Ex-WPer's thoughts on Woodward

Ex-Washington Post reporter Lorraine Adams has a novel out about Washington journalism. In an interview with NPR, she was asked about Bob Woodward, who's a disguised character in the book.

She's not the first to say this, of course, but it's still interesting in its bluntness:


"I worked with him in passing at the newsroom, actually I worked with him on a few stories so I knew him better than that. I think he practices access journalism, which is different from what I did at the Post. (I) would talk to the people who have no power and who are affected by the people in power, and that gives a much more useful picture of the way policy affects the human soul. Woodward, who started as a reporter who did that, who knocked on doors and talked to people on the ground, became a celebrity.

"In becoming a celebrity, he invariably saw it as a much better deal for him, in terms of making money, to talk to other celebrities inside Washington: presidents, their chiefs of staff, vice presidents, their chiefs of staff. We have learned that Deep Throat was an FBI official, not an agent, an official. He was on, what we call, the 7th Floor.

"I think Woodward’s capitulation to interviewing people in limousines, as opposed to people on the subway, is something I feel is partly responsible for the fact that we ended up in Iraq. Because so many reporters, Judith Miller is the most egregious of them, spoke to Scooter Libby and some other higher officials, and never spoke to intelligence people on the ground. They swallowed wholesale Colin Powell at the U.N., and [ultimately] their limousine reporting meant that 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives. I don’t think anything can be so neatly drawn, but I think in this case it can be neatly drawn."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/voices/a-writer-leaves-journalism-to-find-truth-in-fiction/1159/

 

Truth hurts.

. . . not to mention Bobby's chronic habit of not telling the bulk of the
warts-and-all stories about big players until their time on the main stage
is done.

Pays well. Very well.

 

He's despised by the bulk of the White House Press Corps. Some of it is jealousy, some seems very legit.

Bernstein, by comparison, is very well-respected.