W. JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Media Myth Alert
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, DISTORTION, FACT-CHECKING, GETTING IT WRONG,
HISTORY, JOURNALISM, MEDIA-DRIVEN MYTHS, NIXON, WASHINGTON POST,
WATERGATE, WATERGATE TAPES
The Nixon tapes: A pivotal Watergate story that
WaPo missed
In Anniversaries, Error, Media myths, Newspapers, Scandal, Washington Post, Watergate myth on July 14, 2013
at 8:45 am
Forty years ago this week, Alexander Butterfield (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-0614/opinions/35459028_1_nixon-tapes-nixon-aide-john-dean-alexander-butterfield) told a U.S. Senate
select committee investigating the Watergate scandal
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/wapo-played-pivotal-role-in-watergate-thinkagain/) that President Richard Nixon (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/nixonquits-36-years-on/)had installed a secret audiotaping system in his offices.
Alexander P. Butter eld Testi es During the Watergate Hearings
Butterfield’s disclosure was one of the most decisive moments
(http://watergate.info/1973/07/16/butterfield-reveals-existence-of-white-house-tapes.html) in the
Watergate. It focused the scandal’s multiple investigations into a months-long pursuit of the tapes — one
of which clearly revealed Nixon’s role in attempting to cover up the crimes of Watergate. That revelation
forced his resignation in August 1974.
The disclosure of Nixon’s audiotaping system was a major story which the Washington Post
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/the-washington-post-wrecked-nixons-life-sureit-did/) — often and inaccurately credited with having “uncovered
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/both-left-right-embrace-media-myth-aboutwapo-and-watergate/)” or “broken (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/wapo-brokethe-watergate-scandal-no-way/)” the Watergate scandal — missed badly.
How the Post fumbled that story (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/no-rock-em-nosock-em-what-ails-wapo/) makes for an intriguing sidebar at the anniversary of Butterfield’s stunning
disclosure. The newspaper’s lead Watergate reporters, Bob Woodward
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/woodward-bernstein-toppled-nixon-thinkagain/) and Carl Bernstein (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/carl-bernsteindisingenuous/), described in a book about their reporting how leads about the taping system were not
pursued.
The book, All the President’s Men, says that Woodward had found out about private testimony that
Butterfield had given to staff members of the select committee and he called Ben Bradlee, the Post’s
executive editor, for guidance.
The call to Bradlee was on a Saturday night. After outlining what he knew, Woodward, according to the
book, said:
“We’ll go to work on it, if you want.”
In reply, Bradlee is quoted as saying with some slight irritation, “Well, I don’t know.”
How would you rate the prospective story? Woodward asked him.
“B-plus,” Bradlee replied.
Woodward figured a B-plus wasn’t much, according to the book.
“See what more you can find out, but I wouldn’t bust one on it,” Bradlee is quoted as instructing
Woodward.
And Woodward didn’t “bust one.”
Two days later, on July 16, 1973, Butterfield made his reluctant disclosure at a public session of the
Senate select committee.
The following day, according to All the President’s Men, Bradlee conceded that the lead about the taping
system was “more than a B-plus.”
The anecdote from All the President’s Men is suggestive of the overall minor role
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/so-it-begins-woodward-bernstein-and-excess-inrun-up-to-watergates-40th/) that the Post played in uncovering Watergate. As I point out in my mediamythbusting (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/mythbusting-at-the-smithsonian/)
book, Getting It Wrong (http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Wrong-Greatest-MisreportedJournalism/dp/0520262093/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315662496&sr=1-2), unraveling a
scandal of the dimension of Watergate “required the collective if not always the coordinated forces of
special prosecutors, federal judges, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, as well as the Justice
Department and the FBI.
“Even then, Nixon likely would have served out his term if not for the audiotape recordings he secretly
made of most conversations in the Oval Office of the White House. Only when compelled by the
Supreme Court did Nixon surrender those recordings, which captured him plotting the cover-up” of
Watergate’s signal crime, the breakin in June 1972 at the headquarters of the Democratic National
Committee.
All the President’s Men was revealing in other ways about the work and conduct of Woodward and
Bernstein (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/woodward-and-bernstein-the-onlysuperstars-newspapers-ever-produced/). Media critic Jack Shafer
(http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/), in a column
(http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2004/09/broders_blindness.2.html) in
2004, revisited a number of reporting flaws and ethical lapses
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/talking-ethics-and-the-golden-days-ofwatergate/) that Woodward and Bernstein acknowledged in their book.
It’s a roster of transgressions that is too-little remembered.
WJC (http://www.wjosephcampbell.com)
More from Media Myth Alert:
Vomit humor and scandal: Inane ‘Drunk History’ TV show promotes Watergate media myth
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/vomit-humor-and-scandal-drunk-history-tvshow-promotes-watergate-media-myth/)
Didn’t: A Watergate primer (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/didnt-a-watergateprimer/)
Inflating the exploits of WaPo’s Watergate reporters
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/2011/07/21/inflating-the-exploits-of-waposwatergate-reporters/)
Pumping up Watergate’s heroic-journalist myth
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/pumping-up-watergates-heroic-journalistmyth/)
The ‘newsroom where two reporters took down a president’? Sure it was
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/the-newsroom-where-two-reporters-tookdown-a-president-sure-it-was/)
Mythmaking in Moscow: Biden says WaPo brought down Nixon
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/mythmaking-in-moscow-biden-says-wapobrought-down-nixon/)
‘Follow the money’: A made-up Watergate line
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/follow-the-money-a-made-up-watergate-line/)
‘A debunker’s work is never done’ (https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/adebunkers-work-is-never-done/)
‘Getting It Wrong’ receives major shout-out in ‘New Yorker’
(https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/getting-it-wrong-receives-major-shout-out-innew-yorker/)
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