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On the Story
Correspondents Discuss Stories Behind the Stories
Aired January 28, 2006 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ON THE STORY is coming up in just a moment, but first, a look at what's happening right now in the news.
New Palestinian leadership and a new Palestinian problem -- money. President Bush says the newly elected Hamas government is cut off from American aid, that is unless the militant group drops its hard line toward Israel. At least 20 people were killed when heavy snow caused a roof collapse in Poland today. And brutal cold is making it tougher for rescue workers to find at least 100 people trapped inside. As many as 500 people were inside the exposition center at a bird show.
And NASA paid tribute today with flowers and affectionate remembrance to the seven astronauts of the space shuttle "Challenger." Twenty years ago today, the shuttle exploded shortly after lift off from Cape Canaveral.
Next ON THE STORY, we're going to preview the president's upcoming state of the union address as well as take a look at those massive Ford layoffs and the Sundance film festival. And later, "CNN Presents," Christa McAuliffe, reach for the stars, the real story of America's first teacher in space through the eyes of her family. That's what is happening right now in the news. I'm Carol Lin. Here's ON THE STORY.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR, ON THE STORY: This is CNN and we are on the story from the campus of the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital. Our correspondents bring you the stories behind the stories they're covering. Dana Bash is on the story of what we'll hear in the president's state of the union address.
Internet reporter Abbi Tatton goes online where the bloggers are ready for the big speech.
In Baghdad, Michael Holmes talks about the challenges and the dangers of covering the war.
And Candy Crowley is on the story of how a new baby is new hope for an Iraqi family who lost four children to U.S. fire.
Deborah Feyerick goes to Florida to talk to teens about sex and chastity pledges.
And Brooke Anderson is on the story of the Sundance film festival and how it can still makes hits and careers. Welcome. I'm Ali Velshi. With me here, Dana Bash and Candy Crowley and our correspondents. We'll be taking questions from our studio audience drawn from visitors, college students and people across Washington. But first, a presidential news conference this week. Dana Bash was there on the story talking to the camera until just before President Bush walked out. Let's have a look at her reporter's notebook.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Where we are geographically in the White House briefing rooms, I know that I'm going to be, maybe the seventh question at the earliest. The trick is to prepare with several topics and several specific questions. The key is to listen to what is asked and how the president answers beforehand and that's exactly why I asked my question.
You talked about Jack Abramoff in the context of pictures. (INAUDIBLE) may not necessarily (INAUDIBLE) He also had some meetings with some of your staff. So why are you letting your critics perhaps attack you and taint you with maybe a guilt by association.
You know that as soon as he's done talking, I'm going to have to stand up and turn around and start talking about what was the most important thing said.
Certainly hit on a lot of headlines here. Probably the most interesting is his reaction to the Palestinian elections.
VELSHI: Dana Bash on the story. When you see those shots, it looks a little more nerve racking than it seems on TV when it looks like you're the only one - you look like you're the only one there and there's no one around you, but it's full of stuff. We've got great questions from the audience. People want to know how you do that. Let's start with you sir. Where are you from? What's your name?
QUESTION: Hi. My name's Joel Sedgman from Maple Grove, Minnesota. And I was just wondering how preparations for the state of the union address at the White House this year have compared to previous years?
BASH: That's a good question. It's always an interesting thing to try to get -- it's kind of a game to try to get the information out of the White House on exactly what's in the state of the union address. It was actually a surprise that the president had this press conference just five days before the state of the union, because they try to kind of hold their fire generally and the president came out of this press conference and gave some of the themes that he's going to give in the state of the union. How it's different this year is basically because he's in a very different place this year than he was last year in that last year's state of the union address, he really was kind of vintage George W. Bush I think as Candy would say in that he had just won re-election and he was going to try to aim big and that was his Social Security reform idea and he spent the first six months of the year trying to do it and it just didn't happen. This year...
VELSHI: (INAUDIBLE) Iraq.
BASH: Exactly and the difference between last year and this year is that they're going to take baby steps I think in the kind of proposals he's going to give.
VELSHI: Let's take another question. Where are you from? What's your name?
QUESTION: Hi, I'm Allison from Allentown, Pennsylvania and I was wondering if President Bush appears to be more comfortable interacting with the press now that he is in his second term.
BASH: It certainly feels that way. It was something that struck me sitting in the briefing room and watching him, particularly because just of the setting. He doesn't make any secrets about the fact that he does not like formal news conferences, especially when they're prime time. This was at 10:15 in the morning. It was inside the White House briefing room and it was a very comfortable atmosphere for him, but it does appear that, you know, in the beginning of his sixth year that he is feeling more comfortable even with the questions that he does not want to answer and maybe becoming a little bit more adept at not answering them.
VELSHI: You get the evolution of the president over the term. Candy sees the candidates before they become front runners in some cases, before they become presidents. You see the whole evolution of somebody who may be nervous and stuttering right from the top.
BASH: And spend a lot of time with then Governor George W. Bush.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems to me a couple things. First of all, I think he doesn't like night time press conferences because of the formality but also he's a morning guy. He's very tired at 9:00 and this is a guy that gets up at 0 dark 30. And so 10:00 in the morning is really his prime time place. I think also he got very good in the campaign and then stiffened up again in the White House. I always thought they never did him justice by not letting him out more. They get out of practice.
BASH: Well, that's another interesting thing that we've seen over the past several weeks. We even saw it this week, is they're trying to get him out more, out of the bubble. They're let him not just take more questions from us, but trying to get him to answer questions from what they call real people, unscripted questions in forums that he wasn't in over the past several years, especially during the campaign and it really does show a side of him that you do see when the cameras aren't rolling. He's becoming more comfortable in doing that and actually the first time his aides saw him do it, they were very, very nervous about it. And then they saw it and they said, well, they had to maybe answer or clarify some of the answers that he gave afterwards but they thought, OK, that wasn't so bad. Maybe we should let him actually get out of the box more often.
VELSHI: A few kudos to my colleagues, because again, I can't get enough of the fact that it sounds like when you're there, the camera is right there and you'll stand up and talk to it. But in reality, what happened in that two minutes before the president started speaking? Describe to us what was going on. BASH: Well, the way it works is you get what's called a two minute warning and that means that in two minutes the president's walking into the briefing room and he's going to start talking. And the rule is that inside that two minute warning, we reporters are allowed to do live shots. We're allowed to be on camera. And but it also means that all of the president's staff is sitting in the room, so it is nerve racking. Usually when we're on television we can look at the camera and pretend like nobody is there. But when you're standing talking about what the White House is doing, what the president is going to say, maybe saying things that the White House doesn't necessarily like and you're sitting next to, right next to the chief of staff Karl Rove, the communications director and the whole team and also turning around and facing the entire White House press corps, all of your colleagues, it's definitely an interesting phenomena. In analogy, I even sort of, you feel like you're kind of standing in your underwear or something. The feel like all eyes are on you and the first time I did it, it was not easy and I can tell you in talking to my colleagues, they agree.
CROWLEY: Plus the picture, I think we saw in your reporter's notebook, six other people are screaming in your other ear. I mean it is just - it is cognitive dissonance constantly.
BASH: Exactly, exactly, because it's not - I'm not the only one who's doing it. You have other television reporters, who are, especially in the briefing room, which as you saw, it's not that fancy. It's really, really, really cramped, so they're right on top of you and they're projecting in their TV voices. So you have to really concentrate on not saying what you're saying and then suddenly repeating what you're hearing next to you. It's not easy to do.
VELSHI: It's one of the distractions we face in this business. Another one of these distractions very different of course, is covering the war in Iraq. It's going to be a prominent part of the president's speech on Tuesday. CNN's Michael Holmes is in Baghdad and back on the story in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: CNN on the story at the George Washington University. Well, Iraq can be a dangerous place for Iraqis and sometimes for CNN correspondents and their colleagues. Two years ago two CNN employees were killed. A translator, (INAUDIBLE) and a driver, Yasser Katib (ph). CNN correspondent Michael Holmes survived that attack. He has returned to Iraq and sees new dangers there making his job even harder. Here's Michael's reporter's notebook.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the way we do our line shots from every day, reporting to you. However, most days, this is as close as we can get to those in the city behind me. It is difficult to get out and about. We do, but it is always with great caution. It's a sad fact of war coverage that casualties become numbers compounding the tragedy, trivializing the individual, 45 killed in this bombing, 80 that one.
Many of us of course try to stay detached from the actual violence. There are always times when we in the media cannot bury it and usually, that's when the horror involves you or someone you know.
It's two years since we lost two of our own, two vibrant young men whose lives were cut short by insurgent bullets. It changed me, changed all of us. It helps now and then to remind ourselves and those who watch our work that those casualty lists contain more than numbers, Iraqis or coalition forces, they're people.
VELSHI: Michael Holmes joins us from Baghdad and that's absolutely right Michael. As much as you have to remind yourself of it, we all have to remember that we watch you all and it looks very straightforward, but it's not. Let's go straight to the audience Michael, with some of our audience questions. Your name and where you're from.
QUESTION: Emily Larson from Vienna, Virginia. Daily life in Iraq, restaurants, things like that, getting better, getting worse?
HOLMES: Sorry to say, it's getting worse. I've been here half a dozen times and each time I come back, the security not just for us, but for ordinary Iraqis is getting worse. It used to be there was a vibrant night life here. People would go to restaurants, visit friends. Now most people are in their houses by 6:00 and they don't go out. I was doing a story yesterday with a psychiatrist here whose waiting room is full. He's booked for the next month solid because of the stress levels, post traumatic stress, he says.
VELSHI: Michael, another question from our audience. Ma'am, where are you from and what's your name?
QUESTION: My flame is Melinda and I'm from (INAUDIBLE) Washington. My question is, as a correspondent in Iraq, do you feel you're treated differently than in reporting in other parts of the world?
HOLMES: That's something that's interesting. I've covered a lot of the problems in the west bank and Gaza and the like and there we would drive around in armored cars and we had TV plastered all over the car, because both sides respected that and usually didn't fire on us. But here it's different. We go around as low key as we can because this is the first war really and certainly that I've covered and most of my colleagues can remember, where we're not just observers; we're actually targets and dozens of journalists have died here. It's been the deadliest war ever for journalists.
VELSHI: Your name and where you're from.
QUESTION: My name is Joseph. I'm from Charleston, South Carolina and my question, the troop presence in Baghdad walking the streets, is it high there or is it more of a behind the scenes force?
HOLMES: That's something that changed a lot too. You do still see U.S. convoys going through Baghdad, but they're normally going from A to B. In previous times I've been here over the last three years, U.S. forces were ubiquitous around the streets. Now they pretty much stay in their bases most of the time, other than to go on missions search for insurgents or whatever or doing small patrols around the place. In the capital itself, no, it's something that struck me on this trip is how many more Iraqi police, Iraqi soldiers you're seeing on the streets. The U.S. presence is a lot less than previous times in the capital.
CROWLEY: Michael, it's Candy, when I have a chance early on after the Afghanistan war had begun about a month into it and I sort of jumped at the chance and got screamed down by both my children and my parents. I'm wondering what that's like for you back home and how you split what must be worrisome for your family and how you explain it to them.
HOLMES: Yeah. I've been in the business nearly 30 years now, so mom is used to it. I have two kids and what's interesting is, they know what happened in the ambush, and they know how close it was. And at this time my daughter is seven and Lilly said to me this time. I said I'm going away again and she said, I hope it's not back to Iraq and that sort of hits you right in the chest. Why do we do it then? I suppose as journalists, as you know, where there's a big story you want to be there, an important story that needs telling and you try to calculate the risks as much as possible. In this place, anything can happen at any time. But you try to be as safe as you can. But yeah, it's hard. I mean I've got a seven-year-old daughter and a six-year- old son and my son thinks it's cool I get to hang out with soldiers, but my daughter is a little bit more sensitive and she worries a lot. That's right Candy.
BASH: Michael, how has your life as a journalist changed in terms of how you cover Iraq this time versus the times in the past, meaning are you able to get around, do you feel, to actually see what life is really like on the ground and tell the stories?
HOLMES: That's a great question. It's changed a lot. When we first got here, I've got photographs of me and some of my colleagues sitting on Saddam's statue that was brought down, not wearing flack jackets, out there with everyone. Now you just can't do that. You can't leave your house without a security presence. So a lot of print journalists can go and dress like locals if you like and blend in a little bit. All they need is a notebook. As you know, we go out with a crew and everything that that entails and we have to take security precautions, obviously, I can't discuss most of those. But certainly you don't leave the house without a flack jacket and some level of protection and that's changed enormously.
We have no social life. It's a 24/7 operation here and it's a lot more stressful. I know when I get back home, I'll spend the next week after I get back checking out cars next to me, because that's what you do here all the time. Does it have one driver which would be a car bomb potential. Does it have a lot of young men in it? That could be an ambush potential. These are the things that stay with you, after you get back. But it's changed an awful lot over the last three years, how we can cover the story. One thing I have to do is give a lot of kudos to our Iraqi staff. They do a lot of the ground work. I've got an interview tomorrow I wanted to go on and one of our Iraqi producers said no, you can't go to this area. I'll do the interview for you. That sort of thing happens a lot. We go out, we don't stay anywhere for too long, that sort of thing. VELSHI: Michael Holmes, thanks so much for reminding us to always be conscious of our colleagues and remembering those we lost. And as always, stay safe yourself. Michael Holmes joining us from Baghdad.
Well, the U.S. and Iraq are intertwined in a lot of ways. Take the story that Candy Crowley filed this week, how an American baby is at the heart of a powerful story about terrible loss in Iraq, crushing sadness and now new hope. Candy's back on that story right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We are on the story from Iraq to St. Louis. CNN's Candy Crowley took a break from politics this week. She revisited the story of an Iraqi couple whose four children were killed by U.S. gun fire at a checkpoint in a sandstorm in the first days of the Iraq war. Candy sat down again with the family and saw how they had changed. Here's her reporter's note book.
CROWLEY: As a reporter, you train yourself never to root for people. I never root for a politician. But how can you not root for these people? When we first saw (INAUDIBLE) the mother, the pain was just -- it was almost unbearable to be in the room with them. And so when we found out they had the baby and we got so much feedback on the original story, that I knew that he reached people.
And the change in her, I think was the most striking thing to me in the same way that I felt the burden of her grief the first time we met. Without her saying a word, you could just -- it's even obvious in the pictures. I would like to think this story taught me something about survival, about forgiveness. It was just one of those stories. As long as there's something still that can instruct, we'd like to go back at some point.
VELSHI: That's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, if any of those things would happen to most people, that wouldn't be enough reason to go on.
CROWLEY: Yeah, I mean, when I said, you know, I like stories where I learn something and I like stories that years later, you feel like you've changed as a person. And not all of them do that. Some of them are pretty routine. This one just -- the bitter free nature of losing their entire family, all four other children, ages 2 1/2 to 12 in a horrible mistake. I mean, this wasn't, you know, anything that anybody did on purpose. It was just an awful mistake and they would say to me, you know - I'd say, why don't you hate us, why don't you hate Americans? They said we hate the people who did it meaning the individuals who may have turned the tank around, because they weren't careful. But we don't hate Americans because they've been wonderful to us. Blows me away.
VELSHI: Ma'am where are you from? What's your name?
QUESTION: Nadia from Desert Hot Springs, California. I was wondering, how has the family adapted to life in the United States and how has their opinions on Americans changed since the death of their four children?
CROWLEY: Well, one of the things that Taham (ph), the father told us was that he met so many angels along the way that were Americans. His wife has -- is a diabetic and she's had three miscarriages prior to their family of four being born and so she has delicate health, and I mean, they monitored her, they -- he talks about how how he -- when the baby was born, they take the baby and they go and they clean up the baby, he followed them. He thought where are they taking my baby? And he said to me, they took care of my child, not as though it was my child, but as though it was theirs, so they have very many good feelings about Americans. This is a little American boy after all, that they've just given birth too, because it was born here.
VELSHI: That's incredible.
QUESTION: My name is Sherry from Poland, Maine and I was wondering if the U.S. government gives any compensation to Iraqi families who have lost their children to American forces.
CROWLEY: I will tell you that we obviously checked this story out very early on and did find out from the military forces that there was as they put it, an incident similar to the one that they described that happened. I found that really curious why they didn't step up to the plate and say we did it. It was horrible. We have a death certificate from the U.S. airbase in Nasaria (ph) for the child that lingered the longest. So we know it's true. Yes, the answer is yes, they do give compensation, but it has to have been outside the -- something -- I don't know how to explain this in military terms, but when they replied to us, when the U.S. military replied to us, they said this was all within the rules of engagement. Obviously, any number, thousands of Iraqis have been killed. How they do that selection of who they recommend and who they don't, I'm not sure. Most of it has been in country and they have not been and nor have they sought any kind of money.
BASH: You're the senior political r correspondent. You're covering all of the partisan warfare that goes on in Washington all the time. How did this happen?
CROWLEY: We were covering the first Iraqi election and as you know, if you were an Iraqi in the U.S., you could go to various polling places. So we went to this place in St. Louis, where there's a big Iraqi community and went to a place called "Arabian Nights" there was this little cafe that we found there. And so we were just talking to some people. We were doing a story on the Iraqi who was there when Saddam was found and how he was going to go vote and how excited he was and somebody came up to me and said I have someone who has a story to tell and it was Taham and he'd been there less than a month, been in the U.S. less than a month. And once I sat down with him and he started to talk, you know, that story was -- I had to do that story. We went back. We weren't doing that story then, but I said I'll be back. I promise you I'll be back.
VELSHI: Fortunate to be able to do things a little differently than we do sometimes and learn the lessons that we learn. We'll await Candy's next follow up on how that family is making its way. Coming up, Deborah Feyerick reports on American teenagers who are fighting social pressure and vowing to say virgins until marriage. But first news from motor city this week, Ford said it would eliminate 30,000 jobs over the next few years. I reported from one assembly plant that's earmarked to shut down. Take a look.
The story is really the intersection of where people and business come together because it's a story about job cuts and layoffs. But it's about 30,000 people, 30,000 families who are going to suffer because of it. The North American auto operations of Ford are not profitable. We're in Wixon, Michigan, which is the site of one of the seven plants, the first seven plants that are going to shut down. We just sort of planted ourselves outside the plant and people would come up and tell us our stories.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It hurts. You got a lot of family here, a lot of friends.
VELSHI: The ability to be here and touch it and listen to people and try and tell their story, I think makes a big difference. It makes it seem personal, it's not just numbers, it's actually someone's story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: More of ON THE STORY in just a moment.
But first, a look at what's happening right now in the news.
Members of the Fatah protested Palestinian election results in Gaza City today. And President Bush is warning the new ruling party, Hamas, that it could lose American aid to the Palestinians if it won't renounce violence.
At least 20 people were killed when heavy snow caused a roof collapse in Poland today. And brutal cold is making it tougher for rescue workers to find at least 100 people trapped inside. As many as 500 people were inside the exposition center at a bird show.
And new video of four kidnapped aid workers has surfaced. The militants who released the video repeated a demand for Iraqi prisoners to be set free. Two Canadians, an American and a Briton were abducted in November.
And later on "CNN PRESENTS," a portrait of America's first teacher in space through the eyes of family members. It's Christa McAuliffe, "Reach for the Stars."
That's what's happening right now in the news.
I'm Carol Lin.
Now back to ON THE STORY.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: CNN is on the story here at the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital. Well, we all hear stories about sex and teenagers. This one is a little different. Some high school students are giving a no sex before marriage pledge and they're wearing special chastity rings to show others and maybe remind themselves that they're serious about it.
CNN's Deborah Feyerick was on the chastity ring story.
Here is her Reporter's Notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are a lot of Web sites that sell these rings. And so we contacted these Web sites to find out what churches had placed big orders and we found this church in Florida who had just placed an order and they were having a ring ceremony. And so the timing was perfect. So we jumped on a plane and we went to Tampa.
We arranged this in such a way so that we would be there when the teenagers accepted their rings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, Kaylah (ph).
FEYERICK: The kids were really willing to open up and talk about all these issues.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't mind stepping out and being like I'm not going to have sex.
FEYERICK: They were taking us through the process by which they made their decisions. And so that was interesting to hear these teenagers and to see the things that they're faced with.
They talk about sex, specifically, how they plan to remain virgins until marriage, for god's sake.
They made it sparkle because they were so honest, they were so refreshing. The teens really made this piece come to life.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
VELSHI: Deborah Feyerick joins us now from our New York bureau -- Deborah, we have an audience of a lot of young people here who actually have a lot of questions for u.
So let's start with you, ma'am.
Where are you from and what's your name?
JENNIE: I'm Jennie (ph) and I'm from Villa Park, Illinois.
And I was just wondering, do you think parents play a huge role in the chastity vows? And what if their friends are sexually active?
FEYERICK: It's -- the parents definitely play a big role in all of this. And all these children are part of a teen church group. And that's also a big element in this. They do have a lot of friends in school and those friends are having sex. And so there's pressure on them, but they really made this decision because they just say it's not right for them.
And so they want to at least be in an environment where there are others who support their decision, who share their decision. And if they're sort of going down one road, somebody will tap them on the shoulder and say hey, remember that ring you're wearing?
so they've got a lot of support. But definitely a little bit of pressure from their parents.
LAURA THOMPSON: Hi, I'm Laura Thompson (ph).
I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio.
And my question is do you think that we can attribute the growth of teen chastity vows to the current administration's promotion of abstinence only education?
FEYERICK: It's a good question. They've put in a lot of money to preach abstinence education. It's a little bit confusing for the teenagers on some levels because in certain high schools, they are taught sex education -- so the mechanics of it, the logistics of it, how not to get pregnant, how not to contract a sexually transmitted disease.
And then on the other hand, they're also then, they go to church and they're taught, OK, don't have sex. It does work hand in hand. There's a lot of support for these programs so that teenagers at least can have that choice.
But there are a lot of emotions that go along with it. So while they do put the ring on and while they do take the chastity vow, statistics show that it's very, very difficult for many of them to keep those pledges and one study showed that 88 percent of those who had taken the chastity vow ultimately lost their virginity before they walked down the aisle.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Deb, that's sort of what I was going to ask u.
You know, for those of us who follow pop culture, this became kind of a thing when Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson said that they publicly weren't going to do -- weren't going to have sex until they were married. So... and we sort of maybe, following pop culture, know what happened there.
Looking at and talking to the people that you talked to, do they actually feel confident that they are going to follow through on this?
FEYERICK: There is a lot of doubt. I mean you look in their eyes -- we were there to talk about sex. And we talked about sex a lot. As a matter of fact, we talked about it more than any of us had spoken about it in a long time, certainly more than when I was in high school. But these kids are making these vows because there has been so much outside pressure. But the pressure that they're getting now is kind of a different pressure, because they're getting it from their church, they're getting it from their parents.
The one thing that I really didn't see was talk about true relationships, how you develop relationships, how difficult it can be to be in a marriage. And one of the big questions I had is well, you know, what happens? Because it's one thing to say, OK, I'm going to get married so I can have sex, but then it's another issue entirely to be married, especially when you're that young. The big question we had is is this sort of forcing children to get married when they're 19, 20, 21? And I call them children, but they're young. They don't know a lot about relationships.
And to put sort of all your eggs in one basket so that that one night is the biggest night of your life is a little bit risky because the realities of life come in. You've got to work, you've got a job. And if you have kids, forget about it.
So it's interesting, it's still a little bit naive.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I love the little bit where the mother was listening to you talk to their child about sex.
Was there anything you didn't ask? Was it a little weird to have the mom there while you were talking to the child?
FEYERICK: The mother says she's very open with her daughter, talking about sex. And that girl that you saw, Kelly Brown, she was very frank about what her expectations are.
And I asked her the $64,000 question which is, you know, OK, well, what happens if you are 27, 28, 29, 30 and all of a sudden you haven't met the right person? And she kind of cracked. And she said well, I think maybe I'd need to reevaluate then.
So right now it's a good decision given that they haven't met anybody who they really love or they really care about. The question is are they going to have enough information to make the kind of wise choices they need to be in a very healthy relationship?
VELSHI: Deb Feyerick, my colleague in New York, who at least for a couple of days got paid to talk about sex.
Good to see you, Deb.
Our Internet reporter, Abbi Tatton, is going to be back ON THE STORY online with how bloggers are getting ready for the president's State of the Union address.
That's all coming up right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: You are ON THE STORY. We want you to tell us which correspondents you want to hear, what topics you want to see. E-mail us at onthestory@cnn.com.
Well, Abbi Tatton is keeping a watch on the Internet -- Abbi, what's the buzz about the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday night?
ABBI TATTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, a lot of the buzz out there is about the preparations for online coverage of the event on Tuesday. And I remember covering the State of the Union and looking at the blogs and what they were talking about last time. And I have to say that the coverage this time, this year, looks like it's going to be a lot more elaborate.
This is Think Progress. This is the liberal blogging arm of the Center for American Progress here in Washington. They're promising an extravaganza. They have got some of the top liberal bloggers coming along to join them here in D.C. They're going to be live blogging the event, fact checking everything that's going on. They're doing a radio show that you're going to be able to hear online, a panel discussion.
They're promising complete coverage so you don't have to go to your TV, but from a liberal bent. They do point that out.
On the Republican side, you're seeing a lot of outreach from the Republican establishment to the bloggers. The House Republican Conference is organizing what they're calling a bloggers row. They've invited conservative bloggers along here to D.C. to Capitol Hill. They're going to be hanging out all day on Tuesday and they've organized over 40 members of Congress, Republicans, to stop by and chat with them, do Q&A sessions. And all of this will be blogged there.
So a lot of preparations. A lot going to be going on on Tuesday.
VELSHI: Is this new? We sort of heard a little about this in the past, where they really reach out to the blogging community.
How new is it and how is it picking up steam?
TATTON: We're seeing it more and more, Ali.
We've got the Republican National Committee who hired a blogger, Patrick Ruffini, who has been organizing conference calls, really reaching out and giving access to bloggers that they didn't have in the past, conservative bloggers.
On the left, we see senators reaching out to the blogging community, as well. We saw Senator Kerry this week going on daily kos, the biggest liberal blog out there, announcing his intentions or support for a filibuster of the nominee, Samuel Alito, there. That reaching out to a community on daily kos gets some five million hits a week -- Ali.
VELSHI: Now you get a chance to vote on our coverage. Listen to President Bush speaking at the National Security Agency on Wednesday defending what the White House calls the terrorist surveillance program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must be able to quickly detect when someone linked to al Qaeda is communicating with someone inside of America. That's one of the challenges of protecting the American people. And it's one of the lessons of September the 11th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right, now I want to just ask the audience here for a show of hands.
How many people think the media's coverage of President Bush and the surveillance policies has been fair? Just give me a show of hands.
How many of you think -- and I can see from the number of hands that are already up -- how many of you think that it hasn't been fair?
All right, let's just get a couple of comments from people.
You were one of the people who thinks it hasn't been fair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VELSHI: Let's -- stand up for a second and tell us what you think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Given that the FISA court is very much a rubber stamp, why is it that even in the -- even in the case of the vast majority of FISA permits are approved, why is Bush still bypassing it in some cases? And the motivations there, I think, haven't been explored enough.
VELSHI: What do you guys think?
Dana?
BASH: Look, it's -- the bottom line is it's extraordinarily complicated. Just the couple of things that you just brought up. It's, a lot of it is there are dense legal issues, a lot of issues that we don't know a lot about because they're secret. But when you try to tell the story, particularly from a TV point of view, it is important to try to, you know, give all aspects of particularly the White House, how they're defending it, why they say it's important. And we do that for sure.
But when you get into sort of the specifics about, for example, FISA, you know, how long does it take to get a FISA warrant and why didn't the White House just go to that? I mean we try to get that information out there. We try to ask those questions. Actually, we do ask those questions over and over again to the White House, even this past week to the president.
So I think also we've been covering this story enough that at a certain point we hit a lot of the specific details of it that you just mentioned.
VELSHI: You had your hand up thinking that the media coverage has been fair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VELSHI: Tell me a bit about that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think it's the media's responsibility to report both the successful uses of power as well as the failures and the, you know, the bad uses of power coming from the White House. And this, I think, clearly, is a transgression of power.
CROWLEY: What's interesting to me is -- maybe because I see all things political -- is that, you know, whether you think it is fair or unfair depends on how you are on the political spectrum. And I think that we see all the time in political coverage, in White House coverage. If somebody does something bad and you report it, the people who like them think you're not being fair. The people who don't like them think you're just spot on.
So there is a -- it's very often hard -- and I'm not saying you, but it's very -- just on the entire issue of fairness, it's very often very hard for people to separate their feelings of accurate or fair reporting from their own political persuasions.
VELSHI: Thanks so much for your participation.
Thanks to all of u.
And, Abbi, one of the advantages of the blog is you can spend a little more time reading it and getting a little more detail than we can often give on TV.
Abbi Tatton ON THE STORY online.
Thank you.
Coming up, what many of us aspire to -- spending a week at a fabulous ski resort watching new movies, hobnobbing with stars.
Well, Brooke Anderson is back on her Sundance adventures, in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We are ON THE STORY at the Sundance Film Festival, living vicariously through CNN entertainment correspondent Brooke Anderson.
Here's her Reporter's Notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a winter wonderland. You've got the beautiful backdrop of the snow-covered mountains. It's very different from any typical Hollywood event or awards show.
It seems like you've really been stretching yourself as an actor.
The access here is better than it normally is in Hollywood. People are willing to talk. We did set up a lot of the interviews ahead of time, before we can to Sundance, through the celebrities. But as we're here, we figure out who everyone is buzzing about, what the big stories are. And then we, on the fly, set up interviews with celebrities through their publicists.
I have to tell you, this place is swarming with Hollywood bigwigs. I'm talking studio executives, directors, celebrities.
You have to switch gears really quickly here at Sundance, because I could be up and down this hill five times throughout the day to conduct interviews and then I have to put on my hosting hat, so to speak, to do "SHOW BIZ TONIGHT."
(END VIDEO TAPE)
VELSHI: Yes, we're all crying over here.
Brooke Anderson joining us now from Park City, Utah.
It is a tough gig but someone's got do to it.
ANDERSON: Poor me, Ali. Poor me.
VELSHI: Yes. Yes.
ANDERSON: That's right.
VELSHI: Here we go, right to the audience.
MEGAN BROWN: Hi.
I'm Megan Brown (ph) from Dover, New Hampshire.
And I was wondering if you think that Al Gore's new film on global warming is getting such a great buzz around it because of the film's content or because it has the Gore name attached to it?
ANDERSON: A good question. Probably a little bit of both. The documentary is called "An Inconvenient Truth." It is about global warming. And Al Gore was here in Sundance to promote the film, to attach his name to it. He's very passionate about this. And, in fact, he and Tipper even hit some parties, were some unexpected guests at the "Entertainment Weekly" party.
So he's really getting out there, trying to sell this movie. And, in fact, Al Gore was animated about it. Yes, Al Gore was animated. He's very passionate about this. He's written a second book, in fact, about global warming, also titled "An Inconvenient Truth," which will hit bookstores, be published, in April.
So probably a little bit of both. It never helps to have someone of his stature to attach yourself to a movie like this. Absolutely.
LAURA HARDISTEN: Hello.
Laura Hardisten (ph), New Castle, Pennsylvania.
ANDERSON: Hi.
HARDISTEN: Traditionally, the Sundance Film Festival is an excellent opportunity for independent filmmakers to first release their new films.
Which films do you believe will be this year's top choices?
ANDERSON: Great question. Many independent filmmakers have gotten their start here, including Steven Soderbergh for "Sex, Lies and Videotape," Quentin Tarantino for "Reservoir Dogs," Kevin Smith for "Clerks." Movies like "Napoleon Dynamite," "Garden State," "March of the Penguins" have come out of here.
And a lot of the buzz this year is around -- is surrounding the movie "Little Miss. Sunshine." And this is a Steve Carell film. And this goes back to the previous question, is it about the film or is it about the name attached to the film? And it could be a little bit of both.
Steve Carell very popular right now, fresh off the success of "40-Year-Old Virgin"; also, his hit NBC show "The Office." But "Little Miss. Sunshine" is a comedy about a family taking their daughter across the country to put her in a child beauty pageant. It was the first movie picked up here at the Sundance Film Festival by Fox Searchlight, by a major studio. It was picked up by Fox Searchlight for $10 million. So that is quite a pick up for this film festival.
CROWLEY: Brooke, all week long I've been listening to you talk about the free stuff. But I -- you know, all these celebrities running in and out of, I don't know, hotel rooms, whatever is going on, to get free stuff.
What's the free stuff?
ANDERSON: Oh, the free stuff is anything you want. It is here -- from clothes to jewelry to sunglasses to shoes to trips to electronics. And it's not really hotel rooms.
What happens here is, I'm on Main Street and a lot of the store owners right here on Main Street leave for the week and actually rent out their space to companies for a pretty hefty price tag. And then these companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to come here, bring their wares and basically just throw them at the celebrities. And the celebrities, it's unbelievable. I see them walking out of the gift suites with shopping bags just overflowing with this swag. That's what we call the free stuff, it's swag. Including Paris Hilton was a big theme this year. A lot of people said she not only took one of every item, she took four or five or 10 of every item. So it's a pretty amazing sight, in fact.
BASH: Brooke, once I had to agree with Madonna when she said, you know, the richer I get, the more free stuff I get. I don't really understand it.
ANDERSON: The companies say all the money they spend is worth it if that celebrity is photographed wearing their clothes or their products or whatever it may be. They say all of it is worth if it that happens. Free advertising.
BASH: Quickly, on the Sundance Film Festival, obviously Robert Redford started it to give people who wouldn't get a chance to get picked up, to give them a chance.
Is that still sort of the feel there?
ANDERSON: The core mission is still here. One hundred and twenty films screened throughout this festival and 59 of those were first time filmmakers. So, you know, you're going to have a little bit of both whenever there are A list stars coming in. But Robert Redford wants it to remain true to its core mission, and that is that it is the premier American showcase for independent filmmaking.
VELSHI: Brooke, it is always a joy to have you with us.
And next week I will show you my "My Friend Brooke Went to Sundance and All I Got Were These Stinking Ear Muffs."
Be safe.
Enjoy.
We are back in a moment with what we'll be looking for next week ON THE STORY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Well, let's take a quick look ahead at what we think we're going to be covering next week, because it is the news business.
Dana? I think we know what you're covering.
BASH: This one I think we're pretty -- we're pretty good on, the State of the Union address, of course.
VELSHI: And that'll be -- that's Tuesday night.
BASH: The State of the Union address, Tuesday night. And some travel with the president right afterward.
CROWLEY: The political dynamic of the State of the Union. This is the kickoff for the midterm elections. This is the place marker for Republicans and for Democrats moving into the 2006 elections. VELSHI: And I'll be in Houston for the beginning of the trial of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, the corporate trial of the century, Enron.
Well, thanks to both of u.
Thanks to all of my colleagues and our fantastic audience here at the George Washington University.
And thank you for watching ON THE STORY.
We'll be back each week, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
Straight ahead, a check on what's making news right now.
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