Reflection of All the President’s Men

Throughout All the President’s Men and The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook, the process of investigative reporting is consistently revealed.

In the first chapter, “Paul Williams Way” in finding a story to investigate is studied. Within All the President’s Men, Woodward decided to go with the story that would force Nixon’s resignation. He chose not to stop investigating because he saw too many hints to a huge scandal that need to be found.

Furthermore, the movie showed the importance of secondary and primary sources. The book identifies secondary sources as any sources related to work that has already been done like a news article. Woodward and Bernstein used the basic story of the Watergate burglary as a secondary source.

Throughout the movie, they used primary sources to supply their information. Document after document, Woodward and Bernstein followed money trails. They also used record sources like money records for Nixon’s campaign fund.

Beginning with the documents, Woodward and Bernstein eventually moved to primarily people. They received a document with a list of people who work around Carson. One by one, Woodward and Bernstein visited every person on that list. After most of them refused questioning, the reporters finally got someone to talk.

Woodward also had his own informant inside the White House; “Deep Throat.” This person was used to confirm everything Woodward and Bernstein found. With this informant, Woodward was able to verify the accuracy of his investigation.

Throughout the investigation, especially in the beginning, the ability to verify relied heavily on trust of sources. Woodward trusted “Deep Throat” which led to the Post throwing the first article in their paper. Woodward and Bernstein didn’t begin as best pals. Woodward was initially disappointed with Bernstein but after seeing his skills, Woodward wanted to work with him.

The editors of the Post held the two accountable by testing their sources repeatedly. The editors’ jobs were on the line just as much as the reporters in this story. Other people in the newsroom were also able to help Woodward and Bernstein by helping them get documents or information they had access to.

When it came to investigating the executive branch, both reporters used money as their guide. I honestly don’t know why they didn’t think of this initially considering it was a burglary after all.

This whole incident was extremely important to uncover as presidential crimes are nowhere near often. This was the first major scandal in the U.S. that involved the president. It was a landmark for investigative reporting because it involved such overwhelming odds. Every news organization was denying that the existence of such a scandal even existed, but risking their lives, the Post still dug deeper into the story.

Woodward and Bernstein faced many challenges during their reporting. Besides the thoughts of their lives being in danger, they constantly faced limitations with people’s cooperation. From the beginning, basic librarians refused any knowledge. On top of lack of cooperation, the Post was facing huge amounts of defamation from other news organizations and the government.

The topic was researched through documents in archives and a big portion was from people involved. If this story was investigated today, Woodward and Bernstein would likely use online databases like IDEA to follow the money more effectively.

Besides the people of the story, the reporters kept the story going by revealing their lines of thinking. A good example is when they discovered the $25,000 check for Nixon’s re-election campaign. They got some information, explained what it meant, got more information, and explained again.

Within the article, “Bug Suspect Got Campaign Funds,” Woodward and Bernstein used Dahlberg as a direct source. They knew the information he provided was true because it went against the campaign and Deep Throat confirmed. They also used sources directly from the White House to gain intel of employment for Howard Hunt and other information.

Through the movie, it was clear that the relationship between reporter and editor is not as I expected. I expected it would be more separated like a boss and his subordinate. But the reality is that the relationship between an editor and reporter is like an experienced adult guiding a child. It’s personal. The editor also has to make the tough decisions of not agreeing with his reporters in order to push them further into a story.

When it comes to reporting, I learned that critical thinking is a major necessity. Woodward and Bernstein would go from one thing to the next in their minds just contemplating where they can get more and more information. I also learned that a reporter needs to get to know people he may need information from well before he actually needs anything. Woodward was assigned the Watergate story based on the fact that he knew a lot of people and it certainly helped the story continue.

I would say that Deep Throat, Ben Bradlee, and Harry Rosenfeld played an important role in the investigation of Watergate. Deep Throat confirmed everything the Post found, Bradlee was the editor and guided/challenged Woodward and Bernstein to find more, Rosenfeld helped keep the story in the hands of Woodward and Bernstein.

If I could ask Woodward and Bernstein anything, I would ask them how they felt through the whole process. Obviously, they felt overwhelmed most of the time but It would be interesting to understand how they were feeling from the beginning to the end.

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