Two Rookie Reporters Break Story of a Lifetime
Woodward and Bernstein are two reporters, who are well known throughout the entire country, as well as in the history books of Journalism. Some people refer to them as ¡°Woodstein¡± because of there long time involvement and collaboration in exposing the Watergate incident.
Bob Woodward graduated from Yale University in 1965, served in the U.S. Navy from 1965 to 1970, and began working for the Washington Post in 1971. Carl Bernstein was a college drop out from the University of Maryland at College Park. He entered the Washington Post in 1966. They were from two different worlds, one from a world full of discipline and education, the other from a lack of both. Their only similarity was their passion for journalism, their raw ambition for a good story, and on revealing the truth to the people of the country.
Some see the Watergate scandal as one of the biggest political disasters in history, because this single event caused many American people to loose faith in their government. For two new reporters, it was the story of a lifetime. When the young reporters began reporting the Watergate break in story, they did not know what to expect. ¡°We had no idea what we were in for. It wasn¡¯t like we knew the story very much ahead of time, as we learned about it, we told our readers, and they knew as much as we did, all except for the main source of course,¡± Bernstein slightly, chuckling, said.
Woodward and Bernstein had doubts about working together. Woodward stated with a smirk, ¡°I thought to myself when we were first going to work together, ¡®oh god, not Bernstein, he is so rash and aggressive, and has just started to work here, what could he possibly know about reporting a good story?¡¯¡±
Bernstein was partly involved with the Watergate story before Woodward; he just did not know it yet. A police officer, Al Lewis wrote the main story of the actual burglary, from how they could have gotten inside this building, to what information they were looking for, and what information they may have possibly taken. Bernstein wrote a small ¡°sidebar¡± to Lewis¡¯s story. Bernstein wrote about the burglars who broke-in to the building, who they were, their past and if they had been in jail for other robberies, records, about their lives, where they lived, and who they associated with.
Woodward and Bernstein teamed up to write first by line, which appeared July 3. However when they wrote the story, most newspapers just dismissed it not realizing the truth or what Woodward and Bernstein had really discovered. ¡°We knew what was going on,¡± recollected Bernstein while he looked directly at Woodward. ¡°We had to expose the truth and let everyone know what was really going on, we could let Nixon¡¯s re-election committee and Nixon himself get away with stealing information that was not theirs to see or take,¡± he stated in a stern voice, as Woodward nodded, agreeing with Bernstein.
Both Woodward and Bernstein constantly fought on how to put the story together, what to say, how to say it, and what to reveal that would cause complete mass hysteria. ¡°It¡¯s tough, when working alone the only person who you must worry about is the editor. Now Carl and I had to work with each other and that made things difficult, especially because this story was so huge. ¡°We always had differentiating opinions about everything, even the small stuff, this made it harder to please each other. This cost us time because it took longer for us to get the story we both desired,¡± Bernstein admittedly stated. ¡°We could not just write whatever we pleased the story had to be as carefully constructed and assembled, since it was a delicate subject. We knew would rock the nation to its core,¡± Woodward¡¯s voice deep and throaty as he spoke these words. They knew this was a difficult task because they had to first impress and deal with each other, then they could take the story to the editor and hopefully have it printed and have it read by the people.
¡°It was really hard to get people to believe such new journalists, especially when our ¡®source¡¯ was unnamed and there was no real solid proof of what we were saying, was in fact the truth¡± Woodward stated as he shrugged his shoulders.
When people learned that a check cashed by one of the burglars was from the Nixon re-election campaign, the notice of the people shifted to seek the truth and learn what their president was really all about. The people finally started to read the stories by the two new reporters, and began to take them seriously. People began to wondered if Nixon could break in to a government building to steal information, even when he was ahead in the polls, what else could he and other high powerful government officials be doing without the people¡¯s knowledge of consent.
Woodward and Bernstein spent over two years of their lives working and exposing the scandal. They both got to their goals and told the story of a lifetime, and at such a young age. There editor, Benjamin Bradlee thought that their best asset was to work especially hard and keep pushing until they got what they wanted. ¡°They would ask fifty people the same question, or they would ask one person the same question fifty times. If they had reason to believe some information was being withheld,¡± Bradlee proudly with a strong yet gentle look stated about his star reporters.
The Watergate scandal became a book, written from Woodward and Bernstein¡¯s recollection of events, of what they did, went through, and how they did what they did. The book, All the Presidents Men, also went on to become a huge box office movie. Both of them also wrote another book together, The Final Days, which was about the last days of Nixon and his administration in office, after the scandal had been exposed. Woodward went on to write several more books on related topics, dealing with and surrounding Watergate, he became assistant manager of the Washington Post, where he still works. Bernstein was the ABC bureau chief (1979-1981), ABC News correspondent (1981-1984), he worked in Time magazine (1990-1991) and is a visiting professor at New York University from 1992, and has gone on to writing several books as well.
As for their anonymous source, ¡°Deep Throat,¡± they will not reveal his name until his has died, for his own protection, or even hint if in fact he was a real person and not someone made up to point fingers, and spice up their books.
As you can see their expos¨¦ on the Watergate scandal changed the way people see their government and the people in office. It truly was a once in a lifetime story, which changed the nation and an entire presidency. This also made an impossible standard for them to reach once again, making this the height of their careers.
Bibliography
1. Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalist. New York: 1997.
2. Epstein Edward J. ¡°Woodward Bernstein and Watergate.¡± http://edwardjayepstein.com/archived/watergate.html. 11/5/02.
3. ¡°Heroism Project.¡± Heroism project /¦©1970s/ Woodward & Bernstein.
http://www.heroism.org/class/1970/wood.html. 11/5/02.