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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Airs Exclusive Broadcast Of "Good Night, And Good Luck"; Scott Pelley Addresses Wake Forest Commencement Speech; Protesters, Law Enforcement Clash In Los Angeles. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired June 07, 2025 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: My wife had some time.
FRAN KRANZ, ACTOR, "GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK" ON BROADWAY: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And so it was a real moment. Everything that Murrow said in that moment, the terror in the room, we're going to go with the story. It happened. And the -- the real Millie, who's one of the characters in the -- in the show, the real woman, was saying how he was the only one to stand up, you know, because everybody, you -- you could find a way to sort of incriminate yourself in that situation.
You know, this is what they were -- they were journalists, and they were left -- left wing, and they could probably find a way, but he was the one person who got up and said something. And that, you know, it took -- it took kind of real integrity and guts to do so. Yes.
BROWN: What do you hope the audience took away from tonight, Clark?
CLARK GREGG, ACTOR, "GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK" ON BROADWAY: Well, one of the things that this show endeavors to do is it tracks an early moment when a news broadcast took on something that was happening, even though that seemed like it might run into real blowback. I mean, they spoke truth to power. And it's at a moment when that's a very new thing. And it's, in a ways, you look back at it now, and it's -- it's very idealistic, what they did.
And one of the things that happens is people come and they see this early moment when this happens. And then at the end, there's this brilliant montage that many people just saw where you see the ways that there are so many news sources, and we've lost so much trust in what we're hearing. And at the same time, we desperately need someone to be telling us what the truth is, and to be challenging people who aren't telling the truth.
BROWN: And you see the parallels.
KRANZ: Yes, I mean, I think the story really endures because it's a moment where the -- the -- the country is -- is tested, and -- and our ability to stay united as opposed to divided. And despite all the -- the -- the fear at the time, and so we -- we go back to it. We go back to it because it's -- it's a moment that we can look to where we got through it. So we must be able to get through it again.
BROWN: All right, Clark Gregg, Fran Kranz, thank you so much. Congratulations as well.
KRANZ: Yes.
BROWN: I know you have one more show tomorrow, and then the Tonys.
KRANZ: That's sad, don't say that.
BROWN: Nominated five times, I know.
KRANZ: That's sad. Yes.
BROWN: But the show's going on the road is my understanding. I don't know if you're going to be part of it, but it's, yes.
All right. Thank you both so much.
GREGG: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
BROWN: Anderson, back to you.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Pamela, thanks.
Earlier this week, I spoke with George Clooney on the set of "Good Night, and Good Luck." Here's some of that conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: What do you hope people leaving this theater take away from?
GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR, "GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK" ON BROADWAY: Well, I think it's always good to walk away reminding yourselves that we've been in tight spots before, and we got through it. You know, if -- if -- if you were a newsman in 1954, you would have felt some heat. You personally would have felt some heat. And there would have been charges of you being a communist.
COOPER: If I was in a Newsroom in 1950, I would be outed as a homosexual. And --
CLOONEY: That's exactly right. But it would have been just the same as a communist.
COOPER: Yes.
CLOONEY: These elements of fear, you know, what they're doing is not nearly as damages -- damaging as what we're doing to ourselves. You know, it's -- it's -- it's when you act on fear, when you start going, well, I'm -- I'm going to keep quiet, or I'm going to stay in the background, or I'm going to -- I'm -- I'm going to let this thing slide. You know, the first time you let something slide because of fear, you've lost. And so we have to remember that. We have to remember who we are. We are not descended from fearful men, as Murrow says. We are not -- we are -- we've taken on some of the biggest challenges in the world.
We took on the Nazis when we were the paper tiger, and no one thought we could do anything. We've seen the face of evil, and we've defeated it. We're not -- we're not fearful. So we need to remind ourselves of that sometimes.
COOPER: There's a line in the play the -- when Murrow says, the terror is in this room.
CLOONEY: That's a line Murrow said. He actually said it. And the reason was because they were about to self-censor. And he said, then we have to go with the story. Not because he thought he wanted to go with the story yet. He wanted to wait. He thought he wanted to get more evidence. But then he realized that it was now they were coming after them. And if he didn't go after -- if he didn't go after them, they would come after him.
It's always better to be on your front foot than your back foot, you know. I always tell kids, we -- we gave tickets away to 2,000 kids to come here and watch it, which is pretty funny because they have no idea who any of these people are. All of our references are pretty old. And they're like, but they got it at the end. And the part of it that -- that I keep going back to is challenge, challenge, challenge people with more power than you. Defend people with less power than you.
If you do only that, you succeed. And it doesn't mean you're going to get everything right. It doesn't mean you're going to succeed all the time. But you will have been a success in life if you do that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Back now with my panel, we're going to be going to some of the audience questions that we have from people here. First, I want you to meet Sanji Liu (ph). He's a visiting professor of journalism at Columbia School of Journalism. Sanji (ph), thanks for being here. What's your question?
[21:05:07]
SANJI LIU (PH), VISITING PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM, COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM: Thank you. My question about the Newsroom today, do you think it's possible for journalists who support Donald Trump to work for CNN or "New York Times" today? And -- or put it another way, a journalist who supports the Democrats to work for like "Fox News"? And that leads to another question. Will American mainstream media become more and more partisan, just like the newspapers back in the early 19th century? Thank you.
COOPER: Bret, what do you think?
BRET STEPHENS, OPINION COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think there's -- you have to make a bit of a distinction. It's a -- it's a brave journalist who's a Republican who goes to work for "MSNBC," or vice versa, a Democrat who goes to work for "Fox." But these are kind of openly partisan news organizations. And I think that's OK.
I think when you turn on "Fox," you kind of know what youre -- you're going to get. What really worries me is in the ambit of what's supposed to be straight news, objective journalism, and the political cultures within those -- within those institutions, which in my experience, not uniformly, but in my experience, definitely have kind of a set of ideological assumptions and priors that typically lean left. And we have a real cultural deficit in the news media, which helps explain some of our biggest failures.
Why did we fail to see Donald Trump's popularity in 2016? I think it had something to do with the fact that there were so few people in big newsrooms who would have -- who knew anyone who was -- who could think of even voting for Trump. And so when you don't have viewpoint diversity in addition to the other forms of diversity, you are impoverishing your news organization's ability to understand what's happening in the world.
And I think news organizations, objective news organizations, really have to think very hard about the way in which subtle cultural biases will often distort their -- their coverage on really important issues.
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Meanwhile -- meanwhile -- I'm sorry, right-wing media is having a moment. I mean they're -- they're all over the place and they've got plenty of outlets. And so this idea that -- that -- that the mainstream media that you're talking about is the one that's in decline, actually. And that may be because of audience. It may be because of technology. It may be a lots and lots of different reasons people are watching things differently.
I do think it is actually a great time for media right now. And I sit -- I think we sit around like he -- like Clooney was saying, and we -- we act like we're victims. We're not. You can do all kinds of aggressive new ways to do journalism. If I a journal -- I graduated from Columbia, by the way. There's all kinds of really exciting things to be doing.
And it doesn't -- you just have to figure out a way to get an audience that trusts you. And it doesn't have to be these mass audiences anymore. It's a very different environment. But I think it's a great time.
COOPER: Is there still a role for, you know, large news organizations which, you know, do have fact checkers and do have people working? I mean, you know.
SWISHER: I have fact checkers. I mean I have three people working for me. But the fourth person is a fact checker. So it doesn't mean you can't do that. It's just you have to figure out whether you want to have these big giant things or more nimble media organizations of both the right and the left, by the way. It's happening all over the place.
COOPER: But a lot of what you end up discussing are things that other people have reported. And --
SWISHER: That's on that one show. But on the other, it's a -- it's a news show where we interview people.
COOPER: Right. Yes. Absolutely. SWISHER: So, I mean, there's all kinds. I'm -- I'm one way of doing it. There's dozens of other ways. And they're all very exciting. And they're all -- they're all very interesting and at much lower cost. They make a lot of money. And it's just a very different environment.
JORGE RAMOS, FORMER UNIVISION ANCHOR: And this is a very important moment to be a -- to be a journalist in this area of misinformation and disinformation, journalists, we have a great advantage. I was checking a report by U.N. saying that about 60 percent of influencers don't do fact checking. Others do, but they don't do fact checking.
I think that's precisely our advantage, that we are trained on facts, that we do fact checking. And let me just emphasize the other point. I mean, we have to continue challenging those who are in power. As -- as George Clooney said, if we don't do that, we're going to lose the trust of the people.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: I also, I mean, I think, first of all, I agree with you, Bret, that -- that viewpoint diversity is important and finding it in newsrooms needs to be a priority. Creating it in newsrooms needs to be a priority. But I also think to answer the question, yes, you can work for "The New York Times" and be a Trump supporter or at CNN and be a Trump supporter. We have people who work for us right now who are that. And so -- so, yes, you can.
But I -- I think Kara is right in the sense that the future is probably actually not moving toward the sort of egalitarian newsrooms where everybody has different opinions, because all these news entrepreneurs are by and large, they're in their lanes. And sometimes their lanes are hyper-partisan lanes, and that has a huge audience.
[21:10:16]
So where, quote-unquote, legacy media is necessary is to do the kind of deep reporting that you can't do without resources, that takes time, that requires you to go and to find sources and to talk to people and to find things out that no one would otherwise know unless they asked the questions. So that's still needed, and I'm not sure that there's a lot of that happening in some of the more kind of individual operators out there in the media world. So I think we need both.
But -- but yes, I mean, I -- I think it's a misnomer that in -- in media there are no other perspectives. There are just probably fewer than you would like, and I concede that completely. I think that's right. There are just not very many conservative voices in mainstream media, and that should change.
CONNIE CHUNG, FORMER CO-ANCHOR, CBS EVENING NEWS: There's no more important time than now for all of us who in the news media, I'm not working anymore, but anyone who is in the news media to -- to speak truth to power and to -- and not be -- be afraid of lawsuits, not be afraid of -- of taking a stand.
When I was covering a presidential campaign, I found that the Eastern liberal establishment press was alive and well, and I guarantee you that 99 percent of the reporters voted for the Democrat, but they gave the Republican -- I mean Democrat such a hard time because they were unbiased and they were objective in their coverage because they were trying to be totally straight down the line.
They probably didn't vote for him, but they were giving him a good deal of criticism. So what I'm saying is you may have -- we buried our partisanship and -- and cannot -- can we not swing that pendulum back?
COOPER: I mean, I'm not sure how truthful that can, I mean, can people really bury it?
CHUNG: That's what we do as reporters. We are not supposed to give our opinion on anything, and we are supposed to get both sides of the story.
COOPER: But if you -- but Bret, I mean, if you point it out, it comes out in different ways, even in print, you know.
STEPHENS: Sure, your choice of stories, your choice of adjectives towards the good guys or the bad guys.
CHUNG: Well, can we get a little more honesty and truth and credibility and integrity back again? Why can't we do that? There's no more critical time for us to bring that home again than now.
COOPER: We're going to take a short break.
[21:13:13]
Up next, my conversation with "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley. What lessons does he take from Edward R. Murrow as CBS is facing a lawsuit by the President and a possible sale by its parent company? That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back. Now, my interview with 60 Minutes correspondent, Scott Pelley. "Good Night, and Good Luck" portrays a moment in America when free speech and the free press were under threat. We talked about that era and the one we are in right now.
Joining me now is Scott Pelley, correspondent for CBS's "60 Minutes." You've seen the -- the play. When you watch this play, what -- what goes through your mind about the times we're in, the times Murrow was in, the times we're in now?
SCOTT PELLEY, CBS "60 MINUTES" CORRESPONDENT: Fear and courage, I think, are the two themes that run through both of these moments in American history. There was a fear in those days, of course, to -- to speak out. There was a fear that it could ruin your career or ruin your business.
COOPER: Murrow, in the play, talks about the -- the terror is in this room.
PELLEY: The terror is in this room, meaning that it had gotten into everyone's head, the red scare. And so that, to me, has parallels today because I sense in the country today that there is also a fear to speak because it might wipe out your university. It might wipe out your law firm. It might ruin your career.
And the theme of all of that together today is that we have to have the courage to speak as Americans. You can agree with the government or disagree with the government, but you must not be silent.
COOPER: You recently gave a -- a commencement address, and -- and I want to play some of what -- what you said. You talked about our -- our sacred rule of law being under attack. Let -- let's play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PELLEY: Our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. And insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You actually haven't watched that speech.
PELLEY: That's the first time I've seen it since I did the speech.
COOPER: What do you make of it?
PELLEY: Well, I think though I am echoing the sentiments of Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly, that freedom of speech is what matters in this country. You can agree with the government. You can disagree with the government. But you have the right to speak no matter what your opinion is. And that if the government begins to punish our citizens because of what they have to say, then our country has gone terribly wrong.
[21:20:13]
James Madison, who wrote the Bill of Rights, of course, as you know, said that freedom of speech is the right that guarantees all the others. He thought it was that important. And that's what I was trying to convey to the students at Wake Forest.
COOPER: You -- you could have given any kind of commencement of speech. You could have had some life lessons.
PELLEY: Not now.
COOPER: Why -- why --
PELLEY: Not in this room.
COOPER: -- why make that speech now?
PELLEY: Because we have watched over the last many weeks law firms under attack, universities under attack, journalism under attack in ways that we have not seen in this country in modern times, certainly. And because universities were being targeted in particular, I didn't think that I could stand up in front of a major university and -- and give a speech that said, you go get them, kids, you're the best. Because it was the 900-pound gorilla on the stage.
And it had to be addressed. And I wanted those graduates at Wake Forest to know that history was calling them. That now is their moment. They didn't choose this time. The times chose them. And they needed to rise up and stand up for their rights, no matter where they are in the political spectrum. Stand up for the right to speak.
COOPER: Were you -- were you nervous about doing it? Obviously, this is a very fraught time for the company you work for that I work for as well for -- for CBS News. There's a lawsuit by -- by the -- the President based on unfounded allegations, it's very likely the -- very possible the -- the parent company will choose to -- to settle this -- this lawsuit. Were you nervous about doing it? And were you worried it might impact your ability or the way people perceive you as a journalist?
PELLEY: I was not nervous about doing it. I felt very strongly that this was something that needed to be said. It did not strike me that it would impact people's thought of me as a journalist, because part of that speech is a speech about freedom of speech. That should be non-controversial.
COOPER: You're not actually mentioning the President by name in this. You don't refer to him by name.
PELLEY: I don't refer to him or the President or the White House or the administration. But I was talking about actions that have been taken by the government over these last many months. But there was a little bit of hysteria among some about this speech. And I simply ask you, what does it say about our country when there's hysteria about a speech that's about freedom of speech?
COOPER: Has anything surprised you that you have been reporting on about this administration?
PELLEY: What has surprised me the most, Anderson, and I'm sure that this is something that you're running into, is how pervasive the fear is. That when we at "60 Minutes" call people and say, hey, will you do an interview with us, they're -- they're telling us no.
COOPER: It's hard -- it's harder and harder to get people to talk about the administration on camera.
PELLEY: They do not want to be on camera. They do not want to stick their head up over the foxhole. And that is part of what the Wake Forest speech was all about, that we must not be in fear. This is exactly what Ed Murrow was saying in that editorial at the end of the McCarthy broadcast. We must not walk in fear of one another. We are not descended from fearful people.
COOPER: Joseph McCarthy, Senator, his henchman Roy Cohn, they -- I mean instilled a fear in a lot of people. I mean, they terrorized people. PELLEY: Absolutely, they did. They were not solely responsible for the Red Scare. They lent -- McCarthy lent his name to the Red Scare, but it existed before he came along. He just capitalized on it. And because it existed, there was fear throughout the country that it could be personally destructive, that you could lose your job, you could lose your company.
I believe that we may be moving in a similar direction in the country today. People are silencing themselves for fear that the government will retaliate against them. And that's not the America that we all love.
COOPER: What -- what do you think Edward R. Murrow would think about what's happening at "CBS News" today?
[21:25:03]
PELLEY: What a great question. His producer, Fred Friendly, what -- became president of "CBS News" and quit over a disagreement about covering the Vietnam War. Quit in principle. I wonder if -- I wonder if Ed might have done the same thing, given our present situation. He would probably be waiting to see how this lawsuit from the President works out and how the Paramount Corporation deals with that, whether it settles the lawsuit or whether it fights. I think that would mean everything to Ed. And I also know exactly where he would be on that question. He would be for fighting.
COOPER: If there is a settlement, and as part of the settlement, there's an apology, how damaging is that to "CBS"?
PELLEY: Will be very damaging to "CBS," to "Paramount," to the reputation of those companies. I think many of the law firms that made deals with the White House are at this very moment regretting it. That doesn't look like their finest hour.
COOPER: It's been a couple of weeks since Bill Owens, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," resigned in protest. Given that it's been a few weeks, how do you see what he did now?
PELLEY: Well, Bill's decision to resign may not have been much of a decision for him because he was always the first person to defend the independence of "60 Minutes." Bill didn't work for "Paramount." Bill worked for our viewers. And he felt very keenly about that. And so I'm not sure Bill had any choice once the corporation began to meddle in Bill's decisions about the editorial content or --or just place pressure in that area. Bill felt that he didn't have the independence that honest journalism requires.
COOPER: As somebody who's worked -- how long have you been at "CBS News"?
PELLEY: Almost 40 years.
COOPER: Almost 40 years. I mean, as somebody who's worked at "CBS News" almost 40 years, who has traveled the world, risked his life repeatedly, you have, what, 40 Emmys, 50, 50? PELLEY: Fifty-two.
COOPER: It's 52.
PELLEY: Not to put too fine a point on it.
COOPER: Yes. Just personally, what does it feel like to be in this situation? It's a -- it's a very strange situation. Somebody who's devoted their life to news, but you are -- you and I are both, we work for a corporation that -- that owns a news company. And what is that -- what is that like for you personally?
PELLEY: You really wish the company was behind you 100 percent, right? You really wish the top echelons of the company would -- would come out publicly and say, "60 Minutes," for example, is a crown jewel of American journalism and we stand behind it 100 percent. I haven't heard that.
On the other hand, my work is getting on the air. And I have not had anyone outside "60 Minutes" put their thumb on the scale and say, you can't say that. You should say this. You have to edit the story in this way. You should interview this person. None of that has happened.
So while I would like to have that public backing, maybe the more important thing is the work is still getting on the air.
COOPER: Do you still believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of journalists?
PELLEY: It is the only thing that's going to save the country. You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can't be done. The people at home need reliable, consistent information in order to make decisions about their lives and their -- their futures and the country's future.
So there is no system of democracy without journalism. We have to figure out how to keep journalism free, independent, accurate, and responsible for what it's doing. But journalism is the only profession that is protected by the Constitution of the United States. And there's a reason for that. James Madison believed that freedom of speech was the right that guaranteed all the other rights in the Bill of Rights. And so it is today.
COOPER: What is your message to people about who have just watched this and are worried?
PELLEY: It's going to take courage, as it often has, to get through this period of American history. Our forebears were called by their times to have courage to move the country forward, and so it is with us today.
[21:30:10]
The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent. If you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed.
COOPER: Scott Pelley, thank you very much.
PELLEY: Great to be with you. Thank you.
COOPER: As we continue our special program, we also have some breaking news. I want to go right now to Los Angeles. Protesters have been clashing with law enforcement officials amid a sweeping immigration crackdown. This is the second straight day of disturbances. President Trump has ordered 2,000 National Guardsmen to be deployed, warning that the federal government will, quote, solve the problem the way it should be solved.
California Governor Gavin Newsom calls that move, quote, purposefully inflammatory. At least 118 people have been arrested during operations this week, according to the Department of Homeland Security. CNN's Julia Vargas-Jones is on the scene in Los Angeles. Julia, explain what's going on right now.
JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now what's happening, Anderson, is protesters have come to downtown Los Angeles. We are just outside the federal building that also serves as an ICE and USCIS and detention center for all those 118 people that you mentioned.
DHS has been arrested in the operations this week. They are saying ICE has no room, has no place here in Los Angeles. And they have been saying that in other parts of the city as well. We saw these clashes here in downtown yesterday. But today, right now, we found (inaudible) has a set a car on fire. We saw clashes, well, for several hours in -- in Paramount, California. That's just one hour south of Los Angeles.
And -- and the message everywhere is the same, I mean people saying ICE should not be conducting these rights here. Now, this is part of law enforcement operations. We have heard that at least three of them took place in downtown Los Angeles.
And we are seeing a surge of federal law enforcement, especially tonight, Anderson, as President Trump has authorized 2,000 National Guard troops to come into Los Angeles. Now, as you mentioned, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said this will only serve as inflammatory action to these protesters.
At this time, I will say this is a small protest. We are seeing images that are shocking, but -- but these are quite small. We were expecting a little bit more in there. We are being told from these protesters here that there will be more people coming.
They want people to come and -- and express their outrage with these actions. They say these are people that are part of Los Angeles and families that are being broken apart. You know, in California is home to an estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants, and about a third of those are here in Los Angeles County.
It's no surprise to see this kind of reaction from the population of Los Angeles, as well as from its leader, Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said that she was angered by this.
COOPER: Hey, Julia, I just -- if you can, for our viewers, can you just explain where you are? We're showing images, two different images from Paramount, California. It looks like police have cordoned off one street by a large donut store in -- in Paramount, California. Where is that -- do you know where that is in relation to you? I -- I just want to get -- I'm trying -- I'm trying to get a sense of how large the area that's impacted is right now. We see the burning car in one image on the right-hand side of our screen from K-Cal, we're seeing helicopter images of -- of one boulevard or street blocked off.
JONES: I believe those images, Anderson, are from Compton, California. It's about an hour south of downtown Los Angeles where we are. These have been dispersed protests. It hasn't been one march that's running through the streets. We saw ICE raids in one part of the city of L.A. County, I should say, that was Paramount earlier today. And that's when we started seeing those clashes.
Now, these have spread. This happened because of that targeted operation or the staging of ICE in this part of town. Now, that has spread and those protests have also spread to other locations. That's what you're seeing on the screen right now, that car on fire. That's where that is happening.
COOPER: Right. The -- the image of the car on fire as well as the law enforcement with their guns out, that is in Compton. Those are the images we're seeing right now, I should point out. Julia, you talked earlier about images which we have seen earlier of people standing in front of DHS vehicles or ICE vehicles as they -- what was that -- when was that those images that we saw?
[21:35:25]
JONES: That was from earlier today. And that was from a live stream. A woman who was from that neighborhood started recording what was happening. This is as ICE arrived. She said, she narrates in this live stream that ICE was staging at a home depot, local home depot, where workers usually offer their services.
And there was some reaction from that community, a community that is about 80 percent Hispanic. People came out and started to put themselves in between ICE vehicles and -- and block their passage, frankly, Anderson.
Yesterday, we also saw images, similar images of community members putting themselves in front of federal officials' cars, which were unmarked white vans at this time. There were aerial images. We ran those -- those earlier today from the -- from the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles, as one of the raids that I mentioned, those three raids that took place yesterday was ending, this vehicle is departing and one person gets in front of that vehicle and runs with it, trying to stop it until they fall to the ground and authorities are able to drive around that person.
It is remarkable to see that kind of -- of resistance and people really putting themselves out there, standing up to federal authorities.
COOPER: Julia Vargas Jones in Los Angeles, thank you. We'll continue checking in with you. We're going to keep our eye on events in California.
We'll be back more with our special coverage in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:40:42]
COOPER: And we are back now continuing our conversation about "Good Night, and Good Luck" in the state of journalism, joined once again by an audience of journalism students. They have questions for our panel. Let's go to you, Emily Steele, you're a journalism student at Rutgers. You're also a freelance cellist. Is that right?
EMILY STEELE, JOURNALIST STUDENT: Yes. And also thank you for this opportunity to be here for this historical event. My question is, given the rise of misinformation and A.I.-generated content, how can global journalism maintain credibility while remaining fast and accessible?
SWISHER: That's the question today, isn't it?
COOPER: Kara?
SWISHER: I think what you're going to see in the next two or three years is going to be astonishing and really frightening because the ability to create all kinds of video, Mark Cuban just talked about -- we just were talking about this, but the ability to create all kinds of fake video that looks absolutely real and to create all kinds of imagery. We had a joking thing about on our podcast this week, but we did a newscast that the person didn't exist. And you could see people using it for -- for weaponry very quickly, very quickly.
And so misinformation has just got a big step up. At the same time, A.I. tools for journalists, you've got to embrace them as journalists, as the media. We have to start using it and understanding it. And what's the best way to do that? There's going to be a lot of silly experiments along the way, but it actually could be a real tool to help us do all kinds of analysis, all kinds of really great reporting. So it's a -- it's a mixed bag, but I'd be a little more scared given how -- how abusive it is.
COOPER: What does happen I mean in journalism when you can't tell what images, or when -- when there's such a flood of images, I mean, already there's a flood of images, the technology is improving so rapidly, it becomes very hard to tell what's real and -- and what's not real.
RAMOS: It's very scary. I can give you an example. When you go online, you can put Jorge Ramos and you'll see tons of tons of ads in which I'm supposed to.
COOPER: I'm in -- I'm in some of those ads as well. Yes, they're like from weird plat.
RAMOS: Supposedly, I have the cure for diabetes. It's not -- it's not -- it's me.
SWISHER: Congratulations.
RAMOS: I don't have diabetes. Thank you. And however, at -- at this moment, it is almost impossible to detect if it's me or not. The image is there. There's a problem with the sync between my -- my lips and what -- what I'm saying.
COOPER: We'll get that worked out very quickly.
RAMOS: Yes, but -- but it's just a matter of months. So in just a few months, how am I going to say that person who's saying that is not me is going to be almost impossible.
STEPHENS: I mean, this is an old problem. We went to war with Spain, probably on totally false reporting that created an alibi to invade Cuba. But -- but there's a difference. You know, I always think there's a wonderful scene in the movie, "Dr. Strangelove," where a right-wing general is having an argument with the Soviet ambassador in the war room. And the Soviet ambassador says, my source was "The New York Times." And it closes the argument because there is a trusted source that has that kind of authority to get people from communists to -- to -- to right-wing Air Force generals to just agree.
And that is -- is what we really need to be very careful about safeguarding. This is what my -- my -- my biggest fear. I know they're proliferating new sources, opportunities, and dangers. But the main thing is, can we be sure that there are at least a handful of sources where everyone says, if it's in "The Times," if it's in "The Journal," if it's on CNN, it's almost certainly true. And if it's not, they're going to correct it very quickly.
SWISHER: But they don't say that about "The New York Times." Not everybody says that. You have the President himself, the fake "New York Times," et cetera, et cetera. So I mean and "The New York Times" could be ripped off, too, which, of course, is now in a lawsuit with OpenAI because of that.
STEPHENS: Yes. That's true.
SWISHER: And so the question is, what do you -- how do you -- is there some way to figure out how to say this is the real thing? Is there some watermark? Or there's -- that's -- that's what people are working on.
CHUNG: Does anybody here think that there is one?
SWISHER: A watermark?
CHUNG: Yes.
SWISHER: There -- there -- presumably, if we understand --
CHUNG: I mean probably, is there --
SWISHER: You could -- yes, there is versions of it, but there -- different people are working on the idea of a watermark. But the -- the technology is proliferating so quickly, it is -- it is -- and the improvement has happened so fast, it's really quite an astonishment.
CHUNG: Does anybody on this panel think that there is any source, any news source, that is reliable?
[21:45:01]
RAMOS: Of course. Yes, I do. Yes.
CHUNG: You do?
RAMOS: I trust these journalists. I do.
CHUNG: Yes?
RAMOS: Yes. I -- I watch them constantly.
COOPER: But I do think A.I. presents real challenges.
WALTER ISAACSON, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: When you have this type of thing happening, which is disinformation that's hard to figure out because it's A.I. generated, combined with personalization, so I could be getting different misinformation than the other people on this panel because they know exactly what I care about, it will increase the value of a truly trusted source, as Bret said, that if you could come along and say, I'm CNN, and we are just going to get fanatic, as CNN has been over the years, that you can trust us.
Or we're "The New York Times," and we're going to try to get rid of even ideological capture that gives us some bias. That is going to be so important in the next 10 years.
SWISHER: Unless they don't go to where people are watching. YouTube is television now. You understand that for young people. It really is. And in some ways, I mean, you wrote a whole book about a man who has his own media company and has his own reality, as we know these days. But what -- what's really interesting is he is a media company himself, and he also generates media.
ISAACSON: But you could find, even on X, or even on YouTube, these are the things I trust, and those will have higher value.
SWISHER: But you can tweak the algorithm in seconds.
CHUNG: You know what? People trust local news. That's what they trust. They trust -- they always trusted the weather channel, and then they trust local news. They don't trust national news. And I think that that's where we can -- we can make a difference, from local news and spread it to national news, so that people can gain the same kind of trust.
My husband and I started a local newspaper in -- in the Flathead Valley. And it doesn't matter what political stripe you are, it's trusted by not only the politicians, but by the community.
COOPER: Do you think, Kara, I mean, do you think, to Walter's point, that there will be a kind of turning to, I mean, I guess you call them legacy news organizations that do fact-check in an age where you can't trust video?
SWISHER: No, I think there'll be new news organizations that aren't legacy and that aren't -- they aren't heavy. You have a lot of people here, Anderson. You know, it will be -- there'll be -- there'll be very different financial ways to do it, and that's -- that's a different discussion. But I think there'll be lots of new versions of that, of what it would be. But the idea of giant corporate news or big organizations, it's only really "The New York Times" at this point and "The Wall Street Journal."
ISAACSON: And "The Wall Street Journal."
SWISHER: And "The Wall Street" but I mean it's just "New York Times" I love "The New York Times," but it's a small company compared to some of these other things, but it's 3, $4 billion in revenue compared to --
STEPHENS: Yes, but it's the most important newspaper in the world.
SWISHER: Understood.
STEPHENS: Because people, even the haters, will refer to "The New York Times."
SWISHER: True, but I'm saying there's not going to be a lot of those, and it's -- and they themselves are not very big businesses themselves.
PHILLIP: I also think we just have to be honest that even journalists are going to have a hard time verifying in this information ecosystem. So it is only partially a journalism issue. It's also a major technological problem, which I think is where Kara started. We -- we have to -- there has to be somebody out there, not us journalists, but perhaps globally, that takes a look at the technology and says, we've got to fix this problem because we're not going to be able to do it even here at CNN and at "The New York Times."
[21:48:31]
COOPER: Up next, we're joined by someone who knew Edward R. Murrow well. He was hired by Murrow to join "CBS News," the beginning of a long, distinguished career in broadcast journalism.
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COOPER: Edward R. Murrow's legacy includes more than just his takedown of Joe McCarthy. He also handpicked and mentored a group of journalists who were known as the Murrow Boys. They became legendary broadcasters in their own right.
My next guest is the last journalist that Murrow recruited to "CBS News," Marvin Kalb. Murrow hired him in 1957. Kalb spent the next 30 years reporting for "CBS" and "NBC News." He was Moscow bureau chief during the early days of the Cold War, later moderated "Meet the Press" on "NBC." Author of many books, his latest is "A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course."
Mr. Kalb, thank you so much for -- for being with us. What do you think Murrow would think about the current state of journalism, the current state of politics right now?
MARVIN KALB, JOURNALIST RECRUITED BY EDWARD R. MURROW: Well, I think that Murrow would be rather unhappy about it. I believe that no network would hire an Edward R. Murrow today.
COOPER: Why?
KALB: Networks today live in, well, they live in elements of fear. They're concerned about covering a President who does not take well to criticism of any kind. And there is a fear running through newsrooms that I, personally, I'm not there any longer. But from what I hear, what I sense is that Murrow believed in truth-telling. Murrow was unafraid to take on authority.
Today, it's different. I believe that Murrow, and I say this on the basis of what he had said to me years ago about his fear of the fragility of democracy. And he believed that democracy is just a word, unless you vest in that word certain values, certain principles. Without that, it's just a word. And if it's just a word, then it has no meaning.
And for Murrow, that word had profound meaning. It was the essence of democracy, as he understood it. By the way, he translated democracy in an interesting way. He said democracy had two foundational pillars. One, he called the sanctity of the court. The other, he called the freedom of the press.
And he said if either one of these pillars wobbled, weakened, then the whole structure of democracy would wobble and weaken. And I believe Murrow today, and I say this on the basis of many things that he said to me, he would believe today that the three co-equal branches of government aren't co-equal any longer.
[21:55:10]
And I sense he would fear we are slipping dramatically into an authoritarian system.
COOPER: You really believe that Murrow would think we were on the path to authoritarianism?
KALB: Yes, I do. And for that reason, and he always -- he always said that a citizen had an obligation to speak out when the system of democracy itself is somehow threatened. And if, in his view, democracy was threatened by McCarthy, who was poisoning the political environment, but he was a junior senator from Wisconsin. He was not the president of the United States. And therefore, in Murrow's eyes, I believe, and I think I'm speaking truth in this sense, passing on what he would say to me. And that is democracy is, he called, precious. He always spoke about it as if it's a precious jewel. And it had to be coddled and supported in every way that a citizen of the United States had to do. You could not be silent. You had to speak up.
COOPER: Marvin Kalb, it's really a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.
KALB: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: Legendary newsman, Marvin Kalb.
Thanks so much for joining, my guests, the journalism students and professors here in the audience and the cast and crew of "Good Night, and Good Luck" and everybody on the panel. I'm Anderson Cooper. Real Time with Bill Maher is up next.
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