(lively music) (pensive music) (intense music) >>You and your close friend, Robin MacNeil, started the earliest incarnation of the "News Hour" now almost a generation ago.

Was there a guiding philosophy that, that was underneath all of that?

>>There had to be a place where you, where you'd said to the folks, "Okay, now look, we're gonna talk about tax cuts.

"And we're gonna have Sammy Sue over here, "and Billy Bob over there."

And they have a different view.

And I'm gonna try to ask the questions that you would like to be asked.

>>Mm-hmm.

And just, they're not gonna yell at each other 'cause I'm not gonna let 'em.

And don't worry, Sammy Sue's gonna get just as much time as Billy Bob, and when it's all over, I am not gonna look out to the red light and say, "Now Mr. And Miss America, "here's what I think you should think about it."

Because we believe you can figure it out for yourself.

At the time we began, we weren't the only ones doing that kind.

There were a lot of people who took a serious approach to the news, and there were a lot of these programs where people were not screaming at one another.

This screaming thing is a relatively new thing, and it grows out of franticness.

I mean, those people are screaming, not because of the news, but because they're afraid they're not gonna get an audience if they don't.

>>That's right.

>>And they, they want to take the news, and as McNeil to say, "Our news..." You know, some of these guys are... "Our news is better than their news."

And I says, "It's all the same news."

>>Yeah.

>>And it's just how you present it that is different.