As it has receded in time and memory, the Watergate scandal of 1972-74 has become ever more prone to myth and misleading interpretation.
That helps explain why Watergate's dominant narrative centers on the reporting exploits of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two then-young reporters for the Washington Post.
It's far simpler to focus on two star reporters — and to inflate their accomplishments — than it is to wrestle with the forbidding complexity of a scandal that sent 19 men to jail and forced the resignation of a sitting U.S. president, Richard Nixon.
That's a point I make in my media myth-busting book, Getting It Wrong, which came out last year. “How the Post and its reporters uncovered Watergate,” I write, “is deeply ingrained in American journalism as one of the field's most important and self-reverential stories.”
Read Full Article »