“All the President’s Men” and Investigative Journalism Themes

Journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in the movie “All the President’s Men” are examples of hardworking, devoted and truthful reporters.

Both men followed the “Paul Williams Way” of conducting investigative journalism. These steps included conception of a newsworthy story that there was something deeper to the Watergate robbery, questioning the feasibility of studying this topic, deciding whether it was factual enough to print, building, planning, researching, re-evaluating, filling gaps, rewriting and, finally, publishing the article.

The movie depicted the amount of anxiety and struggle the men faced in uncovering such a well-protected scandal, something that did not even seem plausible. Bernstein and Woodward had to follow their information when they were not sure if the story was solid yet in order to convince others that it was.

The government and press were slow to give information and quick to deny truth to claims, which made Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee very cautious to allow the reporters to print their story. He required a number of sources named before the go was confirmed and much turmoil was caused when everything fell back on the Post before the scandal was unraveled in its entirety, causing the need to re-evaluate.

The entirety of Bernstein and Woodward’s story was grounded in their ability to find whistleblowers, get them to talk and follow the people trails they formed.

According to “The Investigative Reporters Handbook”, “Whistleblowers are ‘currents’ or ‘formers’ who seek attention or find themselves unwillingly in the spotlight because they know of wrongdoing.”

Almost every source in the Watergate investigation had to be a whistleblower because anyone with information was ordered by the government not to talk and was informed there would be repercussions. The Post’s reporters had to creatively work around this and be skilled at understanding how to pry into the situation. This required having a strong foundation of research and knowledge of the case before approaching any source and sometimes even implying they knew something they did not.

The movie depicted Bernstein and Woodward working hard to pull together a full story even when no one was interested in the minor details or thought that it would all come together to be as big as they thought. Our textbook describes investigators of Federal Affairs needing an inner sense fed by information previously gathered to push you in order to not give up. It also states that journalistic work should not be avoided just because it is perceived to be boring and that hidden information will turn up if you are right about your hunch.

After watching “All the President’s Men”, I learned of the perseverance, grind and risk involved in investigative reporting. Bernstein and Woodward each had to work all hours of the night, invade people’s homes for lengthy amounts of time and go out of their comfort zone frequently. They had to dive full force into leads they did not know would result in any substance.

“How do you keep working towards something when you don’t believe it?” Bernstein said.

I learned that investigative reporters sometimes have to play tricky with their information in order to get people to speak. Otherwise, both men would not have been able to get names or facts confirmed. The story would have been at a standstill if sources had not been broken down to provide information when they were threatened to not speak. I also realized that what these sources do not say can be just as important in furthering a story as what they do say because that information can be suspicious and point to truth.

There were many complications and low times where they could have been wrong, fired or even killed for their work but they were more concerned with the country’s greater good and truth being uncovered than even themselves.

“Nothing is riding on this except the freedom of the first amendment, security of free press and the future of the entire country,” Bradlee said.

This incident was a landmark in history for investigative reporting because it showed the accountability journalists provided in order to uphold the standard of truth for the government, the public and the entire country. As Bradlee described, the success of this investigative task secured the rights to speak out against what is hidden and print it as truth to expose people in power who would otherwise be left unchecked and remain operating in corruption.

From Bradlee’s relationship with Bernstein and Woodward, I learned that there must be a lot of trust between an editor and his reporters. Bradlee had to have faith that their work was solid even when the accused governmental workers were publicly denying the facts and discrediting the Post’s journalistic skills. He had to trust that the full story would be uncovered in the future, his reporters were reliable in their work and that the full story would come through, even when it seemed impossible.

“I can’t do the work for my reporters, which means I have to trust them,” Bradlee said. “And I hate trusting anybody.”

Other than the most influential characters of Bernstein, Woodward and Bradlee, Deep Throat, the bookkeeper, Donald Segretti and Sally Aiken were prominent people in the investigation. Each of these characters, among others, made vital contribution to the furthering of information that led to uncovering the case.

Deep Throat revealed highly classified information about Nixon’s reelection while the bookkeeper confirmed names of those involved to give one of the first directions of who might be involved. Segretti’s actions as political operative to re-elect Nixon were a main trigger that began to reveal the depth of the Watergate scandal beyond just a burglary and Aiken was a fellow Washington Post reporter whose contact and willingness to help highlighted the importance of teamwork and was utilized in the process of connecting people and their involvement.

There were many lessons to be learned and connections to be made in my understanding of investigative reporting through reflecting on the processes, successes and failures Bernstein and Woodward achieved in the uncovering of the Watergate scandal, the greatest one being that all of their work paid off.

On my honor, I have watched “All the President’s Men” in its entirety.

Word count: 1,021