Bob Schieffer said Tuesday that he "really hoped to go" to the Middle East to cover the unfolding story there, but that he didn't "because this was really a chance to showcase some of our younger correspondents."

Schieffer, interim anchor of the CBS Evening News and a member of Poynter's National Advisory Board, discussed coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah fighting and other topics during a telephone interview. The full transcript of the interview appears below.

Asked whom he'd pick for a live one-on-one interview about developments in the region, Schieffer listed the presidents of Iran and Syria as his first choices, because "this has the potential of widening into a regional war."

Schieffer also discussed a story he told during his weekly commentary on CBS News.

Recalling the "old story of the frog and the scorpion who were trying to cross a river," he said it demonstrates how "a lot of things happen in the Middle East and there seems to be no rational answer."

An edited transcript of the interview:

BOB STEELE: What are the most significant challenges for CBS News in covering this escalating war between the Israelis and the Hezbollah and what's happening there between Israel and Lebanon?

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, a couple of things -- number one we're also trying to cover a war in Iraq which has gotten worse while all of this has been going on.

Today we have had to pull Lee Cowan out of Baghdad and put him into Beirut because this thing keeps getting bigger and bigger. We have somebody else now on the way to Baghdad. This is spread all over the place. You're covering what's going on in Beirut, you've got most of southern Lebanon being bombed by Israel, you've got the Hezbollah now with these longer range rockets that they're apparently getting from Iran. So that means that it may well be before this is over that Tel Aviv is now going to be within range of these long-range rockets.

We've got a war spread out -- and this is a war -- and there's no other word to use to describe it. This is not a conflict -- this is a war that's going on here at this point, and it's spread out over two countries.

While we're trying to cover the battles and cover the military action, we also have the diplomatic action that's going on here involving the United States, Great Britain; you've had the president just over at the G8. I mean we've just had people -- literally -- all over the world covering this story and so I would say that would be the main challenge at this point.

There's been a lot written and said in recent years about cutbacks in foreign bureaus for the major broadcasts networks, including CBS, and cutbacks on the newspaper side as well. Does that factor into the challenge you face in covering a story of this nature?

Well, we have always had correspondents on the scene -- we've had a bureau in Tel Aviv for a long, long time. We have our London bureau where we base most of our correspondents in Europe now and we have had a very active bureau just across from Beirut, of course, in Baghdad. So, in this particular case, that really is not that much of a factor.

When news happens, we then start to pile on. We've sent two reporters from the United States over. We have our chief foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, who is on the scene now. Our veteran of that part of the world, who lives in Tel Aviv when she's not in Baghdad -- Kimberly Dozier -- would certainly be there right now, but she is recovering from wounds she received on Memorial Day; she's at the Bethesda Naval hospital. I'd like to add as a sidebar here that she's doing very, very well.

We have a large force of correspondents and producers in there now.

Did you consider going over? Do you wish you were there?

...We're in a rebuilding phase, obviously, here at CBS News, and this was really a chance to showcase some of our younger correspondents Yes, I wanted to go and really had hoped to go, but we're in a rebuilding phase, obviously, here at CBS News, and this was really a chance to showcase some of our younger correspondents -- in particular Lara Logan, who is a sort of a protege of mine, so I can't really argue with that. And so Lara is co-anchoring the broadcast now for the next week or so from there, and I'll be here.

You do a lot of important interviews for CBS News, and have over the years. Who's the one person you really want for a five-minute one-on-one interview live on what's happening there in Israel and Lebanon right now?

Well, I think it would be good to get the president of Iran, because clearly Iran has a part in this right now -- it would be very good to hear from him. I'd also like to talk to the president of Syria to see what he has to say because clearly, the United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran and we have very poor relations with Syria, so it would be very interesting to get what they have to say about this and to see where they come down on all of this, because this has the potential of widening into a regional war here involving more than just the Palestinians and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel. We could be on the brink of something extremely dangerous here. It's already very, very serious and you've got a lot of diplomacy at work.

I would guess that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is going to start a mission into the area -- but at this point, you have to ask, with the situation as it is now, "where does she go first?" Because clearly, Israel is not going to let up in its bombing campaign until Hezbollah stops raining these rockets down on its cities; I mean, how can we expect otherwise at this point?

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said over the weekend in an interview on one of the other networks [that] he viewed what's happening there as well as the North Korea situation as the early stages of World War III. Sen. John McCain agreed with that. From your perspective as a journalist, does this rise to that level of concern?

Well, I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but this is extremely serious and I think it's fair to say that the world blundered into World War I for much more obscure reasons and frankly, even more stupid reasons than what we're seeing unfold here. No, I don't think we're into World War III yet, but I think this is an extremely serious matter and I think the United States should be devoting most of its diplomacy right now to getting this fighting stopped and to find some way to get this part of the world back to normal -- whatever constitutes normal for that part of the world.

Journalists always face the challenge of proportionality in coverage. How do you make a decision, or decisions, on the issue of proportionality? How much coverage, where do we cover the story when you have a region that has had history of tumult -- not only military -- but in terms of religion, in terms of politics, in terms of diplomacy? How do you determine proportionality in a story of this widespread nature?

Our number one job is to tell the American people what the government is doing...Well, I think you do that by the judgment of we're an American television network; we have an American audience. Our job is to tell the American people what we think are the most important things that they need to know to make the decisions that any citizen in a democracy should make.

Our number one job is to tell the American people what the government is doing, because in a democracy, the press provides a second source of information about what the government is doing. In a totalitarian society, the only source of news is the government.

We're that second source. We have made a judgment that this is extremely important because this could set off a much wider war -- a war that could, if it got big enough, could cause this country, for one thing, to have to reinstitute the draft.

This is something the American people need to know about and something that could have a profound impact on their lives, no matter how far they are from Israel or how they feel about what's going on there. This is something that could directly affect them -- their taxes, their sons and daughters. And so, when it's that big a story -- yesterday, we devoted most of the broadcast to this situation, and if it continues at the same level, we'll probably do the same thing today.

Do we do well enough in the United States in our journalism when it comes to addressing the complexities of the issues there in the Middle East -- the matters of religion, the matters of cultural and ethnic differences, in addition to bringing the matter of taxes or military draft home to the Americans?

Well, we never do as good a job as we could, and journalism is a very self-correcting kind of institution. It's an institution that subjects itself to more self-criticism than any other institution or business that I know of, and I think any reporter that you talk to -- whether he works at a newspaper or the television station or the radio station -- will tell you at the end of the day, "You know, we didn't quite get it as good as we wanted it to be today, but we'll have a chance to go at it again tomorrow." It's never as good as it could be.

... it's hard for me to find any people in any country of the world who have access to more information or are more informed than the American people.When I look at the American press in general, and then I look around the world, it's hard for me to find any people in any country of the world who have access to more information or are more informed than the American people. So I think on balance -- while we can always do better -- I think we probably do just as well or even better than the press in any other country I can think of.

When you finish this tenure as anchor of the CBS Evening News, is there one particular role that you would like to play as a journalist that would further that success of journalism in a democracy?

Well I think once I step back from this, I'll go back to doing Face the Nation on Sundays. On the CBS Evening News, I'm going to try to provide a voice that I hope would be of reason, I hope it would be my role to do some explaining, to do some analysis and from time to time to even do some commentary on the Evening News. I think our main job is to bring people the facts, but I think we can also be relevant if we can say to people: "Look, here are the facts, here's what they're arguing about, we've done our investigation, here's where we come down on it. This is what we think is the truth."

I hope that's the kind of role that I'm going to be able to fill here. Certainly, I've been doing this for a long, long time, so at least when they call on the voice of experience, most of these things I've had some experience with them before -- somewhere way back down the line -- so that's basically what I'll do.

You're a reporter and you're a storyteller, and in your commentary a few days ago, you told the story of the frog and the scorpion trying to cross the river in relation to the war in the Middle East. What's the benefit of taking these commonplace stories and fables and relating them to the big elements of our society in terms of wars, religious strife, and the like?

Well, I think what you have to do is break these stories down and tell them in the language that people speak, and to try to explain them in ways that people can relate to their own experience and their own lives. I mean, most complex things -- the way you explain them -- is to take it and break it down, and explain it one point and one step at a time.

I think good storytelling is key to journalism, because people can remember the story of the frog and the scorpion, and just to repeat that story:

The frog was lost and the scorpion couldn't swim and they were in the Middle East and they were trying to get across a river, so the scorpion proposed a deal. He said, "I'll show you the way if you will swim across the river and let me ride on your back.' And the frog said, 'that sounds like a good idea." They got to the middle of the river and the suddenly the scorpion just bent down and stung the frog. As he was sinking in the river, the frog looked up with his dying breath, and said, "Why would you do that?" And the scorpion said, "Well, because this is the Middle East."

A lot of things happen in the Middle East and there seems to be no rational answer, and so I told that story to sort of illustrate that.

And your final line there was, "This is the Middle East."

Yes.

Bob Schieffer, of CBS News, thanks very much for talking with Poynter today.

-- Transcribed by Candace Clarke/Poynter