All the Presidents Men

June 17, 1972. This was the day that the biggest political scandal of the century was about to start being uncovered. This was the day that the Democratic National Committee headquarters, which were located in the Watergate complex, had been robbed. In a story of this magnitude, one would come to expect that there would be certain journalistic issues.

In mid December 1971, The New York Times ran a story on the front page of the paper saying that at least 15 calls were made from one of the alleged burglars, Bernard L. Barker's, phone. Carl Bernstein, part of the famed "Woodstein", who was working on this story, had several sources he could use to get information about the calls, but was hesitant to use them because he didn't want to intrude on the confidentiality of a person's phone records. The issue of confidentiality is something that journalists must always be careful of when reporting a story.

In order to get a jump on the case, Bernstein suggested to Woodward, his partner, that they write a story about Baldwin naming Odle and Timmons, and how he picked Sedam's name. Bernstein contacted the Justice Dept, who confirmed the details and so Woodward agreed to write the story. The story showed up in the Los Angeles Times on October 6. The decision made by Bernstein and Woodward to print the story was a mistake. It was rushed and the story ultimately ended up being incorrect, leading three men to being falsely accused on the front of the Washington Post, which is why rushing a story is another big journalistic issue because you could risk not only your own credibility, but the newspaper's credibility as well.

It is possible that even before the President's chances of being re-elected looked any good, Watergate was planned and someone had, maybe, neglected to pull the plug. Simons, the managing editor of the Post, became fascinated with this. Like Bernstein, Simons was keen on "doping things out on the basis of sketchy information" (114). However, he was also careful about what made it into print. There were a couple times when he instructed Bernstein and Woodward to postpone a story or pull it out completely if, at the last minute, they had any doubts about it at all. This journalistic issue is a classic example of the principle of "when in doubt, leave it out."

Simons, who was the number two editor at the Post just the year before, resembles what one might think of