BOB WOODWARD: We pour garbage on people.
ANNOUNCER: And the press knows it.
ANDREA MITCHELL: I think we are really unpopular.
FRONTLINE Show #1503
Air Date: October 22, 1996
"Why America Hates the Press"
The focus of this piece is Bob Woodward but when Andrea Mitchell tells the truth, it is NEWS so we had to include it.
So aging golden boy Woody's argued that some of the criticsm directed his way of late results from the press' natural tendency to tear someone down in order to build them back up. Woody's arguing that the press needs "a story" and will create one when it has to.
We don't disagree. Nor do we think it's a terribly new point that Woody's making. Carly Simon made many similar comments in the eighties. Joni Mitchell's also made similar comments going back to the seventies.
But there are two issues that come to mind.
First, does Woody think he is an "artist." We thought he pushed the fantasy that he was a reporter.
Second, when a Carly Simon or Joni Mitchell makes those comments, they're talking about how their latest release is being trashed. "Torn down to build them up later on because otherwise the press has no story" is the argument.
Woody doesn't record, so exactly what "product" does he believe is being trashed?
There's no new book.
Does Woody think he is the product?
We wouldn't be surprised.
But while we can agree that the Woody's comments are sometimes true, we're having a hard time seeing how they apply to Woody.
He is news now. Something he always wants to be.
But he's news not because of anything he did but for failing to a) tell the public that he was informed Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative while publicly weighing in with his opinions on the investigation headed by Patrick Fitzgerald and b) failing to inform his editor that he had knowledge of the Plame leak.
It's frequently amusing to watch Woody attempt to defend himself.
His comments reveal more than he means to.
For instance his most recent Larry King Live appearance, how long did it take him to plug his upcoming book?
It was in his third response:
I'm working on a book, "Bush's Second Term." I'm trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. There are things I know that I'm just not going to talk about involving that research.
Not "I'm working on a new book." No, "I'm working on a book" plug title "Bush's Second Term."
Ladies and gentlemen, the aging starlet, Bob Woodward. Jacqueline Susann could not have plugged so shamelessly.
It just got better.
According to Woody:
Then, the day of the indictment I read the charges against Libby and looked at the press conference by the special counsel and he said the first disclosure of all of this was on June 23rd, 2003 by Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff to "New York Times" reporter Judy Miller.I went, whoa, because I knew I had learned about this in mid- June, a week, ten days before, so then I say something is up. There's a piece that the special counsel does not have in all of this.
I then went into incredibly aggressive reporting mode and called the source the beginning of the next week and said "Do you realize when we talked about this and exactly what was said?" And the source in this case at this moment, it's a very interesting moment in all of this, said "I have to go to the prosecutor. I have to go to the prosecutor. I have to tell the truth."
And so, I realized I was going to be dragged into this that I was the catalyst and then I asked the source "If you go to the prosecutor am I released to testify" and the source told me yes. So it is the reporting process that set all this in motion.
"Agressive reporting mode"? "Incredibly" or not, we're not seeing it. Agressive reporting mode isn't calling the leak and saying, "We spoke of this!" We're not seeing anything in Woody's narrative indicating he's going to write about it. It reads like Woody's attempt to shoot the breeze. Or possibly to make sure both parties were on the same page. Obviously, they weren't. The source goes to the prosectuion and Woody's disappointment over that development can be inferred from his statement "I realized I was going to be dragged into this . . . "
We chuckled over his talk of his "news juices." We laughed most of all at this:
WOODWARD: It may be but I pressed that source as much as you can and I'm not going to -- if you remember back into Watergate and Mark Felt, the number two in the FBI who was the source "Deep Throat" we kept that secret for 33 years because the source insisted upon it.
Woody's speaking of his "source" for a report he never wrote. He's speaking of the person who leaked on Valerie Plame to him.
Watergate, Woody and Carl Bernstein wrote about. (Woody likes to trot out Carl more these days to hide behind but he's still eager to claim credit for himself.) Mark Felt was kept a secret because he could be retaliated against.
Woody's leak (not source) has informed his superiors of the conversation with Woody. Woody has informed the prosecuters. The only ones who haven't been informed are the public. Woody's seeing commonalities where there are none.
He's also offering a shifting rationale. In the same Larry King interview, he claims initially that it hit him when Scooter Libby was indicted that he had another piece of the story -- one that wasn't known. (Apparently from offhand gossip if his earlier claims are to be believed.) So he picked up the phone to call his leak. But at the end of the King interview, Woody says this:
I made efforts to get the source, this year, earlier, and last year, to give me some information about this so I could put something in the newspaper or a book. So, I could get information out, and totally failed.
This year? Earlier? And in 2004?
When did Woody realize what he knew?
The issue's pressing to him, in some of his accounts, when he learns the date of Judith Miller & Scooter Libby's conversation. In others, he's been trying to get this story out "in the newspaper or a book" as far back as 2004. Since Woody lives by his anonymous, official sources, we're failing to see what "information" he was waiting to be given before writing about it.
But is anyone going to call Woody on the contradictions in his remarks on King's show? Commenting on his minimizing of the investigation on an earlier King telecast (October 27, 2005), Woody states:
At that point and on your show I didn't know what that meant at all because it was such a casual offhand remark.
"I didn't know what all this meant." While claiming, in the same broadcast, that he made efforts earlier this year and in 2004 to press the leak on this matter?
There are a number of journalistic issues that Woody's behavior raises. It's too bad a journalistic watchdog refuses to hunt. Instead of barking, it's preferred to sniff around the old pile of crap that is Judith Miller's career. It's certainly safer. It doesn't even upset The New York Times because the paper doesn't care if Miller's beat up on for her public statements. It's not as though the watchdog's going through Miller's past reporting for the paper. They're just grabbing the stick and hitting the pinata one more time. Pity they're so silent on Bob Woodward.