JournalismGate
It was with great interest that I read an AP story regarding the special edition DVD release, to mark the thirtieth anniversary of its theatrical release, of “All the President’s Men” – the 1976 movie about the unraveling of the Watergate cover-up that eventually led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. Not that I plan to go out and actually buy the DVD. I’ve never seen the movie, and the events that it chronicles are just a distant – and not terribly interesting – childhood memory for me.
The fact is that the Watergate episode, though certainly historic in its importance, is yesterday’s news. Okay, it’s actually a lot older than “yesterday” – I might as well acknowledge my age – but the fact remains that it is now a closed unhappy chapter in the book of our national history, the ongoing obsession with it on the part of the mainstream media notwithstanding.
What is actually much more interesting to me about the – coincidental, I’m sure – timing of this release, especially in the current political context, is how the movie chose to tell the story of Watergate. As acknowledged by one of its stars and co-producers, Robert Redford, the purpose was to tell the story from the point of view of the most prominent reporters involved – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Indeed, it seems that the story was as much about the investigative reporting by these men as it was about the particular story they pursued.
And it is the fact that it was a story that was pursued by the journalists in question that is so striking. Interestingly enough, when Woodward and Bernstein discovered that the Nixon administration might be involved in a cover-up, their first thought, apparently, was not to go to the administration and ask to be handed on a silver platter the facts that would result in the first resignation of a President of the United States. Crazy guys that they were, they most likely knew that getting to the bottom of the story would require a bit more work on their part than that. Even Mr. Redford, as he talked about the story of Woodward and Bernstein’s efforts, noted that it was a story “about investigative journalism and hard work.”
How ironic that this takes place at roughly the same time that the current White House press corps, egged on by their beneficiaries in the Democrat party, is alleging/hoping that there is a scandal being covered up by the Bush Administration regarding Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recent hunting accident – and whining because the administration isn’t spoon-feeding it the story that it believes, nay, wishes, is there.
But their indignation – if it is raised in the hopes that an outcry on the part of the general public will follow – is misplaced. The general consensus from the public is that what happened was indeed an accident – and accidents happen. If they are persistent in their belief that there is more of a story here than meets the eye, it seems that the thing to do would be to roll up their sleeves and work on flushing out that story. Isn’t that what journalists/reporters do?
Besides, it’s hard to spoon-feed from an empty bowl. And the administration can’t do the work that the reporters should be willing to do for themselves – even if it wanted to – if there is simply no story to tell. This whole furor is really not so much about what happened on a ranch in Texas last weekend as it is about the left’s fervent desire for another scandal on the scale of that which the country witnessed in the early seventies.
For the mainstream media every “scandal” is Watergate – so long as it involves Republicans, every war is Vietnam, every Democrat administration is Camelot, and every Republican administration is the Imperial Presidency. Never mind the fact that the public at large has moved on from the sixties and seventies and isn’t nearly as fascinated with such things as are these “chroniclers of history.” They are like that sad friend from high school who, twenty or thirty years on, continues to obsess with re-living those “good times” to the point that they can’t take pleasure in the world they now live in.
The mainstream media have seen the world as they would like it in the pages of the past, and refuse to acknowledge that what actually is in the here and now can, or should, be any different. Small wonder that the vast majority of them count themselves as liberals – a group whose very existence depends upon the ability to see beyond dealing with the world as it is and dealing with it as they wish it was.
The fact is that the Watergate episode, though certainly historic in its importance, is yesterday’s news. Okay, it’s actually a lot older than “yesterday” – I might as well acknowledge my age – but the fact remains that it is now a closed unhappy chapter in the book of our national history, the ongoing obsession with it on the part of the mainstream media notwithstanding.
What is actually much more interesting to me about the – coincidental, I’m sure – timing of this release, especially in the current political context, is how the movie chose to tell the story of Watergate. As acknowledged by one of its stars and co-producers, Robert Redford, the purpose was to tell the story from the point of view of the most prominent reporters involved – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Indeed, it seems that the story was as much about the investigative reporting by these men as it was about the particular story they pursued.
And it is the fact that it was a story that was pursued by the journalists in question that is so striking. Interestingly enough, when Woodward and Bernstein discovered that the Nixon administration might be involved in a cover-up, their first thought, apparently, was not to go to the administration and ask to be handed on a silver platter the facts that would result in the first resignation of a President of the United States. Crazy guys that they were, they most likely knew that getting to the bottom of the story would require a bit more work on their part than that. Even Mr. Redford, as he talked about the story of Woodward and Bernstein’s efforts, noted that it was a story “about investigative journalism and hard work.”
How ironic that this takes place at roughly the same time that the current White House press corps, egged on by their beneficiaries in the Democrat party, is alleging/hoping that there is a scandal being covered up by the Bush Administration regarding Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recent hunting accident – and whining because the administration isn’t spoon-feeding it the story that it believes, nay, wishes, is there.
But their indignation – if it is raised in the hopes that an outcry on the part of the general public will follow – is misplaced. The general consensus from the public is that what happened was indeed an accident – and accidents happen. If they are persistent in their belief that there is more of a story here than meets the eye, it seems that the thing to do would be to roll up their sleeves and work on flushing out that story. Isn’t that what journalists/reporters do?
Besides, it’s hard to spoon-feed from an empty bowl. And the administration can’t do the work that the reporters should be willing to do for themselves – even if it wanted to – if there is simply no story to tell. This whole furor is really not so much about what happened on a ranch in Texas last weekend as it is about the left’s fervent desire for another scandal on the scale of that which the country witnessed in the early seventies.
For the mainstream media every “scandal” is Watergate – so long as it involves Republicans, every war is Vietnam, every Democrat administration is Camelot, and every Republican administration is the Imperial Presidency. Never mind the fact that the public at large has moved on from the sixties and seventies and isn’t nearly as fascinated with such things as are these “chroniclers of history.” They are like that sad friend from high school who, twenty or thirty years on, continues to obsess with re-living those “good times” to the point that they can’t take pleasure in the world they now live in.
The mainstream media have seen the world as they would like it in the pages of the past, and refuse to acknowledge that what actually is in the here and now can, or should, be any different. Small wonder that the vast majority of them count themselves as liberals – a group whose very existence depends upon the ability to see beyond dealing with the world as it is and dealing with it as they wish it was.
posted by JeffreyH | 12:17 PM
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