Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge (2017) - full transcript

A look at 50 years of the iconic magazine features interviews with and footage of journalists, photographers and performers who have graced its pages since it was launched by publisher Jann Wenner in 1967. In 2 parts.

[bright tone]

[dramatic sting]

[crowd cheering]

- Uh, this next song is

very different

than most of my songs.

Don't make fun of me, guys.

["Same Drugs" begins]

This--this song

is very personal to me,

and, uh, I wanted to, uh--

to share this one

with you guys.

[humming]

♪ Today ♪

♪ Today, took it down ♪

♪ Took it, took it down, down ♪

[audience singing along]

♪ We don't ♪

♪ Do the same drugs no more ♪

♪ We don't do the--we don't-- ♪

- This is crazy.

all: ♪ Do the same drugs

no more ♪

- ♪ Ooh ♪

- ♪ When did you change? ♪

♪ Wendy, you've aged ♪

♪ I thought

you'd never grow up ♪

♪ I thought you'd never... ♪

- Chance the Rapper.

He's young, he's newsy,

he's got hits.

I'm interested.

- ♪ I was too late,

I was too late ♪

♪ A shadow of what I once was ♪

♪ Yeah, 'cause we don't do

the same drugs no more ♪

- "Rolling Stone"

launched a reaction

to straight

establishment culture,

and it was like

this explosion of color

and kids growing

their hair long, sex, drugs.

- ♪ Do the same drugs ♪

- How's the John Lennon

piece coming?

- I think it's a--

it's a fantastic story.

I just--it just doesn't feel

like a cover to me.

- If you start out

in the counterculture,

you can't stay there.

- ♪ You always

were so forgetful ♪

- The counterculture

doesn't even stay there.

I mean, you either grow,

or you die.

- Oh-ho, look at this,

look at this.

- Oh, Hunter!

- Hunter.

We had talked about,

you know,

we were going to do

a story about fake news?

How's that coming along?

- The magazine that

has criticized the mainstream

or pushed the mainstream

and tried to make it

feel uncomfortable

for decades--

I mean,

the question now is,

well, what happens

when these people grow up?

- Next!

You know,

a good series online.

We still doing Texas border?

- Yeah.

- Bill McKibben's plan

to fix the plan, all right.

Some solid ideas.

Okay.

Things had changed.

Now...

You know, the generation

matured, got older,

but we never rejected

"Rolling Stone's" past

and where it came from.

♪ ♪

[laughter]

- One last question.

Do you have anything to say

to the youth of America?

- Why, yes,

as a matter of fact, I do.

[laughter]

I know where it's at.

Follow me.

- Hey.

["Like a Rolling Stone" plays]

- "Rolling Stone" was born

in San Francisco.

The magazine grew

out of the youth culture

on the western edge

of the continent.

But after ten years there,

they had offices in New York

that were growing,

and it was clear that New York

was the center of publishing.

And we're gonna

have to make a choice.

He not busy being born

is busy dying.

The clear choice was New York.

In order to cover the period

in which we actually moved,

we had lined up this

special issue about New York,

and we actually had a cover

by Andy Warhol

all ready to go,

and then Elvis died, uh,

within, you know,

days of getting there.

[Elvis's

"Blue Suede Shoes" plays]

So we had to all of sudden

produce on the spot

in less than five days

an Elvis cover.

- ♪ One for the money,

two for the show ♪

♪ Three to get ready,

now go, cat, go ♪

- Elvis was

the king of rock and roll,

because he was the embodiment

of its sins and virtues.

Grand and vulgar,

rude and eloquent,

absurdly simple

and awesomely complex.

He was the king,

I mean, in our hearts,

which is the place where the

music really comes to life.

- ♪ Do anything

that you wanna do ♪

♪ But uh-uh, honey,

lay off of my shoes ♪

- For "Rolling Stone,"

Elvis Presley was

the central liberating figure

at the heart of rock and roll.

We might think "Rolling Stone"

wouldn't have happened

without somebody

like The Beatles

and the Rolling Stones.

- ♪ Drink my liquor

from an old fruit jar ♪

♪ We'll do anything

that you wanna do ♪

♪ But uh-uh, honey,

lay off of my shoes ♪

♪ And don't you ♪

♪ Step on my blue suede shoes ♪

- But the truth is

"Rolling Stone"

would not have happened

without people

like Elvis Presley

and Chuck Berry.

Those were

the real revolutionaries

who really

broke things open

and changed

what was possible.

You know that sneering

attitude that Presley had,

his own embodiment of seeming

like a threatening punk...

♪ ♪

- ♪ All right,

all right, all right ♪

♪ Well, it's blue, blue ♪

♪ My blue suede shoes ♪

- It became something else

with The Beatles

and the Rolling Stones,

just as it did

with the Sex Pistols

and The Clash.

I came into "Rolling Stone"

in 1977.

Punk had supplanted

that radical element in music

that initially inspired

"Rolling Stone."

I wanted to go to England

and do a story on The Clash.

I had to do a fair amount

of convincing.

- ♪ He's in love

with rock and roll, whoa ♪

♪ He's in love

with getting stoned, whoa ♪

♪ He's in love

with Janie Jones, oh ♪

♪ He don't like his

boring job, no ♪

♪ He's in love

with rock and roll, whoa ♪

♪ He's in love

with getting stoned, whoa ♪

- The Clash still were almost

completely unknown in the U.S.

There was no way The Clash

would be a cover story

or even a lengthy feature.

It'd be what was called

a front-of-the-book piece.

- [signing indistinctly]

♪ Evening comes ♪

♪ ♪

- "Never mind that shit,"

says Joe Strummer,

the thuggish-looking

lead singer of The Clash,

addressing some exultant kids

yelling "Happy New Year"

at him from the teeming floor

of the Lyceum.

"You've got

your future at stake!

Take it!"

Together with the Sex Pistols,

The Clash helped spearhead

the punk movement in Britain,

along the way

earning a designation

as the most intellectual

and political new wave band.

When the Pistols

disbanded early last year,

rock press and punks alike

looked to The Clash

as the movement's

central symbol and hope.

- When punk began

to become a sensation,

it was implicit that

it was a cultural statement

of rebellion and rejection.

It was The Clash,

though, who really gave punk

a necessary moral

and political center.

♪ ♪

They had a sense

of the political moment,

especially in England during

the rise of Margaret Thatcher

and what they saw

in America at the same time

under the years

of Ronald Reagan.

And they stood

for the people

who were under fire

at the time,

people who had

their opportunities

being stripped

away from them.

- ♪ Police, police,

police and thieves ♪

- ♪ Oh, yeah ♪

- ♪ Police, police,

police and thieves ♪

- ♪ Oh, yeah ♪

- ♪ From Genesis

to Revelation ♪

♪ Throw it up, throw it up ♪

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

- ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

- ♪ And all the crowd walking ♪

♪ Day by day ♪

- Strummer's vocals sound

as dangerous as he looks.

Screwing his face up

into a broken-tooth yowl,

he gleefully

bludgeons words.

- ♪ Turn war officer ♪

♪ Hear what I say ♪

- I try to say as much

to a reticent Joe Strummer

after the show

as we sit in a dingy

backstage dressing room.

"Our music's violent,"

says Strummer.

"We're not.

"If anything, our songs

are supposed to take

"the piss out of violence.

"We sing about the world

that affects us.

"We're not just

another wank rock group

"like Boston or Aerosmith.

What fucking shit."

♪ ♪

- I often think of The Clash

as being the real extension

of The Beatles.

[playing

"Let the Good Times Roll"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Come on, my baby,

let the good times roll ♪

- Lennon and McCartney had

a style when they came in,

but they responded

to changes in music.

They responded to changes

in the society around them.

- ♪ All night long ♪

- The Clash did

pretty much the same thing.

They grew.

- ♪ Come on, baby,

let me thrill your soul ♪

- And like

Lennon and McCartney,

it was pretty clear

to anybody who listened

to their lyrics

or saw them

that they, um--

they knew what they stood for.

- All right, what we got

for you tonight is--

You ain't got no baseball!

No baseball tonight!

You ain't got no football!

They're on strike!

But what we have got

for you is a little bit

of what's going on

in London at the moment!

- Punk music was vital.

The magazine was

not going to overlook it.

- The Clash, come on!

- But it wasn't going to give

it the same prominence

it would give somebody like

Tom Petty or Fleetwood Mac.

Certainly by the 1980s,

there was some division

about what should

the magazine cover.

There were arguments

between writers and editors

about where had

the values gone,

or where was

the judgment going.

["Should I Stay

or Should I Go" begins]

- [yells]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Darling, you got

to let me know ♪

♪ Should I stay

or should I go ♪

♪ If you say

that you are mine ♪

♪ I'll be here

till the day I die ♪

♪ Come on, and let me know ♪

♪ Should I stay

or should I go ♪

- So you know what

the problem is here.

The problem is here a guy

like you is not supposed

to end up wealthy

and this successful.

You were a hero figure

starting this

bold, new publication.

Here you are now

in the plush New York offices,

nice suit on.

- I think it's wonderful

that something that started

in the '60s

and as part of the '60s

and part of that generation

is successful

and is true to its ideals.

- ♪ Should I stay

or should I go now ♪

- "Rolling Stone" had

a big advertising campaign,

in which they were trying

to get more advertisers

really by--by saying they

weren't quite as irresponsible

and hippy-like

as they once were.

- Hate it.

[laughter]

- ♪ This indecision's

bugging me ♪

- I'm not responsible

for the yuppie generation.

"Rolling Stone" is not

a yuppie publication.

Never has been, never

has advertised itself as such,

never has used the phrase,

never has had

an advertising campaign

that says "we're yuppies"

or anything like that.

I mean, that is all nonsense

and horse[bleep].

- ♪ Come on, and let me know ♪

- If you want to sit back

and drive your [bleep] BMWs

and eat your

white wine and pesto,

you're gonna get

what you deserve.

- [yells]

- And, you know,

you'll get out of politics

and stay rich.

- ♪ Okay, wise guy ♪

♪ So what's the big secret? ♪

- And you become

a generation of swine.

How's that?

[Strummer yelling]

♪ ♪

♪ Should I stay

or should I go now ♪

- ♪ Yo me enfrío o lo soplo ♪

- ♪ Should I stay

or should I go now ♪

- ♪ Yo me enfrío o lo soplo ♪

- ♪ If I go,

there will be trouble ♪

- ♪ Si me voy

va a haber peligro ♪

- ♪ And if I stay,

it will be double ♪

- Why did you do

this campaign?

- Uh, to attract

more advertisers.

Try and say,

"Well, is 'Rolling Stone, '

"trying to reject,

you know, these--

some old values or, you know,

something like that?"

Um, are really

way off the mark.

In fact what it does,

it really celebrates

all that stuff.

- ♪ If I stay,

it will be double ♪

- ♪ Será el doble ♪

- That was

a "Rolling Stone" reader.

And this is us today,

and we've changed.

- ♪ Should I stay

or should I go ♪

[crowd cheering]

- It started off as music

and politics.

The gossip crept in.

That was a deadly thing.

Bon Jovi or whatever,

you know,

what color he paints

his fingernails

is more important

than the fact

that Ronald Reagan

is president.

I think it's a shame.

I don't know how you feel.

Uh, I think Jann,

in the darkness

of his private nights,

should be ashamed

and is ashamed

that "Rolling Stone" is not

more of a weapon and a tool.

- Hunter,

come back to work, then.

I mean, I can't go out

and create a, you know,

a new Hunter

or do what Hunter does.

I mean, if Hunter feels that

his stuff or his interests

are missing, well, that's

'cause he's not doing it.

I can't go out--

I mean, there's not another

Hunter Thompson around.

I can't go out and--

and make that happen.

That's up to him

more than it's up to me.

- The situation

with Hunter when I arrived

was that he and Jann

were still chewing

over that old argument

about the magazine.

They were like crazy dogs

growling over this

for years

and years and years.

But then this Roxanne Pulitzer

story began leaking out.

It was a divorce case,

heir to the great

Pulitzer fortune

and young, beautiful Roxanne.

I thought this

was perfect for Hunter.

- Nasty? Public?

You bet.

This is divorce

Palm Beach style.

At stake?

The Pulitzer fortune,

estimated

at up to $25 million.

- They were suing each other

for basically doing drugs

and sleeping with

all of the same people--

the upper crust

of society in Palm Beach.

- There was,

the court was told,

Belgian Grand Prix

driver Jackie Ickx,

French baker Hubert Fouret,

real estate broker

James Murdoch,

and a trumpet,

which Roxanne allegedly took

to bed with her to

communicate with the dead.

- I called Hunter, and I said,

"This is really a story

about the invention

"of American

tabloid journalism.

This is your chance to just

tee off on all of that."

He said, "Well, Jann

will never let me do that."

I said, "Well, Jann

says you won't do it.

He says you don't want

to do the work anymore."

He said, "Ah!"

- Case number 81-5263

in the Juvenile

and Family Division

of the Circuit Court

of the 15th Judicial Circuit,

uh, family division.

Ooh, here we go.

Roxanne Pulitzer

blew into town

more than ten years ago.

A ripe little cheerleader

just a year or so

out of high school

in Cassadega, New York.

[Donna Summer's

"Bad Girls" plays]

♪ ♪

Herbert "Pete" Pulitzer

Junior,

52-year-old

millionaire grandson

of the famous

newspaper publisher.

He had his pick

of the ladies,

and he particularly enjoyed

the young ones.

- That Pulitzer piece was,

I think, the sort of birth

of a consciousness

about tabloid journalism

because of the way Hunter just

took it to all the limits.

- ♪ Bad girls ♪

♪ Talking

about the sad girls ♪

- "She was an incorrigible

coke slut," he said.

And on top of all that,

she was a lesbian

or at least some kind

of pansexual troilist.

In six and a half years

of marriage,

she had humped

almost everything

she could

get her hands on.

- You have to stop

yourself for a second

and realize

that all of the people

he was writing about in that

divorce voted for Nixon.

I mean, it was a different

way to slice up the culture.

- ♪ But you want a good time ♪

- The very name "Palm Beach,"

long synonymous with old

wealth and aristocratic style,

was coming to be associated

with berserk sleaziness--

a place where

price tags mean nothing,

where pampered animals are

openly worshipped in church

and naked millionaires

gnaw brassieres

off the chests

of their own daughters.

- ♪ Whoa-oh ♪

- With all the vile

treachery among friends

and cheap witchcraft

and champagne troilism

all day and all night

in front of the servants

while decent

people were asleep

or at least

working at real jobs

for sane amounts of money,

what mainly emerged from

the testimony was a picture

of a lifestyle beyond

the wildest and lewdest dreams

of anything on "Dallas"

or even "Flamingo Road."

Nowhere in the record

of the Pulitzer trial

is there any mention

of anybody

who had to go to work

in the morning.

- ♪ Beep, beep ♪

- Now, tell me about

the goings on in Palm Beach.

- Well, I've been going

to court every morning

for, uh, two weeks at 7:00.

- Yeah.

- And, uh, for me to go

anywhere at 7:00 is real hard.

So I, uh--I tend

to stay up all night.

- Yeah.

- So, in other words, I stayed

up all night for two weeks.

- Sure, you don't

sleep at all, do you?

- This is about

the 188th hour.

- Yeah.

- I want to prove something.

You know, I want to prove--

I'm not sure what.

[laughter]

[mockingly]

Ha ha ha ha.

- So you're, uh--

[laughter]

- This is the Palm Beach

I've been trying to look--

I've been, uh,

educating myself to think

like the Palm Beach life.

- Uh-huh.

- And, uh, I've come

to some surprising

life stances in this.

[funk music]

- I am living

the Palm Beach life now.

Cruising the beach at dawn

in a red Chrysler convertible

with George Shearing

on the radio

and a head full

of bogus cocaine,

two beautiful lesbians

in the front seat beside me,

telling jokes

to each other in French.

We are on our way to an orgy,

and the girls

are drinking champagne.

There is

a wet parking ticket

flapping under

the windshield,

and it bores me.

The girls are naked now,

long hair in the wind

and perfumed nipples

bouncing in the dull blue

light of the dashboard.

One of them is tipping

a glass of champagne

to my mouth as we slow down

for a curve near the ocean.

♪ ♪

And... hello.

And that's what you don't

want to do, you silly bitch.

There is a lot of wreckage

in the fast lane these days.

Not even the rich

feel safe from it.

People are looking

for reasons.

The smart say

they can't understand it,

and the dumb snort cocaine

in rich discos

and stomp to a feverish beat.

The stomping of the rich

is not a noise to be ignored

in troubled times.

It usually means they're

feeling anxious or confused,

and when the rich feel

anxious and confused,

they act like wild animals.

Vultures, vultures,

vultures, hideous!

Thick necks, beaks.

Hovering creatures

looking for carrion.

- I was Hunter's

fact-checker on that story.

Now, to be Hunter Thompson's

fact-checker

is one of the sketchiest

professions

in all of journalism,

and Hunter takes it

totally seriously.

The stuff that he wants

to get right that's not

in the Gonzo realm, you know,

he really wants to get right.

♪ ♪

You know,

Hunter's great aphorism

about fact-checking is,

if you call somebody

a thieving pig-fucker,

you better be able

to produce the pig.

[pig squeals]

- When you go against taboos,

you bring a combination of

humor and seriousness to it,

which, uh,

opens a few more doors

than if you bring

a sledgehammer.

Occasionally

I'll make a mistake.

I don't like to hurt people,

but if you're going to have

to deal in this world,

which is occasionally

pretty rough,

you're going to hurt somebody

usually by accident,

so you may as

well hurt the right people,

and that's a value judgment.

- That's a pretty good--

- And, uh--

I mean, if I'm wrong,

well, I'm going

to suffer for it.

- He had this fondness

for Roxanne,

but I think

she liked him, too,

and they were

peas in a pod.

- In the end,

she got even less

than her lawyer--

no house, no children.

The whole package came to

not much more than Pulitzer

had spent on the day-to-day

maintenance of his boats.

- ♪ Rock on, gold dust woman ♪

♪ Take your silver spoon ♪

♪ Dig your grave ♪

- Many people said

Roxanne Pulitzer

is gold digger.

She wants her husband's money.

- Right.

I was dealt a certain hand

of cards back in 1982,

and I lost a lot,

and all I've tried to do

is play those cards

the best I can,

and, um, I don't feel

that I've done anything wrong.

- Roxanne is a star now.

She was on

the cover of "People"

and a featured celebrity guest

on "Good Morning America."

The best piece of ass

in Palm Beach

is a curious case

these days.

From the ashes

of scandal and defeat,

she has emerged as

a cult figure of sorts,

a kind of national bitch

for the '80s.

- ♪ Well, did

she make you cry ♪

♪ Make you break down ♪

♪ Shatter your illusions

of love? ♪

♪ And now tell me... ♪

- Long after the Pulitzer case

was finally over,

I was still brooding darkly

on it.

Why do the finest flowers

of the American dream

turn up in asylums,

divorce courts,

and other gray hallways

of the living doomed?

What is it

about being born free

and rich beyond worry

that makes people crazy?

- There's that darkness

to the American spirit.

You know, Hunter was deeply

invested in America,

whether you call it

the American dream

or American politics,

or all the things

he wrote about, you know,

were always looking

at the dark side

of the American dream,

the dark spirit

as well as the hope.

- Any fool with a hundred

dollar bill in his pocket

can whip a gram of cocaine

into his head

and make sense

of just about anything.

[sniffs]

[animal growling]

Ah, yes, I see it all

very clearly now.

These bastards have

been lying to me all along.

Stand aside.

Let the big dog eat.

[towel snaps]

[glass shatters]

- It was during that period

that we were winning

doing cultural coverage.

People would complain that

we were abandoning the music,

but that was bullshit.

We were covering the culture.

[crowd cheering]

[Talking Heads' "Burning

Down the House" begins]

- Who got a match?

♪ ♪

- There was no musical center

to the '80s

as there had been

in the '50s or '60s.

Music had split off

into a lot of fields

and different mainstreams.

- ♪ My house

is out of the ordinary ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪

- And we were trying

to persuade the magazine

to give coverage

to Talking Heads

or give a lead review

to Joy Division.

- ♪ Burning down the house ♪

♪ ♪

- As a music magazine

that tried to be

a magazine of record,

"Rolling Stone" wrote

about many musical forms

of the time.

♪ ♪

- ♪ Burning down the house ♪

- That music created

room for people

that had been successfully

kept out before.

♪ ♪

- That power of risk,

of threat, of change,

certainly existed

in the '80s.

- ♪ Burning down the house ♪

[crowd cheers]

- It's 22 before the hour,

and here's some news

you can use.

If you want to buy a rock

magazine, don't go to Walmart.

The department store chain

based in Arkansas

has stripped

all rock publications

from its shelves,

from "Rolling Stone"

to "Super Teen."

Walmart took the action after

evangelist Jimmy Swaggart

condemned rock magazines

on national television.

Joining us to talk about this

in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

this morning,

the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart.

Well, I've got a copy here

of "Rolling Stone" magazine,

and it has--oh, it has

an article about a comedian.

It has an article

about some rock groups.

Now, do you really think

that's a--

that's a bad influence

on young people?

- These magazines,

as far as I'm concerned,

are pornography,

pure and simple.

And they're the only

pornography that's printed

for children

and distributed to children

and distributed

by family outlets,

and this is very serious.

[thunder rumbles]

- God was speaking to Jimmy.

He came to him in a dream.

There was an enormous field

of cotton below a gloomy sky.

God told Jimmy

that the field

needed harvesting

before the storm came.

"If you fail, there

is no one else to do it."

This was the stark commandment

that Jimmy lived with.

He had become the new messiah.

- People who live

intensely religious lives

are in some ways

living symbolic lives,

and as a writer,

that's what really drew me

to Jimmy Swaggart.

[musical flourish]

- Well, hallelujah!

Praise the Lord!

- I have to say,

I loved the music

in his church.

The service began

with a drumbeat,

and then, wow,

we were on our way!

- And all

over this place,

let's have an old-fashioned

camp meeting.

- ♪ I'll fly away ♪

♪ Oh, Glory ♪

♪ I'll fly away ♪

- ♪ Fly away ♪

- ♪ And now, when I die ♪

♪ Hallelujah by and by ♪

♪ Oh, I'll fly away ♪

- I saw it as

a "Rolling Stone" story

for several reasons.

One, there was the connection

to rock and roll,

because, you know,

Jerry Lee Lewis

is Jimmy Swaggart's cousin.

- ♪ Now, when I die... ♪

- And Mickey Gilley,

a country music singer,

is also a first cousin.

They all lived in this little

town of Ferriday, Louisiana.

- All right, now,

I want to turn you guys loose,

and let's relive the old days

in Ferriday, Louisiana.

["Lewis Boogie" begins]

- ♪ My name is

Jerry Lee Lewis ♪

♪ I come

from Ferriday, Louisiana ♪

♪ I'm gonna do you a little

boogie on this old piano ♪

♪ Doing mighty fine,

I'm gonna make you shake it ♪

♪ Make you do it and do it

and do it and do it ♪

♪ And do it

until you break it ♪

♪ It's called the Lewis Boogie,

Lewis way ♪

♪ I like to do

my boogie woogie every day ♪

- There was this little

Assembly of God church,

and there was a piano

that these three kids

learned how to play.

♪ ♪

- Play me one, Mickey!

- They had very

few outlets to escape,

but music was one,

and religion was the other.

♪ ♪

- [shouts indistinctly]

♪ ♪

Yeah! Go, boy!

♪ ♪

- So Jerry Lee took

the musical escape route,

as did Mickey Gilley.

- ♪ Lewis Boogie, Lewis way ♪

♪ Now, me and Mickey

do our boogie every day ♪

♪ ♪

[audience applauds]

♪ ♪

- Jimmy turned to religion,

but he hung on to the music

portion of it as well.

There's certainly

the element of performance

that reminded me

so much of his cousin.

♪ ♪

But there was a kind ecstasy

about his rapturous sermons.

- I'm coming out!

Without sin!

Of the salvation!

To set the country free!

By the power

of Almighty God!

[wild cheers and applause]

You say, Jimmy Swaggart...

you're preaching to hundreds

of millions of people.

You're not supposed to be

that exuberantly emotional.

[cheers and applause]

You have lost your dignity

and your decorum.

I'll admit I have.

[laughter]

But when I speak

of Jesus Christ...

[speaking in tongues]

That He lifted man

above the shadows,

broke the bombs

and the chains

and the shackles,

because when He walked

out of that tomb,

I walked out

of that tomb with Him.

When He walked

out of that tomb,

I walked out

of that tomb with Him!

When He walked

out of that tomb,

Jimmy Swaggart walked

out of that tomb with Him!

[cheers and applause]

- No single person

had ever assembled

such a global

television audience,

and it was

difficult to foretell

what the consequences

of such a supranational

phenomenon might be.

Although Swaggart's goal

was to evangelize the world

in the last days

before Armageddon,

he also had allied himself

with the Christian Right

and was vigorously pressing

its social agenda.

- Homosexuality,

the filth that I will touch

upon in this message

that beggars description.

I want to make a statement.

The homosexuals are not gays.

They are perverts.

[applause]

And today

there are nearly 300

publicly advertised

meeting places

for homosexuals

called "glory holes,"

where gangs

of homosexuals meet

and, with little or no

sanitation,

practice oral-anal and

oral-penal sex with many men,

sometimes as many as 16

in a single encounter,

writhing like snakes

on the floor,

protected by the United States

government and politicians.

- It was kind of funny to me,

because I was representing

"Rolling Stone,"

which, if anything,

stands for all of those

cultural issues

that Swaggart opposed.

- People in the reporting

profession

thought he never believed

any of this stuff anyway.

He was just in it

for the money and the power.

I thought maybe

he did believe it.

Maybe he is actually

living out some sort of drama.

I was interested in him,

but the scandal gave me

the excuse to write the story.

[The Stone Roses's

"I Wanna Be Adored" plays]

- The secret that burned

inside Jimmy Swaggart

was that he had been a slave

of sexual perversion

since the age of ten.

He had been chosen by God

to evangelize the world

in the last days,

and yet his own soul

was losing ground in

a desperate battle with Satan.

- ♪ I don't have

to sell my soul ♪

♪ He's already in me ♪

♪ I don't need

to sell my soul ♪

- His cousin Mickey Gilley

would say later,

"Jimmy to us

was like Jesus

walking on the face

of the Earth again."

- ♪ I wanna be adored ♪

- "But Jesus was a role Jimmy

wasn't quite ready to play."

♪ ♪

- You want to know

the very first time

I saw Jimmy Swaggart?

I was standing

in the Texas Motel.

I told my girlfriend, I said,

"Look at this man,

he keeps riding around

and riding around

in this big Town Car."

And I looked, and I looked

again, and I said,

"Girl, that's Jimmy Swaggart."

I got in his car,

and he asked me,

if he gave me $10,

would I pull down

my pants and let him

play with my pussy

while he jacked off.

- It seemed that

he was more interested

in depravity than in sex,

and in bringing himself low.

- ♪ I wanna be adored ♪

- He might have

had a mistress.

He might have been able to

hire a high-class call girl.

After all, you know,

he was getting

half a million dollars

a day in contributions.

People were sending in

their wedding rings.

He had his own zip code.

He was, uh, one of

the most powerful figures

in the country.

And yet he would

go to these depressing,

squalid little motels

on airline highway

and seek out women who were

advertising themselves

by sitting out

in a plastic chair

in front of the motels.

- ♪ You adore me ♪

- If you take

the symbolic view

of Jimmy Swaggart's life...

- ♪ You adore me ♪

- There was a devil

on one shoulder

and the angel on the other.

- ♪ I wanna, I wanna ♪

♪ I gotta be adored ♪

- And it was almost like

he was begging to be caught.

♪ ♪

- To my Lord and my savior...

I have sinned against You,

my Lord.

And I would ask

that Your precious blood...

Would wash and cleanse

every stain,

never to be remembered

against me anymore.

[Eurythmics's

"Missionary Man" plays]

- On April 8th,

he was officially defrocked

by the Assemblies of God.

He has been booted off

the two major Christian

television networks.

Students have deserted

his Bible college.

IRS agents are poring

over his books.

"Maybe there is no other man

in history

more humiliated than me,"

Swaggart has said,

with his usual breathtaking

perspective

on his own importance.

- ♪ Well, I was born

an original sinner ♪

♪ I was born

from original sin ♪

♪ And if I had a dollar bill

for all the things I've done ♪

♪ There'd be

a mountain of money ♪

♪ Piled up to my chin, hey ♪

- The agreement that he

had made with the church

was that he would lay low

for a while,

and he couldn't.

He couldn't bring himself

to do that.

I went to one

of his services,

which was normally

filled to the brim,

but after all of his scandal,

it was sparsely attended.

There was another preacher

that morning,

but Swaggart

kept jumping up

and seizing the microphone

and talking in tongues.

He reminded me of a cult,

you know, that wanted to run.

He just

could not be suppressed.

At the end

of the service,

people were lining up

to give him money,

and I got in the line.

He put his arms around me,

and I said,

"I'm from 'Rolling Stone.'"

And he said,

"'Rolling Stone'? Good God!"

- ♪ But don't mess

with a missionary man ♪

- Then the guy behind me

was a private investigator

who stuck

a subpoena in his hand.

So it was a bad morning

for Jimmy Swaggart.

♪ ♪

- I think

Swaggart's disgrace

put the brakes on that whole

televangelist movement.

all: Right now.

- This morning...

- It's still very much

a part of us,

but it's not near as potent

and doesn't pose quite

the danger that it did

in the late '80s

when Jimmy Swaggart

was at his full bloom.

[applause, organ music]

[crowd cheering]

[U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky"

plays]

♪ ♪

- ♪ In the locust wind ♪

♪ Comes a rattle and hum ♪

♪ Jacob wrestled the angel ♪

♪ And the angel was overcome ♪

♪ You plant a demon seed ♪

♪ You raise

a flower of fire ♪

♪ See them burning crosses ♪

♪ See the flames

higher and higher ♪

♪ Bullet the blue sky ♪

♪ Bullet the blue ♪

♪ Bullet the blue ♪

- You know, I loved

my time at "Rolling Stone."

I did a U2 cover,

and I did a Neil Young cover,

and I did all this

other stuff, too,

but hip-hop was the most vital

and the most exciting thing

that was going on.

1992, a lot of people

still looked at hip-hop

as an outsider genre,

which felt crazy.

That was like covering

jazz in the '40s,

to be there when

bebop happened,

or, you know, covering

rock and roll in the '60s.

You knew every day

that this was

the most vital

and the most creative force

that was happening,

and you were watching

the world changing around you.

[Public Enemy's "By the Time

I Get to Arizona" plays]

[people screaming]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Well, I got 25 days

to do it ♪

♪ If a wall in the way,

just watch me go through it ♪

♪ 'Cause I gotta do

what I gotta do ♪

♪ P.E. number one

gets the job done ♪

- The year began with

an overblown controversy

over Public Enemy's video

"By the Time

I Get to Arizona"...

- ♪ That's the way it is,

he got to get his ♪

♪ Talking MLK ♪

- Which depicted the group

assassinating the state's

elected officials for refusing

to establish a holiday

honoring Martin Luther King

Jr.'s birthday.

- That I am a racist...

that I am a supporter

of the KKK.

- Looming over

all of the year's events

was the specter of the

April riots in Los Angeles.

- ♪ This is Sister Souljah ♪

♪ Public Enemy, security

of the first world ♪

♪ And all allied forces ♪

- In June, presidential

candidate Bill Clinton

took a cheap shot

at Sister Souljah,

quoting questionable

riot-related remarks.

- She told

"The Washington Post"

about a month ago,

and I quote,

"If black people kill

black people every day,

why not have a week

and kill white people?"

- Clinton's use of

those comments

was clearly

out of context,

presenting Souljah

as an indefensible racist.

- If you took the words

"white" and "black"

and you reversed them,

you might think David Duke

was giving that speech.

♪ ♪

- Democratic presidential

contender Bill Clinton

has chosen to attack

not the issues

but a young African woman

who is very well educated

and a community servant.

When the rebellions

occurred in Los Angeles,

everybody ran...

- ♪ So I pray,

I pray every day ♪

♪ I do and praise

Jah the maker ♪

- To the hip-hop community

and asked us

were we surprised.

I said that, no, I could not

possibly have been surprised.

In the mind-set

of a gang member,

why not kill white people?

- ♪ On my freedom,

oppressor, people beater ♪

- What was so revolutionary

about hip-hop at that time,

kids who were listening

to those records

understood tensions

between the police

and the black community

in L.A. before the riots,

and nobody else did.

- ♪ Go, go, go, go ♪

♪ ♪

♪ By the time I get

to Arizona ♪

♪ Zona, zona, zona ♪

♪ By the time I get

to Arizona ♪

♪ Zona, zona, zona ♪

- I remember being

at "Rolling Stone"

and kind of being furious

when Nirvana broke

and saying,

"God damn it!

"You all want

a rock band so bad

"that here's one

and they have one big song,

"and they get the cover of

the magazine,

"and I can't get Public Enemy

"on the cover of the magazine

after, you know,

three or four

world-changing records."

- ♪ Hey, young world ♪

- ♪ The world is yours ♪

- ♪ Hey, young world ♪

- You know, in the '80s,

hip-hop was a--

this was an East coast thing,

this was

a New York City thing.

- ♪ This rap here ♪

- ♪ It may cause concern ♪

- Nobody had written about

urban L.A. gang culture.

Nobody had written about

the violence in Los Angeles.

That didn't really exist.

- ♪ Times have changed ♪

- ♪ Hey, it's cool

to look bummy ♪

♪ And be a dumb dummy

and disrespect your mommy ♪

- ♪ Have you forgotten ♪

- ♪ Who put you

on this Earth, huh? ♪

- ♪ Who brought you

up right ♪

- ♪ And who loved you

since your birth ♪

- And then

Ice-T started making

some of his early records

like "6 in the Mornin'."

- I was deeply involved

in the streets, hustling.

I would make

rhymes for my crew.

Gangsta rhymes,

criminal rhymes.

But when hip-hop came along,

I would try to rhyme like

the rappers in hip-hop rhymed,

about parties and stuff.

- ♪ Scream, whoopee-doo,

go for yours ♪

♪ 'Cause dreams come true ♪

- And my friends were like,

"Say that shit

you say about us!"

You know, I'm like,

"But those are criminal rhymes.

Like, you don't want

to say those."

And they would--

they said,

"Say them,

just sing them!"

So I did a song called

"6 in the Mornin" with,

"6:00 in the morning,

police at my door.

"Fresh Adidas squeak

across the bathroom floor.

"Out the back window

I made my escape.

"Didn't even get a chance

to grab my old-school tape.

"Mad with no music,

but happy 'cause free,

"and the streets to

a player is the place to be.

"I got a knot in my pocket

weighing at least a grand.

"Gold on my neck,

my pistols close at hand.

"I'm a self-made monster

of the city streets.

"Remotely controlled

by hard hip-hop beats.

"But just living in the city

is a serious task

"Didn't know

what the cops wanted.

Didn't have time to ask."

This was the invention of

what they call gangsta rap.

♪ Didn't want trouble

but the shit must fly ♪

♪ Squabbled with this sucker,

shanked him in the eye ♪

♪ But just living in

the county is a serious task ♪

♪ Nigga didn't know

what happened ♪

♪ Didn't have time to ask ♪

That record hit.

"6 in the Mornin'" hit.

And I was like, "Wow.

People like this shit."

- Ice-T and I had

a relationship in place.

The first big piece

that I did with him

was I did a feature

when the "New Jack City"

movie came out.

And then we did some

other things in between.

I remember speaking

to him on his car phone

in the midst

of the L.A. riots.

Ice-T, by this time,

had established

not only his rap career,

he had already

started exploring

these other

interests that he had.

He made no secret ever

that he was also

this metalhead,

rock and roller.

[upbeat hip-hop music]

- Now, I'm doing this rap,

and I noticed

that when we would play

the up-tempo records,

they would mosh.

Mosh pits would start.

♪ ♪

A mosh pit

is fascinating.

What is really going on?

Is that dancing?

Is this some kind

of release of energy,

you know, male testosterone

just going crazy?

So I came back home

and I'm like,

I want to do a rock band.

So I got

my bandmate Ernie C.,

who played guitar

all through Crenshaw.

I got Mooseman,

who was a weed dealer,

but he could play bass.

Beatmaster V,

who was a weed dealer,

but he could play drums.

I said, "We're going to

make this group Body Count."

We're going to mix Suicidal

with Slayer with Black Sabbath.

It's gonna be fast,

evil music.

[Body Count's

"Body Count" begins]

♪ It's real fucked up ♪

At this time, Body Count,

we were just a concept.

We hadn't made an album.

We were playing,

like, pizza joints.

♪ Goddamn,

what a brother gotta do ♪

♪ To get a message through ♪

♪ To the red, white

and blue? ♪

Yo, Beatmaster V,

take these motherfuckers

to South Central.

♪ ♪

Ha ha!

The craziest member

of Body Count

was my drummer,

Beatmaster V.

We used to always say

he's got, you know,

one foot in the penitentiary,

the other one

on a banana peel.

He was that guy.

- ♪ Psycho killer,

qu'est-ce que c'est ♪

- I, uh, walked into

the rehearsal hall

singing, "psycho killer,

qu'est que c'est."

And he goes,

we need a cop killer!

And he started just

rambling off all the stuff

the cops were doing, how they

were whupping people's asses,

running up in the spot,

shot this guy's baby.

Just dirty cop shit.

And my wheels started turning.

I'm like,

"What if somebody snapped?

What if police brutality

sent somebody over the edge?"

So coming off

of "Psycho Killer,"

I turned the psycho killer

into a cop killer.

This next record

is dedicated

to some personal

friends of mine--the LAPD.

For every cop that has ever

taken advantage of somebody,

beat 'em down or hurt 'em,

for every one of those

fucking police,

I'd like to take a pig

out here in this parking lot

and shoot 'em in their

motherfucking face.

["Cop Killer" begins]

♪ ♪

The album was

out for a year...

♪ Cop killer ♪

Before it was brought

to the attention

of the Fraternal Order of

the Police from Austin, Texas.

all: Hey-hey, ho-ho,

Time Warner's got to go!

- Texas police who

started the controversy

urged Time Warner to pull

the album made by Ice-T.

- It calls for cold-blooded,

premeditated murder.

- And I call on every American

to condemn that kind of thing!

- Actor Charlton Heston,

an NRA supporter,

joined the protest

against the album.

- "Die, die, die, pigs, die.

Police, I know your

family's grieving."

Catchy little number,

isn't it?

- ♪ I know your

family's grieving ♪

♪ Fuck 'em,

cop killer ♪

♪ But tonight

we get even, ha ha ♪

- For the police, it was

a very savvy political move,

because at the moment,

the cops were under siege,

just like they are today.

They turned me into the enemy,

and everyone got mad at me

and stopped looking

at what they were doing.

So they--they--

they used me in a way.

♪ ♪

- When this story broke,

I remember going to Jann's

office and saying, "Look,

I can make one phone call

and go and get with this guy."

- "The Source" magazine,

which was the hip-hop

so-called Bible at the time,

they were telling me,

"You got to give

an exclusive interview to us."

So I was like, "You guys aren't

the source, I'm the source.

Y'all report on the source."

"Rolling Stone"

was very polite.

Alan, who wrote it,

was a friend.

He was like, "Ice, you know,

we would really be--

we'd like to give you this,"

and I was like, "You know what?

"I can be in 'The Source'

every day of the week, right?

I'm gonna do

'Rolling Stone.'"

So now I go to

"Rolling Stone,"

I say "Yeah, let's go.

Let's talk about this shit."

No, I mean,

I wrote the record.

It's a record

about a character.

I know the character.

I've woken up feeling

like this character.

I've never clicked over,

but when I saw

that shit on TV,

I wanted to get out there.

I know a lot of people did.

And to me, to say

I can't write about this

because I'm gonna offend

somebody

is bullshit, you know?

I didn't think it was

going to be the cover.

Mark Seliger,

he took the picture, right?

He had these ideas.

"We're going to put

you in a police uniform."

So I'm like, "What?"

[chuckles]

He goes, "No, this is

the ultimate nightmare

"of a racist cop, is

getting pulled over by you

and having you

have the billy club."

And it actually did what

he said it was going to do.

It outraged a lot of people.

See, one thing about being,

you know, a black artist,

a lot of people

don't think that rappers

are capable of art.

They don't--they take

everything we say literal.

They don't understand

that we might have

a grain of intelligence.

So that's all a part

of the racism and shit

that goes into it.

You know, like, when

they attacked the record,

they called it a rap record,

which it wasn't.

It was a rock record.

- ♪ B-C, B-C ♪

- ♪ South Central, nigga ♪

- ♪ B-C ♪

♪ ♪

You know, if they say,

"Well, it's a rock record,"

well, people might go,

"Well, hey,

I like Fleetwood Mac.

"Maybe, you know--

maybe it's like

"one of those '60s records

where people were

against the police, you know?"

But by saying

it's rap, it's like,

"Oh, it's the niggas

talking that shit."

That became the issue.

I saw deeper

than even the song.

It was me transferring

black rage to white youth,

and once you cross

that border

and you put those

white fists in the air

singing about the same

injustices, that's the fear.

The fear is he's crossing over

to our kids.

And, you know, when

that parent wants to say,

"Oh, yeah, you know,

those niggers are rioting,"

his little daughter is going,

"They're not niggers, Dad,

and they have a reason."

♪ ♪

But I learned firsthand

that you have the right

to say anything,

but people also have

the right to get angry.

If I want to say

something anti-gay,

well, I got to be prepared for

the gay movement to attack me.

If I say something against

women--they have that right.

So you can't just,

you know, like I say,

you can't go home

to your girl and say,

"Yo, I fucked your sister.

Free speech."

It doesn't--

you know, it's like,

"Yeah, free speech, but, yeah!"

So my mistake was thinking

I could sing anything

and there would be

no repercussions.

- Sitting next to Ice-T

is one of his main critics,

Tipper Gore,

who is founder of the PMRC,

which for years

has been actively fighting

what they call

the destructive influence

of today's music lyrics

on children.

- We have freedom

of speech in this country,

and you have a right to

have lyrics that abuse women,

that use racism,

but was have a right

to speak out against them,

and we also have a right

to alert parents that this

is being marketed aggressively

to very young kids

at a time

when they are forming

their opinions.

- I think what nobody

was prepared for

in this situation was

just how strong an adversary

they had picked

in going after Ice-T.

- I'll just put it all

in a nutshell.

The enemies of the music

is what fuels the fire.

As soon as a kid

comes home from school

and his mother says,

"Have you listened

to your Ice-T album today?"

I'm through.

Rock and roll has always

got to have an enemy.

That's what keeps it

rock and roll!

[overlapping shouting]

- Stop hating his music!

- You were dealing

with somebody

who was absolutely up

for whatever sort of debate,

whatever sort of challenge

you were gonna throw at him.

- You know,

Tipper was very outspoken,

but if you noticed

when Clinton

and Al Gore

ran for president,

you never heard

anything else from her.

Someone issued a gag order.

Someone says,

"We're trying this youth vote.

You must remain quiet."

And I guess Tipper is just

shopping for shoes now.

I don't know where she's at.

But she ain't, uh, speaking.

She was unhip, and they

came off as the hip guys.

- Here's Arsenio....

Hall!

[lively saxophone music]

♪ ♪

- Bill Clinton was

the first Baby Boomer

to run for president,

and the first Democrat

to come along in a long time,

and, of course, I found

this extremely compelling.

♪ ♪

And I just thought

this is a perfect subject

of "Rolling Stone,"

which accompanied the rise

and spoke for this generation

through the music

we spoke for,

the things that they had read

in "Rolling Stone"

or the crusades

we'd been a part of.

- The big man...

[crowd cheering]

- The first time

we interviewed Clinton,

we went down to Little Rock,

Arkansas, during the campaign.

It was kind of this joint

interview between myself,

Hunter, P.J. O'Rourke,

and Bill Greider--

our top political team.

- I was managing editor

at "The Washington Post,"

and Hunter claims that

he was up late one night

taking a leak

and thought of me,

and that was the inspiration

for my career change.

In "Rolling Stone,"

you're not talking

to the professor you had

in English 201.

You're talking to the people

who read this magazine.

It was liberating.

- ♪ Come on, baby,

let the good times roll ♪

♪ Come on, baby ♪

- You know,

Jann Wenner was this kid

who loved rock and roll

and decided he'd start

a rock and roll magazine,

and he's interviewing

the next president

of the United States

in this group

that he assembled

that's a pretty weird group.

- ♪ Come on, baby,

show me how you feel, yeah ♪

- We had drank too much

the night before

and got up in the morning

raring to go.

It was taking place in this

joint called Doe's Café,

which is where all

of the campaign people

and the press people

ate and drank.

- ♪ Come on, baby ♪

- Jann was in love

with the Clintons,

but Hunter

was also quite thrilled.

And he gave Clinton a couple

of high-quality

French saxophone reeds.

- I think we're on

the right side of history.

I think the time has come

for America to change

its policies fundamentally.

- Hunter had his

own list of questions

about the gun laws

but also the drug laws.

- You've seen the statement

I put out last week...

- Clinton wanted

that interview

to make it very clear

that he was not your

standard-brand liberal

who was for smoking dope.

Hunter was so offended.

He gets up from the table.

He came back in about

15 minutes with a tall drink,

and he never

asked another question.

It was like,

"Interview is over for me.

You've shown me

who you really are."

And then P.J. O'Rourke,

who was a sharp-witted

right-winger,

has come to the table

loaded for bear

with ideological questions.

- Sometimes the most

conservative thing

in the world to do

is to change.

It's the only you can

preserve those things

which are most

dear to you

and that's what I'm

obviously hoping

the American people

will believe.

- And Clinton just

turned him around on a dime.

So it's now down to me

and Jann Wenner,

and I'm left entering

into a pretty wonkish

conversation

with Bill Clinton.

Shift in tax burdens

and savings and loan...

He knew what

would fetter my ego,

asking about obscure things

that most people

had never heard of.

That was terrific.

- You're a really smart man.

Thanks, Hunter!

- Jann, P.J., Hunter

were of a certain age.

- You remember

Hunter Thompson.

- They had a feeling

that they were going

to change the country again,

maybe the world, and, uh,

I didn't share that self-glory

because I was a bit older.

- So now we know,

you know,

his favorite Beatle

is Paul McCartney.

He voted for the skinny Elvis

stamp, and he bites his nails.

- So you came away

feeling less enthused

than you were going in?

- I'm not going to, uh,

go out and campaign for him,

'cause there's other people to.

- Is that good

or bad news for Bill?

- During the war in Vietnam

and during the Nixon era,

the youth culture had

gotten pretty well stomped,

but rock and roll prevailed.

- Together for the

first time since 1982,

Lindsey Buckingham,

Mick Fleetwood,

Christine McVie,

John McVie,

and Stevie Nicks!

Fleetwood Mac!

["Don't Stop" plays]

- ♪ Why not think

about times to come ♪

♪ And not about

the things that you've done? ♪

♪ If your life

was bad to you ♪

♪ Just think

what tomorrow will do ♪

- ♪ So don't stop

thinking about tomorrow ♪

♪ Don't stop,

it'll soon be here ♪

♪ It'll be

better than before ♪

- It was a generation

taking power.

- ♪ Yesterday's gone ♪

- We all got shaped

in the same way,

so justice and equity

and a kind of deep belief

in America.

- Sir, would you

join us, please?

- Those are the ideals

of my generation.

- ♪ It'll soon be here ♪

♪ It'll be

better than before ♪

- I was very invested

in them as leaders

trying to carry out

the principles and ideals

of that generation in a very

tough real-world situation

of the power

and all the interests

they had to navigate.

- ♪ It'll be

better than before ♪

- I had the same optimism

that was widely shared

about the Clinton potential.

My one regret

is that I was slow,

and I'm talking months,

not years,

in saying in print what I saw

happening in Washington.

- ♪ Yesterday's gone ♪

- Clinton was essentially

abandoning organized labor

and working people.

It happened literally

in the first year

of the administration.

And that was a sort of

double-cross of the values

he expressed

as a young candidate.

- I think I do

need to be reminded

that what I'm doing every

day is for these folks.

- Right.

- It was a very quick thing

for Clinton

to make some gestures...

- Hi, folks!

- Hi, Bill!

- Which his people applauded

and made a big deal out of

but were actually trivial

or even deceptive.

- I think we accomplished

an awful lot.

Maybe you can say

some of it was due

to newness

or a touch of, you know,

the arrogance of being new.

- There's a word

called hubris.

- Sure is.

Greek word.

- Certainly is.

- At the beginning

of his administration,

he had just come off

a couple of big victories

and Bill Greider

went on to interview Clinton

in his little

executive dining room

off the Oval Office.

- To understand Clinton,

you have to understand

he was a seducer.

He knew how to appeal

to people in a way

that would flatter them

or beguile them.

And he's good at it,

but I'm a reporter.

After everything else,

I'm a reporter.

And I realized

there was something

that I should have

asked about.

At the very end,

as we're literally getting

up from the table, I said,

"What do you care about that

you would fight and die for?"

And he--he just exploded.

- I have fought more damn

battles here for more things

than any president has

in 20 years

and not gotten

one damn bit of credit

from the knee-jerk

liberal press,

and I'm sick and tired of it,

and you can put

that in the damn article.

- He thinks he has

beguiled me especially,

but also Jann.

And this was a signal

that he did not succeed

in seducing me.

- And you get

no credit around here

for fighting and bleeding.

And that's why

the know-nothings

and the do-nothings

and the negative people

and the right-wingers

always win...

because of the way

people like you

put questions

to people like me.

Now, that's the truth, Bill.

- I'd been toe-to-toe

with angry politicians

over the years.

He was more personal

in his tone and bearing.

- And I'm sorry

if I'm not very good

at communicating it,

but I haven't got

a hell of a lot of help

since I've been here either.

- Thank you.

- I think Bill was

a well-intentioned good man.

As a president, he was

a little slick by half

and flawed and--

and somewhat

undisciplined as a person,

but you do have

to accept in politics

and in life that it's

not all going to be pure,

and it's not all going to be

exactly what you wanted.

- I misled people,

including even my wife.

I deeply regret that.

I can only tell you I was

motivated by many factors.

First, by a desire

to protect myself

from the embarrassment

of my own conduct.

I was also very concerned

about protecting my family.

Indeed I did have

a relationship

with Ms. Lewinsky

that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong.

- ♪ I've stepped in the middle

of seven sad forests ♪

- Do we need to let

the impeachment process

continue much further?

Vote down this inquisition.

- My memory of that period

was that Jann and me--

we didn't see this story

the same way.

- In this special issue,

we have collected

many of the voices

of our culture,

speaking out

to Congress

and to the media.

- I thought that Democrats

were being way too forgiving,

including women who called

themselves feminists.

- I wrote this

one very strong piece

to say people on the left

were tolerating things

they shouldn't have tolerated.

- That's part

of that explosion

in our famous

White House interview,

'cause I was going right at it

in that question I asked,

and he knew

that he was selling out.

- ♪ I heard

one person starve ♪

♪ I heard many people

laughing ♪

- The distortions

that both political parties

get away with constantly,

deliberately,

left us with an electorate

that's mad as hell,

and they don't want

to take it anymore.

- ♪ And it's a hard ♪

♪ It's a hard,

it's a hard ♪

♪ It's a hard ♪

♪ It's a hard rain's

a-gonna fall ♪

♪ ♪

- ♪ You're all

I ever wanted ♪

♪ You're all I ever needed,

yeah ♪

♪ So tell me

what to do now 'cause ♪

[harmonizing]

♪ I want you back ♪

- In a distant

demographic echo

of the Baby Boom,

the American teen population

has reached

the kind of critical mass

that makes the culture

industry sit up and listen.

Welcome to the new Teen Age.

- They sing well,

and they're very hot,

and I really just love them.

- Teen pop became this huge

phenomenon in the late '90s.

So we would

do Britney Spears

and NSYNC

and Backstreet Boys.

Every generation of

readers thinks that magazine

has sold out,

because they're putting

who's currently popular

on the cover,

not who was popular

when they were 17 or 18.

You know, it's like,

we weren't gonna put

Grace Slick on

the cover in the '90s

just because she

had been cool in 1974.

[chuckles] You know?

There was a pretty

hardheaded approach

to figuring out the covers.

What we're really

thinking is, like,

you know,

"What's going to sell?"

- ♪ Back ♪

[crowd cheering]

♪ ♪

- I guess my way

of reliving my youth

and sharing this with her.

- ♪ I want you back ♪

- Even though

my leg is broken,

I came here because

it's the kind of thing

a good parent

would do for their child.

all: You're the one I want!

- Louder!

all: You're the one I need!

- ♪ Girl, what did I do? ♪

♪ ♪

♪ You're the one I want ♪

♪ You're the one I need ♪

♪ So tell me what to do ♪

♪ You're all I ever wanted ♪

♪ You're all I ever needed ♪

- I'm not,

in any way, ashamed

of the amount of coverage

we gave to various pop stars.

If you look at what

teenage America is thinking

and you understand

what's changing

in their morality

and their values--

it's important

to know that

because soon enough

they're young America,

and soon enough they're

young adult America.

- ♪ You back ♪

[wild cheering]

- When I got the call

from "Rolling Stone"

asking if I would write

about Britney Spears,

I immediately said yes,

and the next thing I did

was ask my girlfriend,

"Who is Britney Spears?"

- Two, three...

- I probably started dancing

when I was three years old.

It's tough.

- Okay, music.

[upbeat dance music]

- She had a sort of steel core

of show biz values.

This is the kind of girl

who would get up

at the second grade

talent show

and knock everybody out with

her version of "Tomorrow."

- I really love living

in Louisiana.

- Britney Jean Spears

is a golden child,

the chart-topping

apotheosis of a generation

that's breathing life

into an imperiled business.

- ♪ You drive me crazy,

I just can't sleep ♪

- First came the Britney

Website, email address,

an 800 number advertised

on several hundred

thousand postcards.

In summer 1998,

Spears performed

at 26 malls

across the country.

- It occurred to me that we

were going back to the '50s,

when you had people

like Frankie Avalon,

Annette Funicello,

these very

wholesome pop stars

just singing, you know,

boy-girl love songs.

- ♪ Got my new gown ♪

♪ Let me hair down ♪

♪ All I need now

is the boy ♪

- ♪ I got my striped tie ♪

♪ Got my hopes high ♪

♪ Got the time and the place,

and I've got rhythm ♪

♪ Now all I need

is the girl to go with them ♪

[Britney Spears's

"Sometimes" begins]

♪ ♪

- The Britney Spears

that I met

had this very chaste

persona, really.

When she talked

about her cover shoot,

she thought it would be

a good idea if she dressed up

in vintage lace dresses

in some quaint

antebellum setting.

[Britney Spears's "...Baby

One More Time" begins]

Of course,

when the photographer,

David LaChapelle,

rolled up in rural Louisiana,

his vision

for America's new sweetheart

was more like Jodi Foster

in Taxi Driver.

♪ ♪

- ♪ Oh, baby, baby ♪

♪ How was

I supposed to know ♪

♪ That something

wasn't right here? ♪

- She was similar

to the kind of pop stars

that they had

in the '50s, but by 1999,

she was often wrapped in

the imagery of soft-core porn.

- ♪ Show me

how you want it to be ♪

♪ Tell me, baby ♪

- It was regressive,

but it was wrapped up

in the styles of the day,

which goes to show

that there was a generation

that knew

how to have it both ways.

- ♪ When I'm not with you,

I lose my mind ♪

♪ Give me a sign ♪

♪ Hit me, baby,

one more time ♪

[school bell rings]

- What's always struck me

as odd, "Rolling Stone,"

their highest-ranked covers

are Dylan, right?

And that famous George Bush

cover and, like, Jimi Hendrix,

but this is what people

were thinking about

and talking about.

- I mean, a lot has been said

about Britney

being a toy

of some male impresarios

and that she herself

was not the genius

behind the Britney

phenomenon.

- ♪ Baby, can't you see

I'm calling? ♪

♪ A guy like you

should wear a warning ♪

- But the fact is that she won

a Grammy for "Toxic."

She was like a football

quarterback on that stage.

She never missed a beat,

and she never missed a step.

- ♪ I need a hit,

baby, give me it ♪

♪ You're dangerous,

I'm loving it ♪

- But I do think of her

as a celebrity

culture tragedy

and a tragedy of fame.

- ♪ I'm on a ride ♪

♪ You're toxic,

I'm slipping under ♪

- That out of the ashes

of Britney Spears,

Rihanna and Katy Perry

and Beyoncé

all rose like a phoenix.

There were some very

serious conversations

that went on among

managers and producers

and pop stars about,

how does this not happen?

You don't want to go so crazy

that you end up on the cover

of "Rolling Stone"

for the wrong reason.

- Vanessa Grigordia--

Grior--

Grigoriadis.

I'm sorry, I--

Vanessa, I knew I was

gonna mess up your name.

She's written a cover story

about Britney Spears

for the current issue

of "Rolling Stone" magazine.

You describe one occasion

where she really kind of lost

it with a fan and a cashier.

Can you give me

the crib notes on that?

[The Cure's "Pictures of You"

begins]

- February 21, 2008--

a pop star at the mall

is an eternal

cause for happiness.

One moment, shoppers

in the Westfield Topanga mall

are living in the real world,

but upon the rapture

of Britney Spears,

they are giggling, laughing,

already sharing

their secret on cell phones

as Britney beelines for

the Betsey Johnson boutique.

- ♪ I've been looking so long

at these pictures of you ♪

- Britney rifles

the racks as The Cure's

"Pictures of You" blasts

in the airless pink boutique.

A crush of managers

try to keep the peace,

but the crowd running

after Britney gets larger,

and now the shop girls have

started to catch up to her,

one of them

slipping spectacularly

in her platform shoes.

She pulls herself up,

mustering the strength

to tap Britney's shoulder.

"Um, I'm from

the South, too," she mumbles.

"And I was wondering if I

could get a picture with you

for my little sister."

Britney whirls around

and stares the girl

deep in the eyes, her lips

almost vibrating with anger.

"I don't know

who you think I am, bitch,

but I am not that person."

[Britney Spears's

"Piece of Me" plays]

- ♪ Oh, yeah ♪

- ♪ I'm Miss American Dream ♪

♪ Since I was 17 ♪

- The huge issue with her

was just that she collided

with the height

of paparazzi culture.

- ♪ Pictures of my derriere

in the magazine ♪

♪ You want a piece of me,

you want a piece of me ♪

♪ I'm Miss Bad Media Karma ♪

♪ Another day,

another drama ♪

- I do feel like

I have been attacked

for being too harsh

on her in the story.

- ♪ And with a kid

on my arm ♪

- And I think,

in retrospect, I was.

- If there is one thing

that has become clear

in the past year

of Britney's collapse,

the most public downfall

of any star in history,

it's that she doesn't

want anything to do

with the person

the world thought she was.

She is not a good girl.

She is not

America's sweetheart.

She is an inbred

swamp-thing who chain-smokes,

doesn't do her nails,

and screams at people

who want pictures

for their little sisters.

She is the perfect celebrity

for America in decline.

Like President Bush,

she just doesn't give a fuck.

But at least we won't have

to clean up after her mess

for the rest of our lives.

[jet engine whooshing]

- I remember, in the time

I was brought in,

being struck by the way

"Rolling Stone" was perceived.

I was interviewed on CNN, and

the host of the program said,

"'Rolling Stone, ' I thought

they just covered music."

That was really the

reputation of the magazine.

People didn't know

P.J. O'Rourke

and Hunter Thompson.

The great tradition

that the magazine had

on the political scene

had really been forgotten,

even by people in journalism.

- So, at that moment,

Jann was really focused

on restoring the magazine

as a primary source

of hard-hitting

political journalism.

"Rolling Stone" interviewed

every president

it could interview.

Certainly we would have

interviewed George W. Bush

had he let us.

And Obama arrived

in such a history-making way.

Obama was the first president

where the magazine decided

to endorse a Democratic

candidate for president

before the primaries

were over.

- At that time,

there was the war in Iraq.

There was the financial

meltdown in 2007 and 2008.

There was no shortage

of pressing political issues.

While there were

all those issues,

there were still

a lot of stories

that weren't being told

in a very compelling way.

I had been lobbying

for months and months

to do a piece

on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was kind of

off the radar at that moment.

But I was really convinced

that there must be some way

back into Afghanistan.

And then we met

Michael Hastings.

- I'm not trying to be

a smartass here,

um, though it takes effort

for me sometimes,

and I apologize for that.

Uh, working for "Newsweek,"

the most interesting parts

of my stories were

actually being taken out.

The news was always there,

but it was, you know,

the offhand comment,

what people really say,

how people really act,

what it was like to be there.

These sort of details

that I find really fascinating.

When I decided to leave

"Newsweek," one of the things

I wanted to do was capture

all those details.

- Michael was

absolutely obsessed

with Hunter S. Thompson--

shocker for a young

journalist like him, uh,

but, you know, he even

named his corgi Gonzo.

Writing at "Rolling Stone"

was something

that was always

very aspirational for him.

- "Rolling Stone" is a rock

and roll-style journalism.

You know, no holds barred,

kick down the doors,

you know,

toss the hand grenade,

expose the powerful,

sort of journalism.

- He went in to pitch

about five articles,

and one of them was

that he wanted to profile

General McChrystal,

who was the commander

of forces in Afghanistan.

At the time, he said,

you know,

"I don't know if I'll get

any access at all."

- Michael himself thought

he was never going to get

to see McChrystal,

that McChrystal

would turn him down.

And I said,

"Well, give him a call,

because I think

you'll be surprised."

"Rolling Stone" at that point

had really remarkable access

to the military

for a very simple reason,

which is that the U.S.

military wanted to recruit

and send our readers

into battle.

- ♪ Only in dreams ♪

♪ We see what it means ♪

♪ Reach out our hands ♪

♪ Hold on to hers ♪

- So he called up

McChrystal's folks,

and lo and behold,

they said, "Come along,

and we'll give you

all kinds of access."

- ♪ And so it seems ♪

♪ Only in dreams ♪

- Generals tend to be

tight-lipped,

and their press aides aren't

just, you know, giving you

unfettered access.

It was just so bizarre, and it

doesn't happen like this.

It had never

happened like this

in his previous reporting.

It really was "Almost Famous"

but with

the rock star general.

- McChrystal is a snake-eating

rebel, a Jedi commander.

He carries a custom-made set

of nunchakus in his convoy,

engraved with his name

and four stars.

And his itinerary often bears

a fresh quote from Bruce Lee.

"The fucking lads

love Stan McChrystal,"

says a British officer.

He went out on dozens of

nighttime raids unannounced,

with almost no entourage.

You'd be out

in Somewhere, Iraq,

and someone would take

a knee beside you,

and a corporal would be like,

"Who the fuck is that?"

And it's fucking

Stan McChrystal.

♪ ♪

Paris is the most

anti-McChrystal city

you can imagine.

It's a Thursday night

in mid-April,

and the commander

of all U.S. and NATO forces

in Afghanistan is sitting

in a four-star suite

at the Hotel Westminster.

He's in France to sell

his new war strategy

to our NATO allies...

to keep up the fiction

that we actually have allies.

Last fall

McChrystal dismissed

the counter-terrorism strategy

advocated

by Vice President Joe Biden

as shortsighted,

saying it would lead

to state of "Chaosistan."

Now, flipping through

printout cards

of his speech in Paris,

he and his staff imagine

the general dismissing

the vice president

with a good one-liner.

"Biden?" suggests

a top adviser,

"Did you say, 'Bite me'"?

In private, Team McChrystal

likes to talk shit

about many of Obama's top

people on the diplomatic side.

One aide calls Jim Jones,

a retired four-star general

and veteran of the Cold War,

a clown who remains

stuck in 1985.

- It was very apparent

that the opening section,

in particular, where

they're saying nasty things

about Joe Biden

and displaying

their contempt

for the presidency

and the commander in chief

fairly openly

was really explosive,

but Michael was telling me

that he was convinced

that McChrystal

was untouchable

and that nothing could happen

to McChrystal.

[sirens wailing, gunfire]

- World Police!

Get down on the ground!

- The general's staff

is a handpicked collection

of killers, spies, geniuses,

patriots,

and outright maniacs.

- You lose.

- They jokingly refer to

themselves as "Team America,"

and they pride themselves

on their can-do attitude

and their disdain

for authority.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

After arriving in Kabul,

Team America set about

changing the culture.

McChrystal banned

alcohol on base,

kicked out Burger King

and other symbols

of American excess.

- McChrystal himself keeps

a murderous schedule.

Up at 4:30, this is

his idea of leisure time.

- In the month

I spend around the general,

I witness him eating

only once,

a staple in almost

every media profile.

- He eats one meal a day.

Anything more makes

him feel sluggish.

- You have what you have,

and that's all you need.

You realize you don't need

a lot of other stuff.

One thing of course

you miss is family,

but besides that, it's--

it's pretty much perfect.

- It's a kind

of superhuman narrative

that has built up

around him,

as if the ability to go

without sleep and food

translates

into the possibility

of a man single-handedly

winning the war.

- General McChrystal was

challenging the status quo.

You know, McChrystal wouldn't

allow Fox News to be played.

He wasn't your typical

Republican general.

That was something that

Michael found fascinating.

He found Mike Flynn,

who at the time

was General McChrystal's

intelligence chief,

also to be a really

interesting character.

It was, you know,

a lot of men

who had really

dedicated their lives

to fighting these wars and had

suffered great loss,

and so, I think on some level,

they got

each other's mentality,

but at the end of the day,

he was going to be honest

no matter what.

He saw as his main

responsibility

telling the truth

to his readers.

- After nine years of war,

the Taliban simply remains

too strongly entrenched

for the U.S. military

to openly attack.

There is a reason

that President Obama

studiously avoids

using the word "victory"

when he talks

about Afghanistan.

Winning, it would seem,

is not really possible,

not even

with Stanley McChrystal

in charge.

- I remember walking

into the managing editor's

office and saying,

"I think this story is really

going to get some attention."

I remember no one else

taking that very seriously

at the time.

It was kind of like,

"Oh, yeah, really?

Okay, great."

But there was no moment

of recognition

until the morning

that the story hit.

- "Rolling Stone"

making trouble.

How did you get the leading

general trashing the President,

trashing the ambassador,

trashing the head of the--

- The story was supposed

to come out

on a Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday morning,

at 4:00 in the morning

my phone rang, and it was

a producer from "Morning Joe,"

and he said,

"The story has been leaked,

"and President Obama

has called General McChrystal

back from Afghanistan."

The McChrystal story

brought down McChrystal

before it was

even published.

- The conduct represented

in the recently

published article

does not meet the standard

that should be set

by a commanding general.

It undermines the civilian

control of the military

that is at the core

of our democratic system.

- The White House

was fighting.

The State Department

was fighting.

It was openly spoken about

among people who were

over in Afghanistan,

and no one was really

telling the story.

- A lot of blowback

came not from the Pentagon,

but from other reporters

who began to attack

the story almost

immediately, saying,

"This can't be true,"

or, "Michael must have heard

these things off the record

and violated that agreement

by printing them."

- He was a rat

in an eagle's nest.

What he did is removing

a fine soldier

who's risked his life for this

country time and time again.

- Okay, okay, I got it.

Geraldo, we got it.

"Rolling Stone" says it ran

the quotes by McChrystal.

Do you believe that?

- I--I--

If they say they did,

I know Jann Wenner,

I assume that it's true.

I have to take him

at his word.

- He really broke

an unspoken code

of putting

military leaders

up on a pedestal,

and by stripping off

that veneer

and reporting honestly,

he got so much flak.

- Michael Hastings,

if you believe him,

says that there were

no ground rules laid out.

And, uh, I mean that

just doesn't really

make a lot of sense to me,

because I know these people.

They never let their

guard down like that.

To me, something

doesn't add up here.

I just--I don't believe it.

- It wasn't so much

that they played

by certain rules

and we didn't.

The real issue was that

they were beat reporters.

They covered this

day in and day out.

So they had to make

certain choices every day

about the things that they saw

and the things that they heard

and whether

sharing them would mean

that they wouldn't

be allowed back in the room.

It disappointed me

that they would attack Michael

when what Michael did

was a very different kind

of journalism.

- What it illuminated was

the extremely cozy relationship

that many in my profession

have established

with--with very

powerful figures

and how much they cherish

that relationship.

Basically, the criticism is,

"Wait. This guy wrote down

what he heard and saw.

Wait a minute. We're not

supposed to do that."

- The McChrystal story

was the biggest story

that "Rolling Stone"

had ever had online,

because it's history.

It was a piece of history,

and that work,

the work of long journalism,

in-depth journalism,

deep-dive journalism,

there's still

a hunger for it.

- In the early-morning hours

of June 18, 2013,

Michael Hastings died in

a car crash in Los Angeles.

A colleague remembers,

part of his passion

stemmed from a desire to make

everyone else wake the fuck up

and realize the value

of the life we're living.

He always sought out

the hard stories,

pushed for the truth, and let

it all hang out on the page.

[indistinct chatter]

- The very first

editorial meeting I went to,

it was a story-idea meeting,

and Jann was leading it.

I was the only woman

at the table,

and so I was thinking of

stories that I might be able

to bring to the paper

that would be important.

The level of violence

towards women

was at that time

completely unknown.

So I had thought that

if people understood

what a rape was,

what an actual rape was,

what--what a rape did,

that it took

the most, uh...

precious relationship

between two people

and turned it

into the most horrible thing--

And I thought that if we

could really get a rape case

and simply go through

the rape case,

it would wake people up.

Well, when I started

to tell this story,

of course

I was a nervous wreck,

and someone

at that table said,

"Why don't you just lean back

and enjoy it?

Then it wouldn't

be a rape."

I, um, was carrying on

about how the story

would be constructed,

how the ideas,

what the ideas would be,

and there was still

this titillating laughter,

and I turned around

and looked at Jann,

and Jann was looking at me

just like,

"Yes, yes."

He wasn't laughing.

He took me seriously.

- Sipping from a plastic cup,

Jackie grimaced

then discreetly spilled

her spiked punch

onto the sludgy

fraternity house floor.

The University of Virginia

freshman wasn't a drinker,

but she didn't want to seem

like a goodie-goodie

at her first frat party.

She smiled at her date,

whom we'll call Drew,

and he smiled

enticingly back.

She took his hand

as he threaded them out

of the crowded room

and up a staircase.

Drew ushered Jackie

into a bedroom.

The room was

pitch-black inside.

Jackie began to scream.

"Shut up," she heard

a man's voice say

as a body

barreled into her,

sending them both crashing

into a low glass table.

There was a heavy person

on top of her,

and another person

kneeling on her hair,

hands pinning down

her arms

and excited male voices

rising all around her.

"Grab its motherfucking leg,"

she heard a voice say,

and that's when Jackie knew

she was going to be raped.

- I'm drawn to stories

about people

who do bad things

or bad things

have been done to them,

especially people

who deceive other people.

I think that

really fascinates me.

And then on the other end,

I'm really interested in,

like, the repercussions

of all those bad things.

You know,

what happens to people

when bad things

happen to them?

- Sabrina was very, very

valuable at "Rolling Stone,"

like an MVP.

She was somebody

that they could count on.

She turned out a lot

of really good stories

that were really hard,

and she nailed them.

- A chilling account

of a gang rape

at the University of Virginia

has reignited a tension

over the problem

of sexual assault on campus.

In this case, it is provoking

new investigations

and questions

about the university's response

to assault cases

and whether it has

covered them up.

The story appears

in "Rolling Stone" magazine.

It's an account

of what happens

to an unidentified freshman

who is called Jackie.

- The article comes out.

The first thing off the bat,

it galvanized everybody.

It got so much attention.

We felt, "Oh, great, look at--

we're causing the issue of

rape on campus to be examined."

Surely a worthy issue.

- Sabrina, thank you

for talking with us.

First of all,

how is she doing?

And what's--is there is

an investigation under way?

Where does it stand?

- Jackie herself is

still incredibly traumatized

by her assault,

and, um, she feels really good

about having spoken out.

Um, it was a very difficult

situation for her to speak out

because she was really

criticized for it by her peers

and very much

discouraged for it.

- And then within

a couple days,

the writer of the article

called up in tears,

saying she doesn't trust

her principle source anymore,

and it was like

a punch in the gut.

It just started collapsing

from there.

- Two weeks ago,

a "Rolling Stone" article

with this headline

got worldwide attention.

Well, today "Rolling Stone"

magazine backed off the story.

In a letter to readers,

the managing editor wrote,

quote...

- At "Rolling Stone,"

a big part of my job

is managing a lot

of personalities,

a lot of creative people

and sort of figuring out...

how you get the most

out of each person.

These were our best people.

I had no reason

to second-guess.

You know, maybe I should have,

but, you know, I didn't.

- The magazine also

acknowledged its reporter,

Sabrina Rubin Erdely,

never talked

to Jackie's alleged accusers,

saying Jackie

asked the publication not to

for fear of retaliation.

- You've got this very

young woman who's telling you

that she's afraid of

retaliation by this fraternity

where you believe

she has been gang raped.

And the other thing is that

in the ten years that

I worked at "Rolling Stone,"

there were men at the top of

the masthead the entire time.

Being a progressive man,

working at

an antiauthoritarian magazine,

they believed that they

should not question women

about cases of rape.

- Representatives

with the fraternity

released a statement

saying they never had a party

during the weekend in question

and sexual assaults are not

a part of a pledge ritual,

as Jackie alleged.

In an article today,

"The Washington Post" reported

Jackie's friends

recently began

to question her account.

- Nothing like that had

ever happened to us before.

50 years.

- The editors of

"Rolling Stone" committed

one of the worst journalistic

sins in recent memory.

- How can you fact-check

something and not go around

to some other people

who were there and say,

"Is this

how you remember it?"

- This is actually

a tremendous act

of public disservice

to survivors

of rape everywhere

and to the people who are doing

everything we can to make sure

that this becomes

a culture in which we honor

and believe survivors of rape.

- You know,

it was a disheartening

and dispiriting

and sad experience.

The only thing

I could do about it

was commission

an investigation.

So I called up the

Columbia School of Journalism.

We'd open up

everything we had,

all of our records on it,

and would they come

in and investigate

and write a report up

and I promise to publish it.

- "Rolling Stone's"

repudiation

of the main narrative

in "A Rape on Campus"

is a story of journalistic

failure that was avoidable.

The problem

was methodology.

Journalists with decades

of collective experience

failed to bring up

and debate problems

about their reporting.

- Most of the famous cases

of journalism failure

involve a fraud.

So Janet Cooke invented

and lied to her editors

about that.

So did Jayson Blair.

So did Stephen Glass.

What's so interesting about

the "Rolling Stone" case

is that's not at issue here.

Sabrina Erdely

worked honestly.

She did not invent anything.

She took

really rigorous notes.

And it also wasn't primarily

a failure of fact-checking.

It was a systems failure.

- The fact-checking system

is essentially

based on the notion

that the person

is telling you the truth.

And we had this

extremely rare situation

where someone has made up

a story that is so elaborate

and so complicated at so many

different levels and layers.

- The failure

of "A Rape on Campus"

was not due

to a lack of resources.

"Rolling Stone's"

editorial staff

has shrunk

in recent years,

yet the magazine

continues to invest

in professional fact-checkers

and fund

time-consuming investigations.

Erdely and her editors

had hoped their investigation

would sound an alarm

about campus sexual assault.

Instead,

the magazine's failure

may have spread the idea

that women

invent rape allegations.

- It was pretty damning.

It did not help us

in the eventual trial.

I mean, we had been writing

these kinds of stories

for a long, long time.

Maybe we were too cocky

or sloppy,

or it was just

dumb fucking luck.

Dumb fucking bad luck.

- We opened ourselves up

to a very transparent

investigation,

and it wasn't

seen as like,

here's an otherwise trustworthy

place that made a mistake.

It was seen as,

oh, this is those elite

mainstream-media journalists

revealing their true colors.

People used to view

"Rolling Stone"

as being on their side,

and something shifted

more recently where...

you know, it became

just another piece

of the mainstream media

that couldn't be trusted.

♪ ♪

- 2015 was a very, very

bad year for this magazine.

The UVA thing had happened.

We lost our managing editor,

and it was a big blow.

It impacted our reputation,

in that it became very easy

for those on the right

to just call us fake news.

- Um, "Rolling Stone,"

they were fake news before CNN.

The whole UVA hoax--

that was bad.

I'm surprised

they're still in circulation

after those guys

sued the pants off of 'em.

- It was in that summer

that Donald Trump

had announced his candidacy,

and covering this was

a chance for the magazine

to get back to what it has

always tried to do.

Taking what you read in

a newspaper article

and then, you know, zeroing in

on it

and--and finding

what it's really about.

[Alabama Shakes'

"Don't Wanna Fight" plays]

♪ ♪

For the 2016 campaign,

Matt basically

went around the country,

talked to other people

to find out

how we as a country

got to this point.

It was just like in the '70s

when Hunter S. Thompson

reported on Richard Nixon

in his different

Gonzo, bizarro way.

- [squealing]

♪ My lines ♪

- We love you all, folks.

Have a good time.

Make America great again.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

- When I started

to cover the campaign

for "Rolling Stone,"

I realized that the 1972

and 2016 presidential election

had a lot in common

in--in terms of an approach

to covering news.

Hunter Thompson believed,

and I actually

believe this, too,

that there is no such thing

as objectivity.

Objectivity is bullshit.

Every single thing you do

is an editorial choice,

whether it's in a headline,

how big the photo is,

what page it's on.

You're always having

an opinion.

You might as

well just admit it.

- Keeping up with the Trump

revelations is exhausting.

By late October,

he'll be caught whacking it

outside a nunnery.

There are not many places

left for this thing to go

that don't involve kids

or cannibalism.

We wait miserably

for the dong shot.

- He referred to my hands,

if they're small,

something else must be small.

I guarantee you

there's no problem.

I guarantee, all right?

- Okay.

- There's evidence

that human polling

undercounts Trump's votes,

as people support him

in larger numbers

when they don't have

to admit their leanings

to a live human being.

Like autoerotic asphyxiation,

supporting Donald Trump

is an activity

many people prefer to enjoy

in a private setting,

like in a shower

or a voting booth.

- And similar to the way

Hunter Thompson

and Ralph Steadman

had the same sense of humor--

they were both crazy

in kind of the same way--

I work with an illustrator

named Victor Juhasz.

Victor has the same

sense of humor that I have.

He asks me early on

in a story

what the big metaphor

is gonna be,

and I have to come up

with the encapsulating image

before I even write it,

and then he runs with that.

- ♪ I don't wanna fight

no more ♪

- The image that I thought

was the best from this year

was the one

where he sort of riffed

on the statue of the Death

and the Maiden story.

Trump is playing

the role of the Devil,

and he's got his hand

up the Statue of Liberty's

kilt,

and it's just

an amazing iconic image.

♪ ♪

- I'm always just knocked out

by Matt's writing.

I try my best to top it

with some totally

inappropriate image.

♪ ♪

Back of my mind,

I thought the campaign

with Trump,

it was gonna be chaos.

It could fucking destroy

everything, all right?

But there are a fair amount

of people who would think

it's a great idea

to fucking destroy Washington.

Uh, those were his voters,

you know?

The tornado.

[The Beatles's

"Revolution" begins]

♪ ♪

- [yelling]

♪ You say you want

a revolution ♪

♪ Well, you know... ♪

- Whenever he came in

to his events,

he always had The Beatles

playing "Revolution,"

you know,

with that amazing, like,

guitar riff that comes in,

but, of course,

if you listen to the song,

the song is about

don't be fooled

by false political prophets

who are peddling

fake revolutions,

which is exactly what--

what Donald Trump was doing.

♪ ♪

But he understood

that the dominant emotion

out there

in America is anger.

When he went

into these events,

he did whatever he could

to kind of work the crowd up

into a frenzy.

- Build a wall!

Build a wall!

all:

Build a wall!

- The presidential

election campaign

is really just a badly acted

billion-dollar TV show

whose production costs

ludicrously include

the political

disenfranchisement

of the audience.

- It drives us apart

during two years

of furious arguments

and prevents us

from examining the broader

systemic problems

we all face together.

- ♪ Someone's got it in

for me ♪

♪ They're planting stories

in the press ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Whoever it is, I wish

they'd cut it out quick ♪

♪ But when they will... ♪

- I could stand in

the middle of 5th Avenue

and shoot somebody,

and I wouldn't

lose any voters, okay?

- ♪ They say I shot

a man named Gray ♪

- Donald Trump's innovation

was to recognize

what a bad TV show

the campaign was.

Any program that tried to make

stars out of human sedatives

like Scott Walker

and Lindsey Graham

needed new producers and a new

script, so here came Trump,

bloviating and farting his way

through his campaign stops,

acting like Hitler one minute

and Andrew Dice Clay the next.

TV couldn't take

its eyes off of him.

- ♪ Now everything's

a little... ♪

- Trump found the flaw

in the American Death Star.

It doesn't know how

to turn the cameras off,

even when it's filming

its own demise.

- You want to challenge me

to a match at WrestleMania?

- Absolutely right.

100%.

I will kick your ass.

- Ohh!

- What Trump understands

better than his opponents

is that NASCAR America,

WWE America,

always loves

seeing the preening,

self-proclaimed good guy

get whacked with a chair.

He knows how to play

these moments like a master.

- This is a tough business

to run for president.

- Oh, I know,

you're a tough guy, Jeb.

- And we need to

have a leader that is--

- Real tough.

- You're never going to be

President

of the United States

by insulting your way

to the presidency.

- Well, let's see,

I'm at 42, and you're at 3.

So, so far, I'm doing better.

- Doesn't matter.

[crowd cheers]

- Mr. McMahon just got--

- ♪ Idiot wind ♪

♪ Blowing like a circle

around my skull ♪

- I don't know what I said.

Ahhh!

I don't remember!

- He even mocked

the neurological condition

of Serge Kovaleski.

That left puppies

and cancer kids

as the only groups

untargeted by his campaign.

- Get him out of here.

He's all mouth.

He's all mouth.

Get him out.

- ♪ You're an idiot, babe ♪

♪ It's a wonder... ♪

- Isn't it great to be

at a Trump rally, really?

- What Trump did

is he created

such a cathartic experience

of letting your anger out

that people went out,

and they told two friends,

and they told two friends,

et cetera, et cetera,

and that's how

this movement started.

And I could see

that Bernie Sanders

was on the same thing

that Trump was.

He just had a different take

on things.

They're completely

opposite people.

The way I put it in the--

in the magazine

was that, you know,

Trump would eat a child

in a lifeboat,

while Bernie, you know,

cares about the poor.

- ♪ As I went walking ♪

♪ That ribbon of highway ♪

♪ I saw above me

that endless skyway ♪

- I actually have

a relationship

with Bernie Sanders.

I did this long feature

following him

through Congress.

I really like and respect

and admire him.

- ♪ This land was made

for you and me ♪

- ♪ This land is your land ♪

- At "Rolling Stone,"

there was an assumption

that Hillary was gonna win,

and then there was

a love affair with Bernie.

It was a love affair.

- ♪ To the New York islands ♪

- At "Rolling Stone,"

within the staff,

those under 40

were all about Bernie,

and those over 40

were about Hillary.

- ♪ For you and me ♪

- Jann looked back on

that campaign trail in 1972

with a little bit of regret.

By supporting George McGovern,

Jann worried that they had

basically elected

Richard Nixon

and that was the rationale

that Jann openly referred to

in his editorial

when he decided

to endorse Hillary Clinton.

- "Rolling Stone"

has championed the youth vote

since 1972,

when 18-year-olds

were first given

the right to vote.

We worked furiously

for McGovern.

We failed.

Nixon was re-elected

in a landslide.

- We endorsed Hillary in

the primaries against Bernie,

and I said, "I've been

to the revolution before,

and it's not happening."

Bernie has got much less

of a chance

of beating the Republicans

than Hillary.

I could feel the Bern,

like everybody else.

But as an older guy,

rather than, you know,

the young passionate guy

that I was

in the '72 elections,

I understood, if we're really

gonna get something done here,

we must have somebody

who has all those

somewhat pedestrian things

that go into making

a great leader.

- When Jann

did that editorial,

I just felt like it would be

good to kind of say,

you know, just because

young people got beat once

doesn't mean we're going

to get beat every time.

What was so cool about that

is that there aren't

many publishers or editors

who would allow a dissenting,

um, endorsement

in his own magazine.

- The millions of young voters

that are rejecting

Hillary's campaign this year

are making

a carefully reasoned,

even reluctant calculation

about the limits

of the insider politics

both she and her husband

have represented.

Young people don't see

the Sanders/Clinton race

as a choice between idealism

and incremental progress.

The choice they see is

between an honest politician

and one who is so profoundly

a part of the problem

that she can't even

see it anymore.

- To give undeniable evidence

of our commitment

to justice and equality

by nominating

Hillary Rodham Clinton

as our candidate.

[cheers and boos]

- At the DNC, I realized that

Democrats were in trouble.

The Bernie people--

they are booing her,

and it was speaking

to something

that nobody wanted

to focus on.

I mean, my whole story was

about the hatred of Hillary.

I saw this on both sides,

but especially

with people on the right.

What always gets recognized

with Hillary Clinton

is how polarizing she is,

how controversial she is,

and not why electing her

would have been important

and what it would have meant

to people.

all:

Lock her up! Lock her up!

[Radiohead's "Burn the Witch"

plays]

♪ ♪

- The piece began

at the Republican Convention.

It was all about the hawking

of hatred of Hillary Clinton.

The visceral hatred

for Hillary Clinton is--

how dare she even run?

Who does she think she is?

She got to the White House

on her husband's coattails,

and it's really,

underneath it is--

she's a woman,

that's not her place.

In the broader sense,

the 2016 campaign

was a referendum on cultural

attitudes towards women

and how casual misogyny

had been accepted

for so many years.

- Crooked Hillary--

we're going to end

the Clinton corruption

and restore...

[cheers and applause]

- Hillary Clinton is a person

that people love to hate,

so Trump was telling people

what they wanted to hear,

and it worked.

all: Lock her up!

Lock her up!

To his supporters, he sounds

like an ordinary person

because he has

the same passions

that ordinary people do.

- Well, I know one thing,

Mr. Trump has good taste.

- He is exactly

what they would be

if they had

a billion dollars.

You know, he's just a guy

who travels the world,

balling models and talking

about how great it is

to be rich.

That is the American dream,

the modern American dream,

and he's the embodiment of it,

whereas Hillary Clinton

represents

something else entirely.

- ♪ I saw her today

at the reception ♪

- If you want a graphic

picture of the cluelessness

of people

inside campaign bubbles,

just watch Hillary Clinton's

now infamous

Mannequin Challenge.

As a metaphor

for an overconfident

and incompetent

ruling class

that was ten miles up

its own backside

when it should have

been listening

to the anger percolating

in the population,

the Mannequin Challenge

is probably unsurpassable.

Here was a planeload

of effete politicos

all dressed in blazers

and smart glasses,

and buzzed at being

on the same plane

as two Clintons

and Jon Bon Jovi.

If those people

had known the election

was even going

to be close,

they would have outlawed

smiling on that plane,

let alone making

nutty souvenir videos.

- And we're good.

[cheers and applause]

- She was exactly the wrong

person for this campaign.

The college-educated

liberal class

just does not resonate

when the central issue

is about resentments that

have built up over decades.

I remember on one day that

Trump was giving a speech,

the press as always

is behind the rope line,

and he pointed to us,

and he said, "Look at them,

look at those people,"

how we hated him,

we didn't believe in him.

And the crowd physically

turned toward us.

all: CNN sucks!

CNN sucks! CNN sucks!

- If Crooked Hillary Clinton

were up here

and they had this kind

of a crowd,

the cameras would be

showing the crowd all day long.

- He villainized us.

He turned the media

into a character in a story,

and that was the moment

where I realized

that Trump

was on another level.

That and the fact that when

he left, the song was usually

"You Can't Always

Get What You Want,"

which I always thought

was a very strange message.

- ♪ You get what you need ♪

♪ Ah, yeah ♪

- Knock the crap out of him,

would you?

Seriously.

♪ ♪

- Trump unleashed

something dark and violent

in the American psyche.

Pull a lever for me,

he promised,

and you'll horrify them all,

and they did it.

60 million of them chose it.

They wanted us to feel

the way we feel this morning.

They wanted

to watch our faces

as the dream

went up in smoke.

- Okay, you got

enough tape over there?

- Yeah.

- Uh...

- So you, uh--

you've got 45 minutes?

Fire away.

- All right.

Well, so I got

to start with last night

and ask you, you know,

how you're feeling about it

and how you felt last night

when you were watching it.

Could you believe

what you were seeing?

Were you blown away

like the rest of us?

- Well, um, you know,

I'm disappointed,

because a lot

of the work we've done

is only partially complete.

[thunder rumbling]

- It was a grim day.

It was drizzling,

it was raining, gray,

and of all the times

I've been in the White House,

it's this bustling center

of activity and people.

This was

a deserted White House.

It was quiet.

But Obama was there,

and as much as he had

the same contempt as so many

other people had for Trump,

that a man of this character

would become the president,

he had to put

the best face on it.

- There's no benefit

that's derived

from pulling

into a fetal position.

You know, we go out there,

and we work,

and we slog

through challenges,

and over time

things get better.

History doesn't travel

in a straight line.

It zigs, and it zags,

and sometimes you take

two steps forward, and

then you take a step back.

But if you look

at the data from the election,

if it were just

young people who were voting,

Hillary would have gotten

500 electoral votes.

So we have helped,

I think, shape a generation

to think

about being inclusive,

being fair,

caring about the environment.

- You think it's still

a progressive country?

- There's a group

of working-class white voters

who turned out

in huge numbers for Trump.

They are hugely suspicious

of Wall Street,

hugely suspicious

of the establishment.

Whatever policy prescriptions

that we've been proposing

don't reach,

are not heard by the folks

in these communities.

This is not simply

an economic issue.

This is cultural issue.

- ♪ 'Twas in

another lifetime ♪

♪ One of toil and blood ♪

♪ When blackness was a virtue,

the road was full of mud ♪

♪ I came in

from the wilderness ♪

♪ A creature void of form ♪

♪ "Come in," she said ♪

♪ "I'll give you shelter

from the storm" ♪

- Given the strangeness

and the disheartening

quality of our times,

I think when

you turn to Bob Dylan,

you find a mind that's

looking at a bigger America,

an America that

wasn't simply divisions

of conservatives

and liberals.

- ♪ Hunted like a crocodile,

ravaged in the corn ♪

- Dylan was writing

about a sense of history

that ran through

both America's promises

and its sins.

- Mr. Dylan is a poet.

He'll answer questions

about everything

from atomic science

to riddles and rhymes.

- What poets do you dig?

- W.C. Fields,

Smokey Robinson,

Allen Ginsberg.

- Dylan was already

a meteor crashing

through the sky by the time

"Rolling Stone" was born.

- ♪ "Come in," she said,

"I'll give you"... ♪

- But what the magazine did

was start documenting

what Bob's up to

all the time,

and Dylan started using

the "Rolling Stone"

interview format as almost

an existential game.

- ♪ Now there's

a wall between us ♪

♪ Something there's

been lost ♪

♪ I took too much

for granted ♪

♪ I got my signals crossed ♪

- The dialogue between

"Rolling Stone" and Bob

covered our whole 50 years.

He so powerfully expressed

everything that young people

in general and my generation

was going through

as they came up against

all these contradictions

of America.

- ♪ Well, the deputy

walks on hard nails ♪

♪ And the preacher

rides a mount ♪

♪ But nothing

really matters much ♪

♪ It's doom alone

that counts ♪

- Bob Dylan writes

about these are dark lands,

these are dark times.

It is a landscape

in which you

have to be prepared

to face the truth.

"Rolling Stone"

has always been unflinching,

not afraid of the truth.

- ♪ I've heard

newborn babies wailing ♪

♪ Like a mourning dove ♪

- What "Rolling Stone" is,

and certainly was,

and I hope continues

to be really good at

is dissecting a story

that nobody is even aware of

and finding

its larger universal meaning.

♪ ♪

- "Rolling Stone"

never lost its idealism,

but also it got tempered

with a lot of cynicism

and, you know, reality, and--

and yet continued to fight

and struggle for the things

that we believed in,

a generation believed in,

and it's still a struggle.

I mean, it hasn't been won,

it hasn't been lost.

And I think that the heirs

to this generation,

our own children,

our next generation

believe in all those things

and are there

to fight the fight

and will be even smarter.

♪ ♪

In that sense,

time is on our side.

[Muddy Waters'

"Rollin' Stone" plays]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Well, I wish ♪

♪ I was a catfish ♪

♪ Swimmin' in a, oh,

deep blue sea ♪

♪ I would have all you

good-looking women ♪

♪ Fishing, fishing after me ♪

♪ Sure enough after me ♪

♪ Sure enough after me ♪

♪ Oh, enough ♪

♪ Oh, enough ♪

♪ Sure enough ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I went to ♪

♪ My baby's house ♪

♪ And I sit down, oh ♪

♪ On her steps ♪

♪ She said, "Now, come on

in now, Muddy ♪

♪ You know my husband

just now left" ♪

♪ Sure enough,

he just now left ♪

♪ Sure enough,

he just now left ♪

♪ Oh, enough ♪

♪ Oh, well ♪

♪ Oh, well ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Well, I feel ♪

♪ Yes, I feel ♪

♪ Feel that I could

lay down ♪

♪ Oh, time ain't long ♪

♪ I'm going to catch

the first thing smoking ♪

♪ Back, back down

the road I'm going ♪

♪ Back down

the road I'm going ♪

♪ Back down

the road I'm going ♪

♪ Sure enough, back ♪

♪ Sure enough, back ♪

♪ ♪

[bright tone]