welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. tonight, 2018 shaped up to be another banner year for trump versus the press. i sit down with "the new york times" executive editor dean ba get about how we stay unbowed and uncowed. plus, lessons from leonardo. walter isaacson has a new biography of one of the greatest geniuses of all time. ♪ "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support of rosalind p. walter.

>> good evening. welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in new york. there is no more important newspaper in america maybe even the world than "the new york times." no one else gives themselves the mandate to cover as many topics as definitively as the paper of record from politics to business, to the arts and the science. at the helm of this is dean baquet. himself a life long print reporter. the executive editor tells me that journalism is most definitely still under threat and it is more important now than ever. dean baquet, welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> in the ongoing trumpian war against the press this week the president has once again opened the front that he threatened before, that is opening up the libel laws. he threatened again to revisit america's libel laws. is that just rhetoric? do you fear that might happen? >> it's hard to know if it's just rhetoric with this

president. i honestly think he's already done a certain amount of damage to the american press with the constant attacks. i think he certainly has some influence and power to change libel laws. a lot of politicians in washington would probably like that. i would like to think there are enough who would oppose it and enough politicians like the john mccains of the world who understand the role of the press. so i'm hoping it's just bluster. but he's done some damage as it is. >> so what damage would you say specifically? >> i think that the constant attacks on the press, the constant discussions of fake news, just the constant relentless daily drum beat has hurt our credibility. and we don't deserve it. i think that he has -- he's almost systematically tried to go after some of the independent agencies that are supposed to monitor government. whether it's the judiciary or the press. i think it's harmful to us. especially when the press -- the

american press is doing its job which is to fairly write about him and cover him. >> and particularly "the new york times" obviously cnn, we're the favorite whipping boys. he calls you the failing "new york times" or "the times." yet, your reporters are amongst the very few he speaks to outside of the fox news sort of sycophantic courtroom. >> i think he has an odd relationship with "the new york times." i mean, he is a boy from queens who wanted to be embraced by the manhattan elite. so he moved his family, real estate fortune to manhattan and you want to be embraced by the manhattan elite i think that includes "the new york times." so i think some mornings he wakes up and it looks like he hates us. on the other hand, he talks to us. he talks to our reporters. he's actually more accessible than his predecessors. i will not psycho analyze it, but i'll accept. >> it it's amazing because being more accessible than his ses

predecessors is good thing. >> it is. he answers his own phone, but you can't accuse him of being inaccessible. >> you talk about the damage he's done in one year. and yet, your subscriptions are up and the ratings at cnn and the other cable news are up. and journalism has got a whole new life breathed into it. >> i should retreat a little bit on the damage. it is more complicated than that. yes, it's damaging when the president of the united states attacks the press constantly. on the other hand, there's been a remarkable awakening of civic interest. our numbers are up dramatically. cnn's numbers are up dramatically, "the post" numbers are up dramatically. i think people care about government. i think people care about this dramatic, amazing story. i think people understand that

the press can tell it. what makes me nervous is whether the constant attacks chase away from us the people who are his supporters. and i think we have something to say to them. i think we have something to say to them about government, about tax reform. i think we have coverage for them. i really do. and that bothers me because i don't want a monolithic audience. >> i agree with you and it should bother you and everybody that audiences are being tribalized. >> that's right. >> their going not just away from you, but towards a fox or another network and therefore perhaps don't get the full rounded information. >> that's right. that's right. look, i'll be frank. anybody who watches only "fox & friends" is not getting an honorable news report. i mean it. i will say it. i think it's sycophantic. i think it's not objective, thoughtful coverage. whether you like us or not,

whether you like cnn or not you're getting a thoughtful news report from people who are striving to be balanced and fair and i don't think that's what you get with fox. >> you just mentioned "the post." "the post," the film -- >> not "the new york times." >> no no. it's about "the washington post." are you green with envy? do you think it should be "the times" given that it's ago the pentagon papers and "the times" printed them first? >> i am. my first reaction was outrage. partly because -- >> outrage? >> well, look, then i'm going to turn around and say why that was an immature reaction. katherine graham made a courageous decision. "the washington post" is a remarkable institution. it was then, it is now. but the first really courageous decision was made by arthur sals burger in publishing them and in letting the reporters spend three months verifying them. his was the most courageous

decision. i think i got my back up especially when the producers reached out to me and wanted to talk about how -- how this film was going to portray the new york times. >> which to be fair it did and gave -- >> i haven't seen -- >> you haven't seen it? >> no. in fact, i've been quoted i'm not going to see it, but andy rosenthal, a friend, who's abe's son, i was railing to andy one day and as he often does with me, he said, dean, grow up. it's just a movie. so at some point i'll go see it. >> of course it comes out at this time in history. not only during an unprecedented sort of second phase of a war against the press after the nixon time, but also the me too movement. of course "the new york times" has been dramatic in exposing so much of this of harvey weinstein. >> some of the proudest work we have done this year. >> is it? >> yeah. i think -- i mean, the genesis -- first story we did was about bill o'reilly. it was early in the year and we put together a group of

reporters and we took a hard look at bill o'reilly's record at fox and it led to his being forced out of the company. after that, a group of us sat down and said, i think we have hit on a larger issue here. and we asked reporters -- i asked reporters to look at other institutions and harvey weinstein came up pretty quickly. >> how did it come up pretty quickly when everybody let this happen for so many years and people said we didn't know. how did it come up so quickly then? >> when we dug -- when the two reporters dug deep into hollywood and said, are there stories we should be telling like the bill o'reilly story, i won't go as far as saying it was an open secret, but people talked about it. people raised him as someone who was worth looking at. and they did. it was -- i mean, the story of how they did this story, the convincing -- because remember, these were not cases in which the women were willing to go on the record. this was a very powerful man.

there was a moment when we also knew the new yorker was working on the story and they did a fabulous story. >> fabulous job. >> there was a moment when we had women -- some women on the record and a mix off the record and we had some movie stars off the record. and the two reporters megan tuwy and jodi cantor insisted we needed some celebrities not to make the story cool, but they thought that would change the conversation. i was so nervous about the new yorker that i said it's time to go, we have to publish. then one evening we're sitting there in my office, me and their editors and we're going through the story. jodi walks in with tears in her eyes. she had gotten off the phone with ashley judd who said i'll let you tell my story on the record. i'm convinced that the reason this story had so much power because after ashley judd, gwyneth paltrow and others came, is that suddenly men who would

be skeptical of these stories for reasons that we can discuss, but not good reasons, suddenly said, oh, my god, i know these women. i have seen these women in movies, this is powerful. this is not an unknown woman accusing bill o'reilly and he's denying it, he's a big star. that's one of the reasons it became a large movement. even though it doesn't involve women who are celebrities or wealthy. >> where else are you looking? >> we did a terrific story near the end of the year that i also thought was just as important in which we went to two ford plants in illinois. the purpose of that -- those stories which are really powerful, to show -- was to show this was not a case involving just women who were wealthy and celebrities. these are women who work on factory floors and their stories were awful. >> so it must break your heart

when all of a sudden a star reporter at "the new york times" was -- you know, faced the same kind of problems. >> of course it did. i came away from that with two lessons. this is the story of glenn thrush. first off, we suspended him quickly. we launched an investigation into his behavior. to make sure that the decision was just i put together a group of about a dozen of the most senior editors in the newsroom. half men, half women. different backgrounds including different racial backgrounds and we had two days of debate. real full bodied debate. we did an investigation, we talked to 30 people. in the end we decided to suspend him, not to fire him. "the washington post" actually just confronted something similar. sure, it was painful. and it was a difficult decision. but i don't -- >> to suspend or -- you mean it was a difficult decision not to fire him?

>> it was a difficult decision. >> because i heard it was quite divisive in the newsroom. different generations having different ideas. >> what we have done by the way because we knew -- look, the easiest thing would have been to say, you know, we did the big story, let's fire him. but that's not just. that's not leadership. leadership is you take an allegation and you examine it. and you try to match the crime, if you will, to the punishment. that's what we did in this case. >> so what was the crime? >> i have said this, i'll say it again. the stuff we found that glenn did while working at "the new york times" involved comments that he shouldn't have made. there was a story that described other opportunities mostly from his previous life in another publication. i have to focus my attention -- we looked at that, but i had focus my attention on my workplace. and i didn't find that kind of activity in my workplace. that doesn't -- i'm not raising

questions about the vox story, far from it. it prompted this investigation. then i had to make the decision based on what kind of employee i thought he would be. >> so i'll ask you because obviously we're at a moment when there is a big spectrum of malfeasance and wrongdoing. >> yes. yes. >> so what is the responsibility of a boss right now in any profession to figure out and to define what is a suspendable offense, what is a fireable offense, what is not an offense? >> i think the first responsibility is to your employees. the other employees. it's to ask whether the person -- let's take glenn out. whether the person creates a work environment that's uncomfortable for other people and in these cases uncomfortable for women. if you're a journalist, if you run a journalistic institution, you have another responsibility which is to your readers. how do you make sure that what happened does not make your readers think less of you? and then you have a

responsibility to a larger society if you're a mission driven organization like "the new york times" or cnn which is how does this fit into the larger discussion of punishment? but i don't think all -- i don't think all punishments should be the same. i don't think that's -- some people would disagree with me. i'll accept that. i don't think that's wisdom. i don't think that's justice. >> dean baquet, thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. >> dean baquet on how to keep focused on the truth. and now here's a question for you. what made leonardo da vinci one of the history's greatest geniuses? a new biography by walter isaacson says it was his relentless curiosity that allowed him to make an astounding range of scientific discoveries and paint the masterpieces.

i sat down with isaacson here in new york to find out more about the ultimate renaissance man. walter isaac zn, welcome to the program. >> great to be with you. >> yet another genius is the subject of your latest autobiography. what it is about da vinci that attracted your attention? >> he was interested in everything, from anatomy to botany to painting of course and sculpture and how water flowed and how fossils were formed. so he's the most curious person about everything. which allows him to see patterns and to me, history is about figure out patterns. so is creativity. so what you're looking at the curls of the mona lisa or the way that the river curls and swirls and comes down from the mountains and hits her body, you can see all of leonardo da vinci's diverse interests. >> you mentioned the others you profiled. what did they have in common,

the geniuses? >> it was not until i did steve jobs he kept telling me there's a pattern in this. which is to be able to stand at the intersection of the arts and sciences. nowadays most of our friends they either love the arts or kind of engineers, but steve jobs said, if you're the type of person who can love both that'll make you creative. now realize that's what ben franklin was, flying the kite in the rein to figure out electricity. likewise, even einstein plays mozart when he's trying to get general relatively right. steve does beautiful designs and artwork while he's doing his ipods or ipads. and then of course the ultimate of that -- the symbol of that is the guy standing in the circle in the square, that wonderful drawing of the guy spread eagle, and that's a self-portrait of da vinci. you know, you look at it, and you say i get it. this is a work of great art.

and the work of great science. a work of great math and a work of spirituality. >> i want to draw down on some of the specific curiosities which to us seem ordinary now because we know the answers. but to him in the 1400s, et cetera, were probably amazing. why is the sky blue? how do clouds form? why can our eyes only see in a straight line? what is yawning? he really was the minutia he was trying to get to the bottom of. >> some things we see every day and we pause and then we move on and we're not curious about it. you know what? you say we all know the answers to the questions. but why is the sky blue? you know what? leonardo does also the tests to raise the water, but you get to newton and lord raley. even einstein writes why is the sky blue? he does the scattering of light formulas and molecules and atoms. not an easy answer, but a beautiful answer. and leonardo, you know, why do people yawn as you say?

and my favorite, in his notebook one day he writes describe the tongue of a woodpecker. now, why would anybody wake up one morning and want to know what the tongue of a woodpecker looks like? you don't need it to paint a bird or to do a flying machine. but he needed it because he was leonardo da vinci. curious about everything. it too turns out to be interesting. >> you also talk about him being a flamboyant character, dress in the pink often. >> sure. >> and he was gay. was that okay back then? >> it was interesting because florence in the late 1400s had a great moment of tolerance, diversity, respect for everybody. and leonardo as a really young kid -- a 12-year-old comes in the village near florence and he's left-handed, illegitimate, he's gay and he's distracted. he is totally unfocuse but you know, flamboyant and stuff.

he's accepted totally in florence. florence had a republic in which you could be coming from the arab world because constan nopal fell and you're bringing the algebra from the arab world and you're accepted. so it's a lesson for us today which is sort of loving the diversity of people around us often helps become a affirmative of cradle of creativity. >> let's get into the great paintings. obviously the mona lisa, the last supper and i want to ask you first about again his incredible curiosity and his unbelievable research. i read that he went to morgues, peeled back the skin of cadavers to figure out the connection -- the anatomy of a smile. >> absolutely. the mona lisa is the best example of the combination of art and science. other people -- art critics have

written about leonardo it's a shame he wasted so much time on anatomy because he could have painted more paintings. well, no, he may have painted more paintings but he wouldn't have painted the mona lisa. if you look at the smile, he has over a period of three years dissected every muscle and nerve in the human face and he's starting to sketch faint smiles. he's dissected the eye to know that detail -- black and white detail, the center of your retina. that's where the cones -- and on the edges of your retina you see colors and shadows better. if you look directly at the mona lisa smile, she's not smiling but if your eye wanders a little bit the smile flickers on because the colors and the shadows go up. so many things like the in the smile. >> it's one of the most

dissected smile in the history of art. >> it shows the emotion being reflected and outward facial expressions. this is something that he gifts the world. >> now with salvatore mundy you have a similar look and a view -- when you're moving they think jesus christ is looking at them. >> right. the eyes of the mona lisa, the eyes of salvador mundy, they of course move. that's the famous mona lisa effect. these are the type of things -- leonardo not only did what i just said about expressing the emotions but he could make a two dimensional panel look three dimensional. so these are the wonders when you combine science with art. da vinci did a salvador mundy that was with the british royal family until the 1700s and got lost. this is it, this painting.

now as with any leonardo painting it's somewhat collaborative. some of the students and others may have worked on it. worse yet it had been overpainted a bit, so it had to be brought to the original condition. but it is a gorgeous, haunting work that's clearly of leonardo's hand. >> what do you think he'd make of the world we live in today when there is argument over even facts over whether it's climate change, whether it's science, whatever it might be, facts have become politicized. >> he said he was a disciple of experiment. he said i'll never take received wisdom or believe in dogma unless i find a way i can test it. he was a religious person, but the biblical account of the flood. he looks at it and then he studies fossil layers. well, it couldn't have happened the way it says in the bible. because it happened over thousands of years and layers were built up. so he loves applying facts to

things received wisdom. that is what takes the human race in about the middle of the 1400s and creates all of modernity. this notion of let's look at the facts and let's figure out how things work. that's what the renaissance was about, the scientific revolution was about. and that's the legacy that we have today and you're right. sometimes we're destroying it, we're sometimes not honoring it. i think leonardo would be appalled that we don't get driven by facts, we get driven by ideology. >> so switching and fast forwarding or rewinding to when you were ceo and president of cnn. that was in the post 9/11 world and during the war in iraq. it was a very fraught ideological period. i wonder what you make all these years later of trying to maintain cnn as the sort of

objective, centrist mainstream media with your sort of ideology by fox news at the time and others who were considered cheerleaders for the even administration at a time that the administration went to war. what do you make of the politicization of news today? >> that was something that really distressed me when i was in journalism. right after 9/11 and the iraq war, you began to see cable news, the internet, talk radio. the blogosphere suddenly become partisan and ideological. this is a very dangerous thing, when we don't have a set of facts or places that we can trust to say, they're trying to get it right. i hope that at some point this notion of the politicization of journalism can be brought back to what cnn's great heritage was and what cnn still tries to do generally today. >> and going all the way back,

you know, so many hundred years to the renaissance and to da vinci, what would you say the legacy is for today? >> one of the things that happens a year -- leonardo is born, guttenberg opens his first print shop. this allows a kid from the village who had never been to college or university to start reading books. by the time he's 21 years old, leonardo has 300 books in his personal library. he also is doing all sorts of experiments, whatever. but the printing press helps break the lock of, you know, certain church dogma on people. they can read their own things. they can read the wisdom of plato and aristotle. you have the reformation that comes out that. so does the scientific revolution, starting with da vinci and culminating with galileo. we are in the same type of period. the internet has opened up to

every person who has a connection the ability to get information from anywhere or to disseminate facts or lies anywhere. and so this is like the printing press writ large in da vinci's time it was used to create a scientific revolution and a reformation. we have to make sure it's not used to destroy democracy. >> walter isakson, thank you so much. leonardo, a man for all seasons. that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs. see you again next time. "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support of rosalind p. walter.

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