen on debt, the count, 3-2. The pitcher winds up. Nissen swings. And you will have to come back for the rest.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, as you know, there's no crying in baseball. There is, on the other hand, poetry, just rarely the kind you recite, though there are exceptions, "Tinkers to Evers to Chance," for one, or "Casey at the Bat," which says in so many words what every baseball fan knows, that the game more than most is about loss on the verge of glory and hope in the face of defeat.

OK, every fan knows it, but the fans of the Boston Red Sox know it by heart. So, with a tip of the cap to them and a nod to Ernest Lawrence Thayer, the author of "Casey," here's Nissen at the bat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Beantown team Sunday. They trailed the Yankees 0-3 in A.L. series play. The night before, a loss, 19-8, had been their shame. A pall-like silence fell upon the Sox fans in that game.

But Boston fans do not give up, do not give faith a rest. They cling to hope, which springs eternal in the human breast. They thought, if only we can win one game, then two, then three, we're once more in the pennant race, just like 2003. History was not on their side. Some think the Sox are cursed. It was in 1920 that the Boston bubble burst. That year, a Red Sox pitcher named Babe Ruth was for a fee sold to the Yankees in New York.

And since, some say that he, the great Sultan of Swat, the Babe, baseball's diamond prince, doomed Boston. The Sox have not won a World Series since. For decades now, the Red Sox have edged close, only to see their series hopes dashed cruelly by the dreaded team Yankee.

But, Sunday night, the Red Sox won, beat New York 6-4. And, Monday night they won again, a 14-inning chore, which brought them to New York on Tuesday, down two games to three. If they could win, the Red Sox would make baseball history.

It was a nail-biting game of drama, pitch, swing, whack, a homer that bounced off a fan, a Yankee run called back. The Boston pitcher, Schilling, from an injured ankle bled, turning his Red Sox socks an even deeper shade of red. With Sox ahead, some Yankees fans through fits and other stuff. NYPD in riot gear deployed in case things got rough.

And in the end, post-midnight, Boston won it 4-2, which forced a crucial seventh game. Who would win it? Who? It's rivalries like this that give sports its pulse and zest, two teams upon a field of play striving to be best. For nine innings, or 14, millions are transfixed in the service of small hopes that just won't be deep- sixed.

What happened in that seventh game? Most people know by now. The Red Sox took an early lead, played hard, scored big, and how. BoSox pitcher Alan Embree finally brought it home. O, frabjous day, calloo, callay. Wait, that's another poem.

What of the choked-up Yankees and their fans, unused to losing? There's sympathy, of course, but philosophic musing. You can't win all the time and maybe that's the lesson here. There is no joy in Bronxville. Now they wait until next year.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What is there to say, but this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers around the country, around the world. Lots of good ones tonight. So here we go.

"Christian Science Monitor," down at the bottom if you can. "Israeli Army Faces a Revote From the Right. It's Not the Army's Job to Throw Citizens Out of Our Country, Out of Their Homes.' This is a great and troubling story, the decision to remove settlers, 8,000 settlers from Gaza. The army will participate. Rabbis in Israel told servicemen don't do it. This has a potential really of tearing the state of Israel apart. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on it.

"The Oregonian" out west in Portland. Local story leads. "Polls Show Tax Repeal Slipping." This is a county income tax deal. And then a really good story idea, kind of a reality check on the flu. There's been a lot of hyperventilating about the flu of late, so they put it on the front page and that's a nice idea. "The Washington Times." Why I did like this? Well, I like it. I don't know. "Bush, Kerry Turn to Religion in Final Weeks. Candidates Evoke Faith on the Stump." "Pastors Take Stand on Issues, Leave Voting to Congregants." Well, you know.

"The Detroit News." "Home Prices Decline For First Time Since '93. Metro Detroit's Drop Blamed on Glut of New Homes, Economic Malaise, Impact of Prop 8." I don't know what Prop 8 is. I didn't think home prices ever went down, except in New York apartments.

How we doing on time there, Jenny (ph)? Thank you.

"Boston Herald." "Go, Sox." World Series coverage. "Triumph and Tragedy" is the headline. A woman, young woman died. She was killed by a nonlethal police bullet -- I mean, I know how crazy that sounds, because she was killed by it -- in the celebrating last night in Boston, which is horrible, right? Anyway, Boston remains the official team of NEWSNIGHT, for at least another hour or so. And then we'll decide again.

"Stars and Stripes." "Head of Unit That Refused Mission Relieved of Duty." This is a story we first reported last week.

I want to get "The Chicago Sun-Times" in. "Laura Bush: Teresa Didn't Need to Apologize." Is this a much-ado-about-nothing story? Come on. "Good, Bad and Ugly" would be the weather in Chicago.

Tomorrow is Friday, so we're all back here, 10:00 Eastern time. We would appreciate it if you would join us for that. Will you?

See you then. Until then, good night for all of us.