ALLTHEPRESIDENT'SMEN:ANANALYSIS ANDALESSONINJOURNALISM

By Michael Garfinkel '29

In 1972, President Richard Nixon’s staffers, working in an act of corruption, planned a break-in at the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC. They did so in an attempt to bug the offices of the Democratic Party. The break-in took place on June 17, about four and a half months before the presidential election The plan failed as the five burglars were arrested inside the building, called the Watergate, before they could bug any offices. The Washington Post newspaper assigned two young reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, to the story, and slowly, they were able to uncover the involvement of the Nixon administration in the burglary. Their investigative reporting eventually led to an additional investigation in the US Senate in 1973 and the resignation of President Nixon in August 1974 These events were called the Watergate scandal.

Watching the film is an excellent way to develop an interest in politics, especially if you are not one who has much of an interest in reading All the President's Men is very captivating because there is outstanding acting by Robert Redford, playing Woodward, and Dustin Hoffman, acting as Bernstein, along with many other good actors The mystery of the film is also set up well We follow along with Woodward and Bernstein as they find out information about Watergate. You might also like All the President's Men because you get to understand what life was like fifty years ago When we look at the typewriters, the old televisions, and the old dial telephones, and when we see people doing research the old-fashioned way without the internet, we can see how technology worked during that era Another thing the film shows you is the importance of being honest in politics. What I found most interesting, however, is what the movie teaches about the process of reporting.

This article will be analyzing the 1976 film All the President's Men, which is the movie based on the 1974 book on how Woodward and Bernstein uncovered the scandal This film reveals the inside process of reporting on Watergate, rather than just telling you what these reporters discovered.

In one scene from All the President's Men, Bernstein is rewriting part of one of Woodward's pieces on the scandal because he thinks Woodward needed to clarify a point. Bernstein tells him, "I don't think you're saying what you mean " Bernstein wanted Woodward to put the main point in the first paragraph rather than wait until the third paragraph, as Woodward had done. This is exactly what journalism is supposed to be about: writing drafts and rewriting Newspaper reporters have to go through many drafts before they can write a piece well enough. They need to have patience since it can be very difficult to report facts clearly. Focus is also a key part of good reporting So, this scene shows that writers do not have it easy

Another difficult job reporters have is interviewing people This is what they must do to find out information In one scene, Bernstein is talking with the bookkeeper of the Committee to Re-elect the President (also known as CRP) Bernstein keeps trying to chip away for more information by asking questions that will trace a slow path to discovering what he wants to know However, this approach still made the bookkeeper uncomfortable because she didn't want to share too much with Bernstein, since doing so could put her job in jeopardy This is another challenge of being a journalist; reporters are not going to get all the necessary information a lot of the time It could be that people just do not want to divulge all the information they know, or it could be that they think that doing so is too risky or too complicated. They might also not understand the reporter's question. The job of knocking on other people's doors to interview people is a very difficult task for the same reasons. Woodward and Bernstein were yelled at by many people in the Nixon administration whose doors they knocked on because those people were afraid to say anything negative about Nixon, even if they knew staying silent was doing the wrong thing This is how reporters can have a frustrating and discouraging time interviewing people

But Dahlberg hung up on Woodward because he was suspicious that Woodward wasn't really a Washington Post journalist So, Woodward called and started interviewing another CRP staffer instead In the meantime, Dahlberg called Woodward back on another line, and once Woodward found out, he rushed off the phone with the other person, so he could talk to Dahlberg By asking Dahlberg good questions, Woodward was able to find out that the head of finances for Nixon's re-election committee was the one who had deposited the check in the burglar's account. Furiously taking notes, Woodward then rushed off the phone so he could typewrite what he had just heard while it was fresh in his mind. This scene shows us that reporters need to be able to focus on phone calls and be able to take notes efficiently at the same time while also dealing with other distractions The fact that Woodward keeps switching between phone calls also illustrates how reporters need to contend with various tasks at the same time and the fact that in reporting everything can happen so quickly.

Reporters need to handle a lot of confusion and chaos while doing their job, too This is especially true when reporters receive information by telephone Woodward and Bernstein had to make many phone calls in the Watergate investigation

In one scene, Woodward called Kenneth Dahlberg, a staffer on Nixon's re-election committee (CRP), because Woodward had found a check for $25,000 with Dahlberg's name on it in the account of one of the Watergate burglars.

One of the most important things about journalism to take away from this film would be the effort it takes to write a newspaper article. Journalists need to get facts, confirm them, write drafts, rewrite, and check in with fellow journalists and editors before they finally get their article published These steps are especially true for journalists at the major newspapers who have to do all this under great amounts of pressure. You yourself may know to some degree what putting in this effort and being under this pressure can be like.

You may have written assignments and have experienced some difficulty and frustration in the process, no matter how easy or hard the assignment may have seemed.

The other big lesson that one can take away from the movie is about asking good questions For Woodward and Bernstein, asking good questions led them to finding out about the corruption inside the Nixon administration We always hear that asking good questions sharpens thinking, opens us up to good ideas, and leads us to find things out about the world and to expand our curiosity The film makes asking good questions seem fun and interesting and shows how good questions can make a big difference