The Halfway Point: Investigative Foundations from the Text and the Big Screen
The first half of the semester in my Investigate Journalism class has been anything but ordinary. What was shaping up to be an already challenging last few weeks of class has taken an even more obscure turn, with the added aspect of learning completely from home due to COVID-19.
That being said, the challenges ahead for the final five weeks of the semester provide an unprecedented opportunity to do what all journalists must do in order to find success — adapting to the situation at hand. Investigative reporters’ job is typically difficult, as sources often are not willing to open up and copious research is needed to back up the facts of a story, so working from home will just be a small trial in the grand scheme of things.
As I move forward to try and investigate the story I am hoping to write over the next month and half, I plan to use the foundations I have learned over the first half of the class to continue honing my skills in interviewing, researching and reporting. The lessons I have learned from reading the class textbook, “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook,” and watching the film “All the President’s Men” have gone a long way in showing me not only the best methods, but also the hardnosed mindset that is required to uncover information and write solid investigative pieces.
Obviously, the movie “All the President’s Men” is a dramatized version of the actual events that took place in 1974, as Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein unraveled the Watergate scandal, but many lessons of good investigative reporting can still be drawn from the viewing of the movie.
Chapter one of “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook” class textbook discussed “The Paul Williams Way,” a step-by-step method of completing successful in-depth reporting. In the movie “All the President’s Men,” Woodward and Bernstein displayed excellent reporting skills, as they modeled many of the steps listed in “The Paul Williams Way” of reporting.
Two examples of this were towards the beginning of the movie, when the two journalists were just beginning to uncover the information that led them to pursue the story. After Woodward originally learned some information on the burglars that made him suspicious (conception), he began digging a little bit deeper to try and find out whether there was actually something more going on that he needed to look into (feasibility study). Ultimately, he brought his information to his editor, Harry Rosenfeld, who went back and forth with another one of the editors at the Washington Post before ultimately deciding to have Woodward and Bernstein pursue the story (go/no-go decision).
Woodward and Bernstein’s investigative skills were also on display in the way that they used information from whistleblowers, which is outlined in Chapter Five of “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook.” A specific example of this came when the reporters were attempting to interview employees from the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). Many of the current workers were not willing to talk, but ultimately the reporters got information from one of the CREEP bookkeepers, who became a key source of information for their investigation.
Generally speaking, the Watergate scandal’s exposal by the Washington Post created lasting ripple effects that still play a role in the way journalists hold government officials accountable today. Besides the obvious political fallout resulting from Nixon’s decision to resign from office, Woodward and Bernstein’s investigative work paved the way for reporters in their efforts to keep high ranking officials in check.
As Woodward and Bernstein wrote several year ago, reflecting on the whole ordeal from 1974, Watergate in some ways was a “war on the news media.” Nixon has been very against the media, especially after their criticisms of American involvement in Vietnam, and the work that “Woodstein” did to uncover information that Nixon and his administration had attempted to cover up was a decisive victory for the media.
The “victory” of uncovering the truth of the Watergate scandal did not come without its trials, however. On the road to discovering their landmark investigative story, Woodward and Bernstein had to dig for a lot of information and overcome obstacles to find information that the Nixon administration had worked tedious to cover up.
Woodstein made countless phone calls, tireless poured through documents to find information they were looking for and took advantage of inside anonymous sources in order to bring the hidden details of the story to light.
One intriguing question to consider about the Watergate scandal would be how the situation would have been reported and investigated if it happened today. Many of the skills that Woodward and Bernstein displayed — their tenacity, persistence and ability to overcome obstacles — but modern reporters also could have used many resources that were not available in 1974.
An example that comes to mind is social media. If Watergate, or something similar, were to happen today, reporters would have the ability to use crowdsourcing, via Twitter or Facebook, which was not an option for Woodward and Bernstein. The ability to make inquiries for information about CREEP employees, for example, would be increasingly easier today than it may have been for the reporters when the events were actually taking place.
Another big takeaway from the movie was the importance of the relationship between reporters and their editors. Woodward and Bernstein were in continual communication with their editor, Harry Rosenfeld, throughout their investigation of the story.
The reporting duo were both fairly young at the time, but they used their relentless passion for truth-seeking, along with the wisdom and advice of their editors at the Washington Post to be able to move through difficult circumstance and bring the story to the light. Truly, the Watergate story may never have been uncovered without the teamwork and comradery that was shown between the editors and reporters.
Finally, if I had the opportunity to ask anything to Woodward and Bernstein, it would be how they try to keep from allowing their personal notoriety to overcome their ability to just find the facts. For any human being, especially for people telling a story on a national stage like they were, pride and personal ego almost always come into play. In the movie, the young reporters truly kept the focus on the task at hand, instead of turning the spotlight on themselves and the following they were acquiring because of the story, which I’m sure was not easy.
Overall, what I have learned from “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook” and “All the President’s Men” have proven to be a solid foundation, which I hope to use as a launching pad for the investigative story I am hoping to research over the next month. Doing so from home will make things a little bit more difficult, but I am glad for the basic skills I have learned so far, and now I am ready to apply them in whatever way is necessary for me to tell an impactful, truth-seeking story.