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On the Story
Correspondents Discuss Stories Behind the Stories
Aired February 04, 2006 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Randi Kaye. Breaking news and developments in a bizarre, violent attack in Massachusetts. The Associated Press says Jacob Robida has been arrested. He is the 18 year old Massachusetts man who, witnesses say, went on a rampage inside a bar in New Bedford Wednesday night. The AP says Robida was spotted by police in Arkansas. There was a shootout. AP says a police officer and a woman were killed.
Muslim protesters set fire to the Danish embassy in Damascus, Syria today. They are angry over drawings of Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper. Violence has escalated in several countries and some European papers reprinted the cartoons recently as an expression of free speech.
Hundreds of protesters marched on the national mall and near the White House today. They had gathered in Washington to protest President Bush and his policies. Organizers blame bad weather for a lower than expected turnout.
Betty Friedan, the spark who ignited the women's rights movement has died. Friedan is best known for her 1963 book "The Feminist Mystique." She co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966. Friedan died of congestive heart failure at her home in Washington, D.C. Today was her 85th birthday.
Straight ahead, right here on CNN, ON THE STORY. Our correspondents gather to give you the inside word on the stories they've been covering this week. That's at the top of the hour. Coming up on "CNN Presents, Battle for the Border." CNN's Anderson Cooper goes inside an elaborate tunnel under the U.S./Mexican border used for drugs, illegal immigrants, sex trafficking and much more. Coming up at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
I'm Randi Kaye. Now 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 are covering. Elaine Quijano is on the story of the president's state of the union address.
Ed Henry talks about the political fallout.
Internet reporter Jacki Scheckter goes online for reaction to news coverage of the wounded ABC journalists.
Nic Robertson knows the dangers of Iraq first hand and the hard decisions of how to get the story.
Barbara Starr is just back from Africa, where U.S. military teams try to win friends and watch out for terrorists.
Welcome. I'm Ali Velshi. I'll be talking about covering the start of the big Enron corporate corruption trial in Houston. With me here, Elaine Quijano, Ed Henry and Barbara Starr. And our correspondents will be taking questions from our studio audience, drawn from visitors, college students and people across Washington.
Well, President Bush spoke to a worldwide audience on Tuesday. But the political drama was right there on Capitol Hill. Our congressional correspondent Ed Henry was on that story. Here's Ed's reporter's notebook.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's one of those Washington rituals. There's real high drama, so much build-up to it. My mission is to figure out what the congressional Democrats were going to say before and after. They are planning to hit him hard again tonight on Iraq, but deficits, those ethics controversies. In a split second your focus changes and suddenly we broke the story that Cindy Sheehan was going to be in the chambers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to quickly break away to Ed Henry, who's standing by on Capitol Hill and we have some breaking news about a famous war protester. Ed, what do you got?
HENRY: Then we broke the story later in the night that she had been arrested by the capitol police. You could see the entire CNN team sort of sprung into action and we're sort of - you're trying to collect all these pieces of information that are coming in fast and furious and make sense of it and get it on the air first but get it right as well.
VELSHI: Ed Henry joins us now and we're going to talk a little bit about the coverage and the complexity in it. But it looks all organized when you are watching it on TV. It's one of the few things I watched as a viewer and I watched you when that information came in. It's all set up and then something happens and you have to go into high gear to figure out what's going on. What do you do?
HENRY: It's such a carefully choreographed event. You're right, all this high drama and basically what people don't know is you have so many other people helping you out. You are the one in front of the camera but in this case, Deidre Walsh, one of our producers on Capitol Hill was digging around, talking to the Capitol police, nailing down the fact they had in fact arrested Cindy Sheehan. And it turned out to be a mistake. They later apologized and realized that the police had gone overboard and it turned out to be a fairly big controversy. So you always have to be ready for anything.
VELSHI: What's your name sir and your question?
QUESTION: I'm Steve from Brigham Young University. I wanted to know if the surprise victory of Representative Boehner (ph) as the new majority leader will increase or decrease the harsh, harsh partisanship of this polarized Congress.
HENRY: I think it might decrease it a little bit, because Boehner is known for reaching across the aisle to Democrats and so he's going to reach out a little bit. And it's funny because the way people, staffers on the Hill you talk to, Republicans, they sometimes compare it to high school believe it or not, within the Republican caucus and the Democratic caucus. And John Boehner just to boil it down, he's known as the guy who sort of was the popular guy in high school, the football player. He was a linebacker in high school, Joe Cool. He's always seen just off the House floor smoking a cigarette, talking to reporters. He's very friendly and that has given him a pretty popular image. But the potential challenge for John Boehner is the fact that post-Tom Delay, Republicans are desperate to get beyond the ethics scandals and this is somebody who's very close to lobbyists himself and you're going to hear a lot about that.
VELSHI: Interesting question that you had because that election of John Boehner led to a little bit wider than usual exposure for Ed Henry. He helped Jon Stewart get a laugh about Republicans electing the new House majority leader. Have a look at this.
JON STEWART: Today, the House of Representatives, the GOP, met to vote on Mr. Delay's replacement.
HENRY: They went into a first ballot behind closed doors, the House Republicans and they had a problem. They had more ballots turned in than actual Republican members of Congress that were here to vote. So there were concerns about voting irregularities.
STEWART: Voting irregularities. Is that so much you can't make this stuff up. It's that you wish you had to.
HENRY: It's funny because what happened was that night, when Jon Stewart did that, I wasn't watching the show and all of a sudden my blackberry was pound, pound, pound on the dresser. And I said, boy there must be some big story breaking because CNN is trying to get a hold of me and instead I looked and it was all these people on Capitol Hill saying you were just on "The Daily Show" and Jon Stewart is talking about John Boehner. And it was just kind of interesting, because you don't expect something like that to happen and your first reaction is, I hope I didn't say something stupid on the air that Jon Stewart is making fun of. But it was true. It was an interesting -- they are trying to get behind all the ethics scandals and they had a little bit of a controversy.
VELSHI: Your name and where you're from.
QUESTION: I'm (INAUDIBLE) . I'm from Virginia and my question is, how will the nomination of a new Republican majority leader from Ohio impact our midyear elections in November?
HENRY: Well, Republicans are hoping that it'll get them to change the subject frankly and what John Boehner is saying is that if they just play defense and sit back and deal with the Jack Abramoff scandal, the Duke Cunningham scandal and whatnot, they're going to get knocked off their message on taxes, cutting taxes. The Republicans want to talk about the economy turning around and so he wants to go on offense and start pushing back against the Democrats. And the Democrats have a challenge as well because the political climate is such right now heading into November, that things are not looking good for the Republicans but the Democrats haven't shown yet that they can capitalize on that, that they've gotten their act together. So Republicans are hoping John Boehner will breathe some new life into what's a pretty gloomy situation on the Hill for them right now.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Ed, speaking of the Democrats, one thing, obviously, besides the state of the union address that's always interesting to watch is the response. And the Democrats picked someone that maybe doesn't have sort of a national prominence just yet.
HENRY: That's right. Tim Kane, the governor of Virginia. He'd been in office for less than three weeks. But he's somebody who the Democrats were desperate to find people that can win in the so-called red states, states that the president carried in 2000 and 2004. He's somebody who just won. He's a moderate. And that's interesting for them to showcase him. But on the other hand, he doesn't have any national security experience because he's a governor and he's a new governor. And as a lot of people pointed out, the president spent a lot of time on national security. He won re-election mostly on the issue of national security. And so while the Democrats have some new faces they need to promote, they also need to think about national security and how they are going to push back because Karl Rove has already made it clear that's what they are going to pound away at in 2006.
VELSHI: Your name and where you're from.
QUESTION: Hi. I'm Lisa (INAUDIBLE) I'm from North Hampton, Massachusetts. And I have a question about behind the scenes on Capitol Hill. Is there any discussion about impeaching the president because of the wiretapping without a court order?
HENRY: I think mostly it's just been among the Democrats on the far left who have been talking about that. Republican chairman of the judiciary committee, Arlen Specter has said if the law was broken, that's a big if, he would not rule out impeachment. But we're nowhere close to that, frankly. And on Monday, there's going to be a very big hearing. It's the first hearing on a Hill. There's going to be more high drama because you're going to have the attorney general of the United States, Alberto Gonzales come up there. And as Elaine knows, the administration of recent weeks has really been pushing back. And it started out where the Democrats were on offense. But all of a sudden, the White House has turned around and said this is not a domestic spying program. It's a terrorist surveillance program. You've seen the poll numbers turn a little bit and all of a sudden, people are saying, I'm concerned about civil liberties but I'm also concerned about my life and safety. And the White House is playing into that and I think this hearing on Monday is going to be pretty fascinating.
VELSHI: And we're going to find out more about how the White House has done that. Ed Henry, thank you.
The reaction of the White House to the president's performance and his follow-up rallies on the road since the state of the union address. Our Elaine Quijano is back on that story after this.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And as I said last night to Congress, whether you agree or not agree with the decision, this country has one option and that's victory in Iraq. I'm looking forward to -- I say that because the enemy has said they want to drive us out of Iraq and use it as a safe haven. We've got to take the word seriously of those who want to do us harm.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: While CNN is on the story here at the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital, presidents get their moments of guaranteed news coverage. The state of the union address on Tuesday was one of those times. Have a look behind the scenes here at CNN getting ready.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where are they sitting? Show the house chamber. Who is sitting where. But it's also not just the special guest. It's where does the Supreme Court sit and why. Where does the chief sit and why. I love the who is missing and why and it's usually not a top ranking cabinet secretary and where do they go?
They're all special seats in many ways. Specifically where Samuel Alito will be seated. Up here, with two other justices of the Supreme Court.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some top officials won't be at the Capitol tonight for the state of the union address.
Who those officials are isn't being made public just yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next person who is going to be introduced within a few seconds is going to be the president of the United States. Let's listen in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Elaine, in past years, we've seen the president lay out broad strategies, huge themes, social security, health care. This year it was a little bit different.
QUIJANO: Definitely cautious and it was interesting. Beforehand, we had a sense that it wasn't going to be anything as lofty, certainly as Social Security or tax reform. And, instead, they said it wasn't going to be a laundry list of proposals, but more focusing on issues that they felt were important to Americans. And what's interesting to note is the difference between this time last year and -- between this time now, and this time last year. The president's approval ratings have gone down. The past year has been difficult. 2005 was a tough, tough year for the Bush White House. They had -- they've been hit with hurricane Katrina, the response to that, the failed Harriet Miers nomination for the Supreme Court nomination, the Scooter Libby indictment. There were just a host of things.
STARR: He didn't even mention Katrina in the state of the union. That caused some controversy.
QUIJANO: That's exactly right and that's something certainly that his critics noticed. But again, this is a White House that understands politically the situation is much different. The landscape is much different. There are Republicans, as you know, who are quite nervous. The economy is a big issue and remains a top concern. So what the president did instead, was going to put forth ideas that they know they can get done.
HENRY: Beyond the politics, the pageantry you mentioned a little bit there. On the Hill, I saw the VIPs coming through, Karl Rove and the Supreme Court as we heard. Samuel Alito, I was walking with him at one point and John Kerry walked by. It was quite a moment in the hallways to see John Kerry, the man who was trying to filibuster Judge Alito's nomination and they sort of passed and barely noticed each other. But you were working a little bit on the cabinet secretary, always stays behind. How does the White House go about deciding that somebody should stay behind in case of a catastrophe?
QUIJANO: They are called designated survivors.
HENRY: That's really grim.
QUIJANO: It is. But after 9/11, particularly, this was something that they decided they needed to really continue. And they have members of Congress who do it now as well. But essentially, what someone explained to me is that if you are the designated survivor, you know that probably your paragraph is not going to make it into the state of the union address. You can probably forget about that. But they tend to go with sort of the lower level cabinet secretaries and it's an interesting experience when you talk to -- I had the opportunity to interview Dan Glickman, who was the Agriculture secretary in '97. He was the designated survivor. He was in New York, one second surrounded by Secret Service, the accoutrements of power, the guy with the football the briefcase that has all the codes to it. And the next second he couldn't catch a cab. There was like nobody around him.
VELSHI: (INAUDIBLE) was the designated survivor. Let's go to the audience. Your name and where you're from.
QUESTION: My name is Joshua Lynch from (INAUDIBLE) New York. And my question is, why do you think President Bush singled out Iran as a nuclear threat in the state of the union, leaving a country like North Korea untouched, which represents a similar threat and has a very poor human rights record.
QUIJANO: Well, it's a good question. And the president right now is obviously looking at the sort of world climate. The European nations are really together with the United States. It wasn't too long ago that we saw someone who represents a country that very much disagreed with the president on Iraq. We saw the German chancellor come in and say, look, this is a situation that we stand with the United States on. So the United States understands there's momentum building right now and they are basically trying to enlist the help of international allies to keep the pressure on Iran because they think this is the opportune moment to do that.
VELSHI: It's been a big story this week. Thanks, Elaine.
One of the stories out of Iraq this week was a reminder of how dangerous it is and it had journalists talking about other journalists. Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is back on that story after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: CNN is on the story. The wounding of the ABC anchorman Bob Woodruff and his camera man Doug Vogt (ph) was a fresh reminder of the dangers of covering the Iraq war. One reporter who is often our eyes and ears on the Iraq story is our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson. We look back in his notebooks for his thoughts about the how and the why of war reporting. Take a look.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Last time I was wearing protective glasses and a helmet and body armor. Now I'm wearing plugs as well because when we're traveling with the military they say wear these because we found a lot of soldiers when their vehicles get hit by road side bombs their eardrums get blown out. One of the hardest things is really the security. Does it stop us getting to the story? I think ultimately no. I think it makes, it just makes it hugely more challenging. That was one of the first big explosions in this city. That's what we're talking about here. Anderson, we have to go in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you cover this story? You have a family. It's so dangerous.
ROBERTSON: The reason we do it is because we believe with a passion that this is a story that is very important, that it has huge and long-reaching implications and we're interested in the human dynamic as well, what's happening to the people in Iraq, what's happening to the U.S. troops who are serving there.
VELSHI: Nic Robertson is joining us now from Atlanta. Nic, it's always, whenever we talk to you, we're thankful that you keep safe. But that was really driven home in this last week with the injury of someone like Bob Woodruff who is so high-profile and his photographer. Barbara has also just come back from some dangerous places. I think she wants to kick it off with you.
STARR: Nic, to start off, of course, I worry about you every time I see you somewhere. I know Bob. I worry about him. I worry about all my friends in the news business. But it also seems to me this is a remarkable opportunity for all of us in the news business to really tell viewers how we feel about this very difficult issue. I see a lot of my colleagues who are a lot braver than I am. But there are so many reporters who say, wait a minute. It is too dangerous. I don't want to do this. I have family. I have friends. I don't want to, you know, suffer some very debilitating injury. I mean, I think it is important to say, while many are, like you very, very brave, there are many who are now saying no, I'm not going back to Iraq. I don't want to get hurt.
ROBERTSON: And I think anyone who feels uncomfortable about it really shouldn't go because there will be nothing worse than being in a situation like that where you want to work but you are essentially paralyzed by fear. And I think all the news organizations don't pressure people to go. I think the situation always looks worse from the outside. My philosophy has been to go and then when you get there, you can get closer and maybe there's one city that's dangerous and one street in that city that's particularly dangerous. Iraq is different to that. I think it's quantifiably more dangerous than most other conflicts that we've actually covered because you can't go out and walk on the streets. But I would never consider myself brave. In all honesty, I'm not. My younger brother was always far braver than I ever was. And I am very concerned when I go into these situations. But I guess I still, on balance, want to do it and believe that there are good things to be told there.
VELSHI: Your name and where you are from.
QUESTION: Shannon (INAUDIBLE) from Saskatchewan, Canada. I'm curious as to how the injuries incurred by Woodruff and Vogt will affect war reporting in international media.
ROBERTSON: I think obviously the immediate impact is it will remind everybody of the dangers and inevitably, that makes people be more cautious about what they do and that will put -- tend to put a distance between you and the story. But I still think you are going to see journalists wanting to embed to tell the story of what is happening. There are 160,000 troops out there. We want to know what's happening to them. And their families want to know what's happening to them. How is the war going for them? What's happening to the Iraqis? So I think it's going to make us cautious, but very cautious. But I think we're going to try to do it, providing we -- providing we can do it reasonably safely.
VELSHI: Your name and where are you from?
QUESTION: I'm Jess from Beloit, Wisconsin. And my question is, with Bob Woodruff being injured, do you think that journalists reporting in war zones should receive mandatory military training?
ROBERTSON: I know that at CNN we get a battlefield awareness training, which includes what different weapons can do, how to try and make yourself safe, what you should wear in these environments, first aid so that you can help yourself, help your friends, help your colleagues, help the soldiers right next to you if they are the ones that are injured, for example. And I believe that all the other news organizations who send people to Baghdad and to Iraq at the moment provide that sort of training. So people are getting it. Journalists are getting it. I think you'll find almost 100 percent of them in Iraq at this time will have had a good degree of training like that.
VELSHI: Let's see if we can get one more in from the audience Nic. Your name and where you are from.
QUESTION: Hi. My name's Jennifer. I'm from Kansas. I'd like to know if there are any news stories in the last couple of years you wish you could have covered but weren't assigned to.
ROBERTSON: That's a great question because as a journalist, you are always looking around. I think Iran is a very interesting and developing story. We've got some very competent correspondents. Christiane Amanpour from CNN perhaps has a better insight into Iran, for example, than many other people at the company. I'd like the opportunity to go there in the future. It's developing an important. I think Korea is hard to get into, North Korea. I'd like to go there. I think all the stories that are developing and going to be important in the future, that's where I'd like to be getting some experience.
HENRY: Nic, I wonder, when we looked at your reporter's notebook you seem to be at some point, you would be wearing going goggles and then you'd be wearing a helmet. Other times you weren't. How do you make that decision on the ground that you feel safe enough to not wear as much protection?
ROBERTSON: I think sometimes you can't see all the protection that we're wearing. There is reasons for that. Obviously, you want to be discreet because if your body armor is very clear on the streets, then that makes you a target. One thing you're trying to do when you do feel that it's safe enough on the street to take off your helmet because you are not driving along and you don't think there's about to be an IED and you feel comfortable about that location. When you are trying to talk to Iraqis, you need to sort of reduce the gap between you and them if you will, the psychological gap. And if you are wearing heavy body armor, it's very difficult for them to relate to you and to open up to you. So we try to do that as well. But we would only take our helmets off in a location where we felt safe enough to do it. And certainly, we consider it very, very carefully if we do that.
VELSHI: Nic, stay with us. We're going to stick with the Iraq story. I'm going to bring in our Internet reporter Jacki Scheckner with the journalists online to journalists covering other journalists who've been injured in Iraq. She'll talk to a blogger who's actually upset at the way the story was handled. We'll be asking our audience here in Washington how they feel about that coverage too.
Every week we are on the story from here and elsewhere. Take a look.
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Palestinian gunmen Thursday surrounded the European Union offices in Gaza, firing weapons and demanding an apology for cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, including one showing the prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb. This has become a fundamental clash between deeply held religious convictions and equally passionate commitments to the western traditions of free speech.
GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Under a hail of stones, police confronted hard line ultra nationalists, all of them Jewish settlers and their supporters, battling fellow Israelis for a cause increasingly rejected by their countrymen. Twenty four other unauthorized settlements are soon to be targeted for demolition.
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One year after (INAUDIBLE) dismissed an elected government, suspended civil rights and took over absolute control in Nepal, its citizens are clamoring for change. In the coming months, political parties and Maoists are expected to step up their campaign against the king. But with the army firmly on his side, analysts say the king won't be granting any concessions.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Randi Kaye.
Breaking news and developments in a bizarre violent attack in Massachusetts.
The Associated Press says Jacob Robida has been arrested. He is the 18-year-old Massachusetts man who witnesses say went on a rampage inside a bar in New Bedford Wednesday night. The A.P. says Robida was spotted by police in Arkansas. There was a shoot-out. A.P. says a police officer and a woman were killed.
Tough words from Iran's president. Iranian media says he's ordered an end to voluntary cooperation with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog group. Earlier today, the agency voted to report Iran's nuclear activities to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
Feminist pioneer Betty Friedan died today on her 85th birthday. A cousin said she died of congestive heart failure.
Actor Al Lewis has died. His role as grandpa on TV's "The Munsters" made Lewis a pop culture icon. He died Friday night in New York. Lewis was 82.
Nearly a mile long, it cut from Mexico to the U.S. bypassing border officials by going underground. Anderson Cooper takes you into the most elaborate smuggling tunnel ever found. At the top of the hour, "CNN PRESENTS: BATTLE FOR THE BORDER."
I'm Randi Kaye.
Now back to ON THE STORY.
ALI VELSHI, HOST: CNN is ON THE STORY here at the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital.
Now, we reach out to as many different opinions and different voices as we can.
I want to take it over to our Internet reporter Jacki Schechner.
She's following the story online -- Jacki, what are you seeing?
JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, well, I bet some people think we spent too much coverage this week on Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt. And if they did, they wouldn't be alone in their criticism. Plenty of bloggers thought we did just that. And I want to bring one of them in now.
His name is Matt and he runs Blackfive.net.
It is the top military blog.
He spent 15 years in the Army, so he is very familiar with this topic.
Matt, let me just get it to you right quickly.
Where did we go wrong?
MATT, BLACKFIVE.NET: Well, I mean, first of all, I think I want to say that everybody wishes a speedy recovery for both Woodruff and Vogt.
I think my reaction, at first, was frustration and a little -- and I was a little upset at the fact of the reaction, the emotional reaction. And I understand that there's personal involvement between journalists that know them and see your friends that would get hurt.
I think...
SCHECHNER: Do you think that it brought it home for them better because it was people that we work with or we know that emotion?
MATT: Yes. That's totally understandable. However, I think it just became a story in and of itself.
For example, the "Sun-Times" here in Chicago had a major story that Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson were going to fill in for Woodruff. That was a major story. To me, that's not a major story.
A major story would have been...
SCHECHNER: Hey, Matt, I read a lot...
MATT: Well, a major story would have been something like the fact that Iraqis are the ones who saved Woodruff and Vogt. Their interpreter is the one who pulled them to safety. And we hear a lot of stories about how the Iraqi Army isn't ready, and yet they fought their way out of an ambush and these two made it out alive because of that.
And journalists are targeted by al Qaeda. They're...
SCHECHNER: Hey, Matt, I read a lot of...
MATT: It's documented...
SCHECHNER: I read a lot of military blogs. You guys are very critical of our coverage.
But I've got to tell you, you get something like a car bomb goes off and kills 50 people or like hi, we opened a school, which one is going to grab your attention as a viewer?
MATT: Well, that's understandable. But I think even somebody like Democratic Senator Barack Obama, from my state of Illinois, winds critical of the fact that there's not enough good news being reported. And I think I would challenge you to have some people that have just come back. Like you had Chuck Ziegenfuss on a few weeks ago. And ask them what they thought about their embeds and their bias toward trying to find a story.
Sure...
VELSHI: Matt, that's an interesting point.
MATT: The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 97 school isn't going to be the same as a car bomb exploding. However, there is a lot of success stories, as well. And, I mean, just, for instance, one story I...
VELSHI: Let me get in there for a second, Matt.
MATT: For...
VELSHI: Hang on a second.
Matt, I want to get in there with you and Jacki for a second because you make an interesting point. I want to just bring it out to the audience for a second.
I want to ask our audience here for a show of hands.
Matt makes the point that there might have been too much coverage of the Bob Woodruff/Doug Vogt situation.
Give me a show of hands for those of you who think there was too much coverage.
OK, now how many of you think that there was enough, it was fair or there could have been more? How many of you are on the other side of the too much?
OK.
All right.
So we're roughly evenly split in here.
I want to ask one of our audience members, I think you said you were -- John, you felt that there may have been too much coverage.
Very quickly, tell me why.
JOHN: Yes, I'd like to, you know, not forget the high school graduate that's been killed in Iraq, as well, on a daily basis, rather than a journalist. And, you know, I do wish him the best, but I think we're forgetting our own.
VELSHI: Nic, you cover this and I want -- I'd like to get your thoughts on this. You've been here before when there's been criticism of the way we do things.
And what's your thought on what you've heard so far?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think we absolutely have to remember that there are Iraqis and troops being killed on a daily basis. And we mustn't forget them. And that mustn't get over blown by the coverage of journalists.
ABC was very good and very efficient about putting out information about Bob's condition and about Doug's condition. Thirty- seven minutes, we were told, they were taken to the green zone. That kind of information we just don't get from the military about what's happened to soldiers. We don't know who's been injured or killed on a sort of a day by day basis.
And there's a very good reason for that, because families need to be notified. And if that kind of information came out, that would give the insurgents very good timely information. They would know how good they were being with their weapons.
So there are good reasons why that information doesn't come out. But it does make it much easier when you get a lot of information about Bob and Doug, and Bob, in particular, being very well known, it kind of personalizes a story that's a daily tragedy for many people.
But, of course, in telling his story, we must remember that it is only one of many, just a personal one.
VELSHI: I think you, sir, felt that the coverage was fair.
give me your quick thought on that.
PETER BEZIN: This is Peter Bezin (ph) from Albania.
And I honestly think that the coverage of Woodward was very fair and honest and candid.
VELSHI: Matt, I just wanted to bring in a couple of more ideas.
Pick it up again and tell me what you think of that.
It looks like we were evenly split in this audience.
MATT: Sure. And that's understandable. I think that in terms of stories, I would ask them, have you ever heard of a Paul Smith? He won the Medal of Honor. Have you ever heard of a Brad Castle? Have you heard of Rafael Peralta?
And those are the stories that you're not hearing. You're not hearing about the heroics. You might hear about a school being opened, but I don't see wide coverage of a lot of these other acts of the individual that are happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
SCHECHNER: Well, to bring me to a close here, but a good point, Matt. Matt is a top mill blogger. There are hundreds of mill bloggers out there, Ali, and plenty of voices. And that's where you can go to get a lot of these stories that we're not hearing elsewhere.
VELSHI: Jacki, thanks so much.
Thanks to you. Thanks to Matt. And thanks, also, to Nic Robertson.
We are talking about where the front lines are in the war on terror. Barbara Starr traveled long and hard in recent days, to Africa and to the Persian Gulf.
She's back on that story, after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our enemies and our friends can be certain, the United States will not retreat from the world and we will never surrender to evil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: President Bush pledging no retreat in the war on terror.
Barbara Starr is just back from a trip to some of the distant front lines of that war -- the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa, including some isolated areas of Ethiopia.
Here's Barbara's Reporter's Notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What U.S. military troops are doing here is fighting the war on terror not with bombs, not with bullets, but with medicine, with education, with trying to help the people of this extraordinarily impoverished region. For them, the U.S. military is the only source of medical care.
What senior military commanders in the Horn of Africa tell us is if they do this right, if they help the people here, terrorists won't be able to move in. This can't become a safe haven for terrorists. Here in the village of Godaray (ph), this morning, where the U.S. military has come to do a veterinary car clinic. It is the animals that are much of the livelihood of the people.
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: It's really something to come some place and actually change people's lives.
STARR: What we've learned on this trip is that they are also watching very carefully for any signs that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are moving into the region.
(END VIDEO TAPE) ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Barbara, we hear President Bush talk so much about the U.S. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and talking about the fighting the war on terror.
When you talked to some of the troops out in these other areas, is there a sense that maybe there's not enough sort of attention? That they are still, as well, on the front lines of the war on terror?
STARR: They would love to have some more attention, some more money, some more troops, some more projects to work on out there.
This part of Africa is an area where governments are not very strong. There's a lot of concern that these are the so-called ungoverned areas where Al Qaeda can move in. In fact, they have evidence of al Qaeda recruiting campaigns.
So their idea is if they can help these people, if they can bring stability to the region, maybe they won't have to go back and fight a war.
And what I want everyone to know is all of those pictures came courtesy of one of our best cameramen, who I always travel with. Thomas Edsler (ph) took some fabulous pictures.
VELSHI: Now, you talked about the recruiting campaigns they're concerned about. Back before the show, I was talking to Barbara. Show us -- do you have that recruiting?
STARR: Oh, no. I didn't bring it, Ali.
VELSHI: It's a watch.
STARR: What a senior general in the region gave me, he said if you don't think al Qaeda is here -- he handed me a wrist watch with a picture of Osama bin Laden on it. They are...
VELSHI: But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you get a Disney with Mickey Mouse on it.
STARR: Absolutely.
Yes, Mickey Mouse.
Exactly.
They are finding these watches, t-shirts, fliers of Osama bin Laden all over East Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia. The place is being flooded with them. And that tells them there is an active terrorist recruiting campaign. So they are moving in, again, with medicine, health care and a helping hand.
VELSHI: Your name and where you're from?
EMMA: Hi, my name is Emma.
I'm from Georgetown University. I wanted to ask if you think the populations of North Africa have the same potential for extremism as the Middle East? And, if so, is it a political and military battle that will have to be fought there, or can a battle of hearts and minds win out?
STARR: Well, it's funny that you use the phrase hearts and minds because that's what the U.S. troops are -- that's the actual phrase that they are using, this is a hearts and mind campaign.
Most of this region, these are very -- these African villages, very peaceful, very pastoral people. They have -- they know about terrorism. They have no concept of why anybody would engage in this. They find it very odd.
But they are defenseless. These people in these villages, if bad guys move in, who's going to protect them? So, that's really the big concern.
SANJIP: My name is Sanjip (ph).
I'm from Montreal, Canada.
How do you protect yourself from tropical diseases, some of which can be deadly, while reporting in developing countries?
STARR: Drugs. You take an awful lot of shots. I'm still taking my malaria pills, which is why I'm a little bleary-eyed. And I mean the most exciting thing that happened is I got some spider bite on my wrist and -- oh, now my mother is going to hear this. But it swelled up so bad I had to take my watch off for a couple of days. And the medics were coming by looking at it like it was a science experiment.
But you take the right pills, you get the right shots.
VELSHI: What did you eat out there?
STARR: OK, so one night -- I mean we all know about tuna packs and Power Bars. That's the way to travel.
But out in Ethiopia, we were cooked a dinner of camel and goat.
VELSHI: And?
Wow!
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Barbara, you got a chance to travel with the military.
Are there pluses and minuses to being with them and having them escort you around?
STARR: Well, you know, like most reporters, we really prefer to travel on our own, go after the story ourselves. But this is all very far away, very remote areas, very tough to get to. So we do go with the military. When we landed in Ethiopia we were on a military plane. We had to take a low pass over of the airfield because there were a herd of camels grazing and we needed to get them off of there.
So going with the military has its advantages.
HENRY: OK.
Coming up, it took four years to get the Enron trial going and the giant corporate corruption case began and was speeding ahead this week.
Ali was there and we're going to ask them what he saw, ON THE STORY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENRY: We are ON THE STORY.
We're going to turn the tables now on Ali Velshi, something that I've been wanting to do a long time.
He was in Houston at the start of maybe the more important and also the most complicated corporate corruption case -- Enron.
Here's Ali's notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The prosecution, wow!
"We're going to win."
VELSHI: They said that in court?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
VELSHI: Wow!
The beauty of this story is that we have got a team of people who have been covering it for some time who are here together. So while I'm outside here, we've got at least two people in the courtroom. When information needs to be relayed...
We are, of course, hearing from the defense that that's simply not true. They say they didn't get anything wrong.
The tough part is listening for the thing that's easiest to listen to, because sometimes in the case of Ken Lay's attorney, he uses language that's very folksy and very easy to hear. And that's the stuff that is most easy to convey to the viewers.
But the important parts might be the parts that weren't easy to hear.
In the end, the things that the average American wants to know from this trial is, is my money safe? Are my investments safe? Are the laws strong enough?
(END VIDEO TAPE)
HENRY: Now, Ali, I know that you had a lot of people just coming up to you randomly, people who lost all of their money, all of their savings in the Enron case.
So it's not just covering the rich guys who are in trouble now. It's the people who are desperately, who were hurt by this.
VELSHI: Yes, that's exactly right. And we're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of people who were hurt by this. And that's what you have to keep in mind. And I'm sure it's the same as what you all do in that there's all sorts of information flow. But in the end, when you get out there after hearing all of this detail, you have to remember what is it that the viewer is watching, those viewers who might have been victims of this? What is it that they're watching that they want to actually know?
Sir?
MATT: I'm Matt from Wisconsin.
My question is don't you think Enron, at its core, is really just capitalist economics at work?
VELSHI: That's a very good question. And a lot of people worry after all these corporate scandals that the tide will swing the other way, there's too much regulation and it's going to sort of crush business.
I don't think that's what most people feel about Enron. It was, at the very least, a poorly run business. That much has been acknowledged. At the very least we know there was fraud committed. The issue is whether these two guys on trial were responsible for it. Sixteen executives have already pled guilty. Someone did something wrong at Enron. And the average investor should feel that when they invest money in a company that's publicly traded, there are protections against people fraudulently misusing their money.
HAIG: Hi.
My name is Haig (ph).
I'm from Kingston, Ontario.
And I'm wondering whether Kenneth Lay or his legal team have been willing to talk to you?
VELSHI: Kenneth Lay rarely walks by a microphone without stopping for a good little while. Ken Lay and his lawyer, Michael Ramsey, are folksy. They like to talk. They never miss an opportunity to talk. Jeff Skilling, his co-defendant, not so much. He lets his lawyer talk. But these guys walk by us on, you know, every day, in and out of court. And without fail, we get a comment from them. In fact, at one point, the judge had to tell him stop talking so much because, keep it for the courtroom.
And they'll both testify, too.
QUIJANO: Ali, this is such a complicated case. I mean when you get right down to it, accounting practices, I mean that alone sends shivers up my spine.
VELSHI: Oh, yes.
QUIJANO: But how do you distill everything and how do you make it in such a way that people at home can really kind of understand the nuts and bolts of it?
VELSHI: You saw my producer there. We had a team of producers. Brian Vitagliano was one of them. And he would come up to me. And it was moments before I actually went on the air with it. He had just come out. And we couldn't communicate from inside the court. And he had written on a paper that Ken Lay's lawyer had said, "When it comes to the defense, we're going to kill them and we're going to win."
And that's when I said, "He really said that in court?"
And, you know, it's not the story. It's the sentiment that these guys are so, so -- that they're so adamant about their defense.
If this becomes an accounting trial, it's going to be four months long, I don't know how they keep the jury's attention on this. Historically, that doesn't work. This is a jury of 12 average people and four alternates. They have got to make this a story about what happened. And when you read about it and you look at it, it is -- I don't think you could write a script like Enron.
HENRY: While you're out in the field, you need technology to help you get the story when you're communicating with your producers and everyone back here in Washington, New York and elsewhere.
There was some sort of a technology breakdown you were telling me about.
VELSHI: We -- you can't take Blackberries and phones into the courtroom. But they had set up this room next to the courtroom where they had wireless capability. So you could take your laptop in there.
So 30 or 40 or 50 of us reporters were in this room and there was a big screen. And you could see the court. And we're all looking like we're doing our work. And I was wondering why I couldn't get online. And about 20 or 25 minutes later, some guy in the front row turns around and says, "Is anybody else having trouble getting online?"
And the wireless didn't work. And there were like four guys walking around all day with these routers and trying to do something. It didn't work. We had to keep running in and out to get the story. And that's what we did. Interesting.
We are back in a moment with what we're going to be looking for ON THE STORY in the coming days.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Keep yourself ON THE STORY at cnn.com.
Our Web site tells you about the panel, the topics and how you can get the tickets to join our audience.
Well, let's take a quick look ahead ON THE STORY.
We'll find out what our colleagues are working on next week -- Elaine, starting with u.
QUIJANO: President Bush turns in his budget to Congress. That's going to be a big story. He's going to head to New Hampshire to talk up his State of the Union ideas and he'll talk about the war on terror.
HENRY: And Monday morning, the president is going to face the first grilling on Capitol Hill. A Senate hearing on the domestic surveillance program, terrorist surveillance program, domestic spying program. Depending on which party you listen to, they've got the spin on it. It's going to be a big story.
STARR: Defense budget. Military spending, $400 billion, at least, and counting, $4.5 billion a month for the war in Iraq.
VELSHI: Wow!
STARR: Ali, what are you up to?
VELSHI: I'm going to spend the first three days thinking about the last three days, which will be my vacation.
But I'll be watching you all on TV.
Thank you to my colleagues and our audience here at the George Washington University.
And thank you for watching ON THE STORY.
Thank you to all of u.
We're back every week, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
Straight ahead, a check on what's making news right now.
KAYE: I'm Randi Kaye with a look at what's happening right now.
We begin with breaking news.
Police in Arkansas have arrested Jacob Robida. The 18-year-old Massachusetts man is wanted for an alleged attack inside a gay bar in New Bedford Thursday night. Police say Robida is hospitalized after a shoot-out that killed an Arkansas police officer. A woman with Robida was also found dead. We're waiting for a news conference from police in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Stay with CNN for the very latest.
More than 20,000 people have gathered in Atlanta to pay tribute to a woman who lived with quiet grace and dignity. Coretta Scott King lying in honor in the rotunda of the state capital in Georgia. She is the first women and the first black person to do so.
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