Page One: Inside the New York Times Page #10

in the war is going

to be crossing the border

into Kuwait, as I understand it,

and there's embeds with-

"The Washington Post" is there,

the "LA Times," NBC.

And we're watching to see if this is

some sort of end

of the war as we know it.

But it's complicated.

If this is just some sort of photo op-

I get no sense that this is coming

from the administration

or that it's coming from,

you know, the military.

It just seems to be...

so far I get the sense

it's only coming from NBC

and the other embeds.

They need their "mission

accomplished" moment.

Okay, now what we won't

be able to predict, obviously,

is what "The Post" and the "LA Times"

will be doing with it.

Right, but you know.

Is anybody, is the White House,

is the military-

who is saying this is the end

of combat troops in Iraq?

NBC is saying

that the military will say that.

They are saying-

NBC is saying they will declare it.

In other words, NBC will declare it

tonight. NBC's implication is-

As far as I know, NBC isn't

actually at war in the Middle East.

I know, I know. I understand.

But how come,

if people know this is coming-

And that's why

the White House sent their email.

- Have I seen this anywhere?

- No, it's under embargo.

It's totally secret. We're not allowed

to talk about it, that's why.

- When does the embargo break?

- Hopefully 6:
30.

Okay, guys, thank you very much.

Okay, bye-bye.

Good evening.

It's gone on longer than the Civil War,

longer than World War II.

Tonight, US combat troops

are pulling out of Iraq.

And, Richard, I understand

your reporting of this

at this hour tonight constitutes

the official Pentagon

announcement, correct?

Yes it is.

Right now we are with

the last American combat troops.

We are with the-

- Did you watch NBC?

- Yeah.

I thought it was hallucinatory.

Brian Williams says

to Richard Engel

that your report here from the field

amounts to the official

Pentagon announcement

of the end of

combat troops in Iraq.

And there is no

Pentagon announcement.

I mean I'm going over

territory you already know.

But let me back up.

We're trying to figure out if...

I don't know that there was-

I mean, I'm not trying to be difficult.

- No no no.

- Was there some sort of official-?

Thom Shanker in Washington

is right now calling the Pentagon again.

If I weren't thinking about this every

day, I would look at this and think,

"What just happened?"

- I mean...

- You would think,

- is the war over and I missed it?

- Yeah.

So we just heard from Shanker,

who talked to the Pentagon

five minutes ago,

and he said there was

no official anything today.

What the f***'s going on?

If you were

watching "NBC Nightly News,"

you would have thought

there was a big ceremony

of some kind to commemorate

the final end of combat operations.

I was flabbergasted by it

because I didn't understand.

- That's news to the Pentagon.

- Hi, it's Ian.

Did Thom specifically ask

the Pentagon guy, "Did you see NBC?"

This is making everyone here

completely insane.

Look, I mean we could do

the there-was-a-made-for-TV moment.

I don't know whether

we even need to...

I'll leave that to you.

But I'm not sure it even wants

to tum the knife a little bit.

The Pentagon or somebody's

calling this mission...

that is the mission to drive across

the border... "The Last Patrol."

So there's something going on.

- Right?

- Right.

The White House has been f***ing

saying it's at the end of the month.

"The White House spokesman

immediately sent out a second email

saying it's at the end of the month."

How do you cover the end

of a war that's not ending?

- Right, exactly.

- I mean, even wars that end badly

end up with, like,

helicopters leaving the Saigon roof.

This isn't even going to be that.

I think that story should be written.

I do. I think you're right.

I don't think tonight

is the night to write it.

Let me start

to get something ready

and let's talk again

in half an hour.

So I think we're all standing

around trying to figure out

whether this is

a real story or a media story,

which doesn't really... isn't very

flattering to media reporters, is it?

"Stand down, we think

it's actually something happening."

No, we're not going

to write anything.

There's still 56,000 in Iraq,

and the AP notes correctly

that all of them are combat troops

until they're redesignated otherwise,

which hasn't actually happened.

I'm only wondering if...

are our betters going

to come in tomorrow and say,

"Gee, everybody

covered this but us?"

Uh, there appears to be

no indication that way.

All right. Good.

So I think we're all right.

Headlamz I'm going to wear

my combat helmet just in case.

The function

of reporting and the press

is the best obtainable

version of the truth.

We're not out there

to bring down governments.

We're not out there

to be prosecutors.

We're out there to be judicious,

not judicial.

And that's really what

happened in Watergate.

In recent months,

members of my administration

have been charged

with involvement in what has

come to be known

as the Watergate Affair.

We began covering

the Watergate story

the day after there was a break-in

at Democratic headquarters,

and we continued to cover it

for more than two years.

In the first year,

we wrote more than 100 stories.

The story was not

one dam breaking.

It was story after story after story,

and it was really pretty much

owned by "The Washington Post."

In the House of Representatives,

there is not a member left who thinks

the president will not be impeached.

It really pains me to say it.

I grew up with "The Washington Post,"

and you can't say

that the diminishment of that paper,

in terms of its scale of its staff

and its ambitions, haven't affected it.

You'd be kidding yourself

to say it's just trimmed some fat.

No, economic circumstances

have made it a lesser paper.

If that were to happen

in any serious way

to "The New York Times,"

that would be a terrible tragedy.

You know, I get the Twitter feeds

and read the blogs about how media

will or won't fare in the digital age.

But sometimes they seem to have

it all boiled down to an aphorism.

I'm not sure that I can boil it

all down to a sort of "aha."

But I do think

there's a growing sense

of how much it would matter

if "The Times" weren't here.

News organizations

that deploy resources

to really gather

information are essential

to a functioning democracy.

It just doesn't work

if people don't know.

When you read

"The New York Times" today,

in the business section

you will see

the obituary

of the newspaper industry.

Jesus, what a bunch of pussies!

I'm not a newspaper guy.

I'm a businessman.

It's really important to remember

that the consequences

of this bankruptcy

did not just fall on the employees

at the Tribune Company.

In Los Angeles, in Chicago,

in Hartford, in Baltimore,

the diminution of those newspapers

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