On September 8th 1974, President Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon, absolving him of wrongdoing committed in his 5 years in office. In the eyes of the public, the federal courts, congress and the journalistic community, that wrongdoing had a name-Watergate. Just 2 years before the pardon, in the early hours of June 17th 1972, several burglars were arrested in the offices of the Democratic National Committee located in the Watergate complex of buildings. The intruders’ task was to fix a malfunctioning bugging equipment implanted weeks earlier, and to inevitably sabotage their opponents. It was later discovered that this break-in was ordered by the highest officials in the Nixon campaign, people who were confident in their ability to use coercion, cover ups and lies to undermine democracy
Unfortunately, not much has changed . Modern politics continue to be plagued by deceit, and oftentimes illegal activity. But as seen in the Watergate scandal, the free press can do a lot to uncover these lies, and through a means of due diligence and fact, investigative journalists have an enormous power for social and political change. As investigative reporting begins to dwindle and fake news plagues the 24 hour news cycle, it is crucial to revisit the Watergate investigation to learn how both journalists and consumers can better shape the our news media.
Behind most major political news stories, there is a common agenda: To destroy a figure’s reputation, or to propagate a program or a candidate. Articles published during the 2016 presidential campaign season with titles such as “The Clintons – At The End of All Things” and , are just one example of fictitious journalism aimed at undermining political candidates through portraying opinion as fact. This form of partisan reporting is not a new phenomenon, but the rise in popularity of the term “fake news” does allow critics to shoot down the findings of even the most unbiased and respectable media outlets. However, Washington Post reporters Bernstein and Woodward, the duo responsible for much of the initial Watergate reporting, were indiscriminate. Bob Woodward is an avid Republican, while Carl Bernstein is extremely liberal in his views, having recently written a book titled “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton”, a novel praising 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Despite these differences, the reporters were able to put aside their political presumptions to investigate wrongdoing. Their investigations into the malpractice on the Republican led CREEP (Committee for the Reelection of the President) were not politically motivated, thus it differs from a majority of news distributed today.
It is impossible to thoroughly discuss the media’s effect Watergate investigations without discussing the man at the center of them, President Richard Nixon. Nixon, much like our current president, had quite the rocky relationship with the press, to say the least. He told national security advisers Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig in a conversation on December 14 1972 that “the press is the enemy”, and with that belief in mind, Richard Nixon did his best to mute and muffle the media. Throughout Nixon's second presidential campaign, the justice department continued its malicious prosecution of reporters who refused to reveal their sources. One such case, Branzburg v. Hayes, was tried at the supreme court in 1972, and invalidated the use of the First Amendment as a defense for refusing to name confidential sources. This was a huge blow to the journalistic community, and a large part of the press had become in passive investigating the 1972 presidential campaign.
This mentality is present in the Watergate scandal; reporters refused to cooperate the allegations. In fact, a mere fourteen journalists out of the vast twenty-two hundred members of the Washington press corps chose to actively investigate the Watergate break-in and the cover up that followed. In response to this inaction, American journalist James Reston wrote that “The main charge against the press in general, though not against the few newspapers that exposed the deceptions of Vietnam and Watergate, is not that the press was too aggressive but that it was too timid or lenient or lazy”. This statement is clear evidence that no coverage whatsoever is just as harmful as overzealous investigation based on biased, both of which our current day press is guilty of. Although the diligent reporters who stepped up against antagonism will be remembered as heroes of their time, the inaction of the rest of the mainstream press is a cautionary tale.
Thanks to the assiduous work of Woodward and Bernstein, the Watergate scandal became iconic. United States citizens became outraged over the grand misuse of funds, the justice department was launching into a thorough examinations into the top aides of the president's administration, and the Senate was already beginning the impeachment process. Books and movies such as All the President’s Men glorified the journalists struggle against the Nixon administration and the establishment that didn’t see them as a legitimate threat.
This so called heroic- journalist myth is inspirational, but highly inaccurate. It wipes away the complexities, and most importantly, discredits the legal and constitutional systems that actually control the impeachment process. Michael Getler, the ombudsman for the Washington Post during the Watergate investigations wrote in 2005 that “Ultimately, it was not The (Washington) Post, but the FBI, a Congress acting in bipartisan fashion and the courts that brought down the Nixon administration. They saw Watergate and the attempt to cover it up as a vast abuse of power and attempted corruption of U.S. institutions”. This is an important narrative to consider, because all though the media has the power to pursue, it should not have the power to prosecute. More specifically, the crime that led to the downfall of Nixon and his administration, obstruction of justice regarding the Watergate break ins, was not investigated by Woodward and Bernstein. They had instead investigated the crime itself, perhaps missing the largest evidence linking the administration to the cover ups. Although the heroic journalist myth can seem encouraging to journalists in a field slowly deteriorating from a lack of funds and a decreasing readership base, it gives the false sense that the free press can serve as the judge jury and executioner.
Moreover, Woodward and Bernstein overlooking evidence that would later help the FBI with it’s investigation can prove that journalism can be effective without being perfect. As the natural progression of technology makes the news easier to consume, it allows our 24 hour news cycle to be plagued by phony journalism, which, much like Woodward and Bernstein’s investigations, can be incomplete or easily discredited. But the immense power of media does not on