Hello again. I'm on an al-Ne. Tom Rosensteel's latest novel is called The Good Lie. We'll talk about that today. But the real topic is why he's writing

novels instead of reporting about Washington politics. For 10 years, he was the press critic for the

L.A. Times. Since then, he's worked for the Pew Foundation, and he now runs the American Press Institute.

He's a senior fellow at Brookings, an author of books on the ethics of journalism.

In a recent L.A. Times op-ed, he began by saying, I've spent my career thinking about how to

tell the truth. Then he says, a few years ago, I began making things up. Tom Rosenstale, welcome.

Good to be with you, Warren. Thank you. Is writing fiction now the best way

to tell the truth about what's going on in Washington? I think in many ways it is. I think the people who

are professional professionals at politics have gotten so good at the craft that in some ways

they're killing it, they're destroying

it. And journalists just don't, never get beyond the facade in the same way that we once did.

The notion that you would sit in the bar with a political consultant and he or she would confide

in you as a journalist or go back

even to the 70s and the candidate would sit with you in New Hampshire and confide in reporters

is so far in the midst.

So we don't really know what is in the minds and the hearts of the people

we cover, not in the way we once did. But in what you described as Halsian Days, didn't the

operatives, the candidates, the investigators choose to talk to reporters in part because they

believed that those reporters would report their line and tell people what they thought.

Yes and no. There's two theories of press management. I mean, there's more than two, but there are two that are kind of polar opposites.

One is the conduit theory, which is you're a piece of technology. I'm going to go on Warren's show. I'm going to spin

and filibuster. I can control the airwaves and get my message through him to the public.

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