Understanding Our World: Bob Schieffer in Conversation with Leonard Lopate

CBS's Bob Schieffer speaks with WNYC's Leonard Lapote for a spirited discussion on a variety of topics. They discussed the media's role in the build up to the Iraq war, the paralyzing effects money is having on politics in Washington, keeping your identity as a journalist hidden in the process of getting an important story, the internet and blogs and their place in news reporting today, the damaging effect cuts by Laurence Tisch -- combined with losing Sunday Football games -- had on CBS's News division, and more.

Some interesting tidbits:

At 2 min: Schieffer recalls his presence at the jail Lee Harvey Oswald was being held, "Back then in those days, we never told people were newspaper reporters. I mean, if they thought we were cops, we just let them think that."

At 3:25 min: "I'm not sure if some of these blogs, some of them are very good. But I'm not sure that qualifies as journalism as we know it. You know a guy standing on the corner that says the end is near, he's exercising his first amendment rights, but that doesn't mean he's based that on sound journalistic principles. And some of these blogs are right at about this same level."

At 4 min: "We live in this world of the blog the internet is the first conveyor of news on a national scale that has no editor. The worst newspaper has an editor, there's at least one person on that newspaper who knows where the stuff in the newspaper comes from. This stuff pops up on the blogs, we don't know where it comes from. We don't know if it's true, we don't know if it's false."

At 4:40 min: Conversation on Laurence Tisch's role, "a very rich man", and losing Sunday Football games in damaging the CBS Evening News ratings.

At 6 min: "Will people still be reading The New York Times in 5 years? No one knows."