SMG on a roll: Thomas Boswell

Actually, Woodward and Bernstein were as good as one source, really. If he isn't willing to feed them info, there is no Watergate story. They followed up on the leads he gave, and expanded their own investigation based on what he fed them, but they really were only as good as one source who happened to come forward and make the story for them. Otherwise, they'd have known something wasn't Kosher, but they'd have been chasing their tails. Kind of the way reporters have been chasing their tails on steroids stories. To an extent, Game of Shadows had that same kind of Watergate luck. A Federal probe left a paper trail of evidence that some investigative reporters were able to follow up on, and they rode their sources to get to that paper trail. But without that kind of aligning of the stars, what is a reporter going to do to catch people doing stuff? I am not suggesting that Fainaru-Wada and Williams were just lucky. They ferreted out the information when they got credible info. But the credible info has to come your way first, and this isn't akin to getting sources to talk about who is going to be the next Michigan coach. It's stuff that no one wants to talk about. It's a nearly impossible story to get unless it comes to you in the form of a disgruntled source or leaks from a Federal probe. The Feds wouldn't have even gotten at BALCO without a disgruntled track coach mailing a syringe to the doping agency, so even they need that one piece of luck to get at a credible investigation. And unlike reporters, they actually have subpoena power and much more effective ways to investigate.

 

I am not taking anything away from Woodward or Bernstein. I thought that was clear in my post. They did the most important job of investigative reporting this country has ever seen. My point was that it wouldn't have happened without government officials feeding them info. Something has to come to you on stories like that. You don't get by somehow being clairvoyant. There were other factors, of course
It took some guts on the part of Ben Bradlee, when Katharine Graham was asking, "If this is for real, why are we the only ones writing about it?" The point still remains, in a lot of ways, Woodward and Bernstein didn't take down Nixon. Some courageous people who had info that could take down Nixon put their necks on the line and fed Woodward and Bernstein info that fed their investigative reporting. Withut the sources (and one source in particular, Mark Felt), there is no Watergate. I hesitate to call it "luck," because I believe that some people are lucky for a reason -- they put themselves in situations in which luck can find them. The story still had to find them before they could run with it, though.

 

I pretty much agree. Maybe it doesn't compare to steroids in baseball in terms of importance (in most people's estimation), but it compares in that there aren't a lot of willing sources floating around and you have people working hard to hide any evidence of the story. It's a nearly impossible get, no matter how dogged or great a reporter you are. They are the small handful of stories, in which there is such a stigma or such an impropriety involving high-profile people, that you pretty much have to battle a powerful conspiracy trying to keep it under wraps. That's why you need the starting point--the whistle-blower, the disgruntled or disillusioned insider, the law-enforcement evidence that has leaked, etc.--to give you something solid to follow. Otherwise, it's just shit you know, but shit you can't prove or go to print with. I don't want to debate the relative importance of Mark Felt to the job Woodward and Bernstein did. But think about it. Woodward met him by chance, when he was a nobody. That *is* luck. Again, not taking anything away from Woodward. He collects sources well, and is a fine reporter who has earned people's trust. There is a reason for all that. But there was at least some element of luck in the Watergate reporting, and he is on the record later in life saying that his phone kept ringing after Watergate with stories others couldn't get BECAUSE of Watergate. Woodward's life might have been completely different if he hadn't been a naval courier, prior to breaking into journalism, who happened to be dispatched to the White House with some documents and shared a waiting room one night with a guy who later on turned out to be Deep Throat.