The American Presidency: An In-Depth Discussion with Woodward and Bernstein

A growing contingent throughout the nation sees the United States plunging into a crisis similar to the one of August 1974, when former President Richard Nixon resigned from office after a series of scathing reports by the Washington Post.

At its annual fundraiser, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) hosted Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the reporters who broke the Watergate scandal. The esteemed journalists spoke to an audience of more than 200 people at the University Club of Chicago, covering various topics from the challenges of breaking the Watergate story to the parallels between Nixon and President Donald Trump. In the conversation, Woodward and Bernstein also highlighted the differences in news coverage and media, then to now.

Veteran journalist Delmarie Cobb moderated as Woodward and Bernstein acknowledged that a key flaw leading to Nixon’s downfall was his use of the presidency as a tool to attack his political enemies. Though they drew comparisons to our current president, Woodward highlighted the dangers of journalists predicting where a story is heading before time has provided all the facts.

“People will come up to both of us and say, ‘Where is the [special counsel Robert] Mueller investigation going?’ And I would say, ‘Oh, I’m glad you asked. I have it written down here,’” Woodward quipped, which was met with laughter by the audience.

Bernstein added that using previous stories to gauge the trajectory of current events should only be used as a starting point. Too often on cable news, journalists leap to a picture that’s already been developed rather than allowing the current story to develop on its own.

During the Q&A session, one woman asked the speakers to comment on why the president doesn’t seem concerned about foreign interference in the upcoming midterm elections.

“I think [Trump] doesn’t really believe the Russians meddled in the election to the extent that it altered it,” Woodward replied. “He may be right. He may be wrong. We shall see, but we may never know.”

Another theme throughout the discussion was the country’s ever-growing socio-political polarization. Too often, Woodward and Bernstein said, Americans today are disinterested in listening to opinions inconistant with their own political and ideological perspectives.

Before the digital age, they said, news audiences understood bias, recognizing that news organizations were responsible to maintain objectivity. Today, however, individuals have retreated into their own news bubbles and tend to disregard all other sources as “fake news.”

“The big difference between the time of Watergate and now is … [I’ve got] no metric, but I know I’m right about this … there’s an exponentially larger number of people today who are looking for information to reinforce what they already believe,” Bernstein said, “rather than being open to a contextual, fact-based set of information.” The audience agreed and gave the veteran journalist a standing ovation.

For more photos, go to our Facebook page here. Want to know what Chicagoans think of or remember about the Watergate scandal? Check out this video.

ICPR is a nonpartisan, nonprofit that encourages public participation in government and voter education and promotes for greater accountability, transparency, and integrity in Illinois government.