Friday, March 1, 2013

Ron Fournier: Why Bob Woodward's Fight With The White House Matters to You

All the President's men are dumping on Bob Woodward.

National Journal ".... I essentially broke ties with a senior White House official.
"Yes, I iced a source– and my only regret is I didn’t do it sooner. I decided to share this encounter because it might shed light on the increasingly toxic relationship between media and government, which is why the Woodward flap matters outside the Beltway."
...."I had angered the White House, particularly a senior White House official who I am unable to identify because I promised the person anonymity. Going back to my first political beat, covering Bill Clinton’s administration in Arkansas and later in Washington, I’ve had a practice that is fairly common in journalism: A handful of sources I deal with regularly are granted blanket anonymity. Any time we communicate, they know I am prepared to report the information at will (matters of fact, not spin or opinion) and that I will not attribute it to them."

Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate papers that brought down the Nixon Administration  "Between 1972 and 1976, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein emerged as two of the most famous journalists in America and became forever identified as the reporters who broke the biggest story in American politics."


Remember when Robert Redford played Bob Woodward in this movie?
All the President's Men  "All the President's Men is a 1976 Academy Award-winning political thriller based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post. The film starred Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively; it was produced by Walter Coblenz, written by William Goldman, and directed by Alan J. Pakula."
 

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