By Tanner Colby Slate Magazine
[Bob Woodward is one of the most respected journalists in the United States, though there is increasing evidence that he’s become as corrupt as the president he helped take down. This is a deeply troubling article from Slate, distributed by our Political Waves list. The article was originally published in mid-March. — efc]
A little more than a week ago, during an interview with Politico, Bob Woodward came forward to claim he’d been threatened in an email by a “senior White House official” for daring to reveal certain details about the negotiations over the budget sequester. The White House responded by releasing the email exchange Woodward was referring to, which turned out to be nothing more than a cordial exchange between the reporter and Obama’s economic adviser, Gene Sperling, who was clearly implying nothing more than that Woodward would “regret” taking a position that would soon be shown to be false.
A rather trivial scandal, but the incident did manage to raise important questions about Woodward’s behavior. Was he cynically trumping up the administration’s “threat,” or does he just not know how to read an email? Pretty soon, those questions tipped over into the standard Beltway discussion that transpires anytime Woodward does anything. How accurate is his reporting? Does he deserve his legendary status?
I believe I can offer some interesting answers to those questions. Thirty-one years ago, on March 5, 1982, Saturday Night Live and Animal House star John Belushi died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles—which, bear with me a moment, has more to do with the current coverage of the budget sequester than you might initially think.
Two years after Belushi died, Bob Woodward published Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi. While the Watergate sleuth might seem an odd choice to tackle such a subject, the book came about because both he and Belushi grew up in the same small town of Wheaton, Ill. They had friends in common. Belushi, who despised Richard Nixon, was a big Woodward fan, and after he died, his widow, Judy Belushi, approached Woodward in his role as a reporter for the Washington Post. She had questions about the LAPD’s handling of Belushi’s death and asked Woodward to look into it. He took the access she offered and used it to write a scathing, lurid account of Belushi’s drug use and death.
When Wired came out, many of Belushi’s friends and family denounced it as biased and riddled with factual errors. “Exploitative, pulp trash,” in the words of Dan Aykroyd. Wired was so wrong, Belushi’s manager said, it made you think Nixon might be innocent. Woodward insisted the book was balanced and accurate. “I reported this story thoroughly,” he told Rolling Stone. Of the book’s critics, he said, “I think they wish I had created a portrait of someone who was larger than life, larger than he was, and that, somehow, this portrait would all come out different. But that’s a fantasy, not journalism.” Woodward being Woodward, he was given the benefit of the doubt. Belushi’s reputation never recovered.
Twenty years later, in 2004, Judy Belushi hired me, then an aspiring comedy writer, to help her with a new biography of John, this one titled Belushi: A Biography. As her coauthor, I handled most of the legwork, including all of the interviews and most of the research. What started as a fun project turned out to be a rather fascinating and unique experiment. Over the course of a year, page by page, source by source, I re-reported and rewrote one of Bob Woodward’s books. As far as I know, it’s the only time that’s ever been done.
I agree wholeheartedly with Green-Star-gazer’s post here.
I worked for a large non-profit organization that came under Washington Post (WaPo) scrutiny several years back. Two WaPo reporters investigated for a year and then wrote a series of articles that presented complex issues very much in black and white. Much of what was written about the organization’s work was framed as negative, loaded with insinuation and guilt by association, and the authors got several basic facts wrong. Facts that would not have been difficult to check.
IMO, most of the series was inflammatory and did not serve the public well. The authors appeared lazy at best and biased at worst. To a degree it was a hit job.
I had my own issues with the non-profit, so I was not put out about the organization being investigated. But I felt really disappointed to see such shoddy journalism from a supposedly respectable and professional outlet like WaPo. I think they pursued the wrong story, found less than they were hoping for, and then worked what they found into the story they wanted to present from the start.
Overall, it was a good lesson for me in being very judicious about what to believe of what I read in the press, regardless of the source.
Another good example showing that all we read in print has been filtered in one way or another. Even the best “professionals” have their way of viewing/processing and reporting the world.
I can remember back in the day when I used to be involved in an organization that showed up on the pages of glossy news magazines from time to time… I was always astounded with how the articles got the simplest basic facts wrong. Yet the magazine’s cache would have anyone unfamiliar with the people in the story think something completely different from what was factual. It would have been so easy to correct the mistakes but either the magazines did not care or they were out to slander but then could always claim the ‘errors” as such if questioned. It made me realize way back then that I should never trust ANYthing that I read as truthful unless I had first-hand knowledge….otherwise, who knows what sort of filters were being consciously or unconsciously applied.
The differences in the examples given in this article were very instructive…how the same basic set of facts can be massaged and spun to give entirely different impressions. Whether Woodward’s re-spinning was inept, sloppy or intentional (for as we know even bad press is good sometimes) is hard to say…but this is an excellent reminder.
you know, eric — i don’t get the sense that the article is trying to point out that woodward is “becoming corrupt,” so much that it is pointing out that perhaps woodward has *never* been aware of much nuance in his reporting, or that we should at least question whether he has.
what other evidence is there that he is “becoming corrupt?”
wow — fascinating article for the light it shines on belushi; incredibly unnerving for the light it shines on woodward.
and, of course, tanner colby has his own filter through which he is viewing and writing — but it does seem to be one that is a little better tuned to nuance.
This song alludes to the demise of John Belushi at the Chateau Marmont.
West LA Fadeaway:
“Looking for a chateau
Twenty-one rooms but one will do
Looking for a chateau
Twenty-one rooms but one will do
I don’t want to buy it
I just want to rent it for an hour or two…”
– Robert Hunter, Jerome John Garcia