Bringing Down a Reporter

In the 70’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the most famous journalists in the country for their investigative report on the Watergate scandal, which eventually brought down the president Richard M. Nixon. For those of us who have been reading or hearing about his more recent reporting it seems he has taken a bit more initiative than he should as a reporter in reporting news, meaning he seems to be creating news.

Recently this became more obvious as he reported a senior White House official threatening him. He went on CNN and told them that the official told him he would “regret” his analysis on sequester. He made a big deal about the word regret according to Politico. Woodward then told about the threatening email he received from this white house official.

This is what the official, Sperling wrote in the email:

I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall — but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here.

But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim.

Wow, is that scary. What is sad is that his earlier reporting, including the Watergate reported is now under scrutiny for accuracy. One of the things they reported was a signal they made to Deep Throat when they wanted to communicate to him. Woodward said he moved or place a flowerpot on his balcony. The problem with that is the balcony faced the courtyard rather than the street. Perhaps that was to protect the source, but it seem a bit flowery to me if you pardon the pun.

Reporters selling books are fine and being critical of presidents is also proper, but when you start making stuff up that is not okay.

Unfortunately news today seems aimed to sell more than to inform. If you watch news programs you know that they spend far more time hyping the news they are about to report over the actual news itself. It has become the norm.

It is another case of “for profit” companies doing a worse job than non-profit or profit loss reporting. The news in the days of Huntley and Brinkley; Walter Cronkite, and the lot were loss leaders. The news didn’t make money. It was seen as part of the responsibility to the nation to report the news accurately rather than making money. It was part of the privilege for the use of the airwaves the FCC licensed them to use. All that changed when Roone Arledge took over ABC news and said it would now be a profit making business. As a result we know longer trust the news to be accurate. Profit caused a betrayal of trust. Or as Jesus said, “no one can serve to masters…”