Watergate Scandal, Research Paper Example

On June 17, 1972, there were five indicted for breaking in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. There were seven men, and two of them were former White House aides. In June 1973 five of these men plead guilty to the crimes of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping. Two of the five men were tried and convicted. A couple of months later H.R. Haldeman, aide to President Nixon and John D. Ehr5lichman resigned and John Dean, White House aide was fired. In July of 1973 testimony given before the Senate Watergate Committee revealed that while in office all of President Nixon’s White House communications were taped.

U.S. President Richard Nixon

On July 24, 1973 the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that President Nixon must relinquish the tapes and documents that special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox had subpoenaed. The American Journalism Review report written by Mark Feldstein entitled “Watergate Revisited” states that the Washington Post ran its story on August 9, 1974 on the front-page headline entitled “Nixon Resigns”. (Steinfeld, p. 1) Steinfeld states that time was the beginning of:

“…three decades of debate about what role journalism played in uncovering the Watergate scandal that formed Nixon from office – and how Watergate, in turn, influenced journalism itself.” (Feldstein, 2004)

U.S. Media during Watergate Scandal

Steinfeld asks the question of whether the media brought down a U.S. president through “muckraking” and ponders as well on how not only politics but investigative reporting both changed as a direct result of the role of the media in the Watergate scandal. According to Steinfeld Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were the producers of the “single most spectacular act of serious journalism [of the 20^th century] according to media critic Ben Bagdikian.” (Feldstein, 2004) It is the opinion of Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press that public policy and politics believes that the reporting by the Washington Post was:

“absolutely critical [to] creating an atmosphere in Washington and within the government that Nixon was in serious trouble and that the White House was engaged in the cover up.

Media Not Viewed as Instrumental by Some Scholars

There are those who minimize the impact of journalism during the Watergate Scandal and this is true of Gladys and Kurt Lang who stated that the press “was a prime mover in the controversy only in its early phase.” (Feldstein, 2004) It is true that a primary contribution of journalism at that time was to exert influence upon the opinion of the American people or the public at large in the United States. It is notable that the struggles that took place between Nixon and his opponents were more often than not unfolding right before the eyes of the American people across the television stations throughout all U.S. states. CBS anchorman Dan Rather is reported as having stated that it is clearly shown by the record that the cover-up “would have worked if the press hadn’t done its job.” (Feldstein, 2004)

Leader of the Pack – The Washington Post

The Washington Post is stated to have led the way in the early days of coverage of the Watergate Scandal. In fact more than 200 news articles were published by The Washington Post in regards to Watergate and these stories were quite investigative and are stated to have “revealed new details about covert activities directed by the White House…” while apparently the other news reports “rarely carried their own enterprise stories.” (Feldstein, 2004) Feldstein holds that the Washington journalists at the time of the Watergate scandal were not “victims or heroes” and few challenged the version of the White House under Nixon concerning the events during the first months the scandal broke.

The Last of True Investigative Reporting During Watergate

Feldstein (2004) states that it was lamented by Bernstein that Watergate’s ultimate effect on journalism was one that too quickly “wore off…and that public-service investigative reporting” was that which soon replaced such reporting. Feldstein states that the reporting following Watergate became “a careerist impulse that emphasized glamour of the ‘doing required legwork and putting information in context”. (Feldstein, 2004) Watergate is stated to have “solidified the critical importance of investigative reporting”. (Feldstein, 2004)

Reporters Woodward and Bernstein

Reporters Woodward and Bernstein who reported for the Washington Post in1972 reported as follows:

• they reported that Attorney General John Mitchell was in control of a ‘secret fund’ that paid for a campaign to gather information on the Democrat; and
• that Nixon’s aides have run a “massive campaign of political spying and sabotage” on behalf of the effort to reelect Nixon. (The Washington Post, 2010)

The story was ignored by other newspapers and voters alike with Nixon winning a “huge majority in November 1972” the White House is stated to have “continued to denounce The Post’s coverage as biased and misleading. Post publisher Katherine Graham worried about the administrations “unveiled threats and harassment.”(The Washington Post, 2010.

Summary and Conclusion

There is still a great deal of mystery surrounding the Watergate scandal and many questions have been left unanswered or answered wrongly begging to be corrected however, the one sure fact that remains after over three decades of speculation and debate is that the influence and impact of the media and specifically newspaper and television media during the Watergate scandal was one that was sure and one that certainly served to color public opinion. Investigative news reporting was alive and well during the Watergate scandal and it is the belief of this writer that much of today’s media has become lax in their duty and that being to discover and report the facts to the American people.

References

Purdum, T. S. Deep Throat Revealed as Former NO. 2 at FBI (2005) The San Diego Union-Tribune. 1 June 2005. Online available at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050601/news_1n1throat.html

The Post Investigates. Part I (2010) The Watergate Story. The Washington Post. Online available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/part1.html

Feldstein, Mark (2004) Watergate Revisited. American Journalism Review. Aug/Sept 2004. Online available at: http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3735