Bob Woodward Speaks at Assembly

Bob Woodward, respected journalist and author, spoke at Assembly on Tuesday morning about his decision to be a journalist, the unravelling of the Watergate scandal and the current political climate.

Mr. Woodward began with Watergate, acknowledging that for most of those in the audience his presentation would be a history lesson. For some faculty and parents in attendance, his remarks surfaced conversations of where were you when Nixon resigned.

Woodward recounted how the Watergate story started as a small news item—five burglars break into the Democratic National Campaign office in a complex called Watergate. “We started to pull on a thread, not knowing where it would lead.” It was very incremental. “We were not aware of where it would go or what the impact would be.”

For Woodward, the driving questions for a reporter are, “What don’t we know and what don’t we understand?” Trying to answer those two questions, he stated, will lead to good reporting.

Noting that our country is at a pivotal point in history, where the political rhetoric of today’s campaign is “giving people in my business a nervous breakdown”, Woodward emphasized that more than ever a reporter has to withdraw emotion and uncover the truth. “Our responsibility to the voters is to find out who these candidates really are.” One always has to assume that “we don’t know enough.”

Woodward’s path to journalism began after a five-year stint in the Navy. He graduated from Yale in 1965 on a naval reserve scholarship. He initially considered law school, but at the age of 30 he thought he was too old and he wanted to get on with life. He admired the Washington Post and asked for a try out. He wrote a dozen stories, none of which were published. With his two-week trial over, he took a position at the Montgomery Sentinel in Maryland where he wrote several stories that scooped the Post. Within a year he was hired back at the Post and was reporting on Watergate.

Woodward took several questions from students.

Is Snowdon a hero or traitor?

“Only time will tell.”

How do you know when to publish a story or hold it for security reasons?

“First rule is to listen to the argument why not to publish and consider it. Most often there is a good reason to publish. My personal rule is—you don’t want to get anyone killed. There is a time to show restraint.“

The Washington Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973 for Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting on Watergate. Woodward was the main reporter for the Post’s 2002 Pulitzer Prize Award for National Coverage of the attacks of September 11.

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