Watergate gave journalism a boost

From 1972 to 1974, an anonymous informer known as “Deep Throat” — whom Vanity Fair magazine on Tuesday identified as former FBI second-in-command Mark Felt — helped Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward write a series of newspaper articles that played a large role in ending Richard Nixon’s presidency.

That reporting had a tangible effect on both journalism and the MU School of Journalism, the world’s oldest.

Enrollment at the Journalism School increased significantly after Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting and Nixon’s subsequent resignation, said Daryl Moen, an MU journalism professor who was executive editor of the Columbia Missourian from 1974 to 1984.

“It certainly attracted hundreds, if not thousands,” Moen said of the growth of all journalism schools in the post-Watergate era.

But Woodward and Bernstein’s work not only drew more people to the Journalism School, it also attracted a new kind of person, he said.

“People started coming here who wanted to make the world a better place, and they saw that they could do that through investigative reporting,” Moen said.

Geneva Overholser, an MU journalism professor who began working as a reporter in the early 1970s, said, “What the Washington Post reporting did was to show people that you could make a huge difference through reporting.” Overholser is now a media commentator in national forums.

Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting also showed what a reporter could achieve through hard work and perseverance, said Brant Houston, an MU journalism professor and executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a national organization based at MU.

“It was inspirational to a whole generation of journalists, even reporters at the local level,” Houston said.

The Watergate reporting also led several journalism schools to create courses in investigative reporting or to expand the courses they already had, Moen said.

Nixon’s resignation, following Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting, led to a less clandestine executive branch, said Charles Davis, an MU journalism professor and director of the national Freedom of Information Coalition, based at MU.

But the effect of Woodward and Bernstein’s work wasn’t entirely positive, Overholser said.

“I think Watergate gave too many people the idea that the only worthwhile journalism is journalism that topples the powerful,” she said. “I think it contributed to a spirit of ‘gotcha’ journalism and some cynicism in political reporting.”

She said the Watergate reporting was problematic because it led to greater use of anonymous sources.

“Anonymous sources are absolutely essential,” Overholser said. “But we need to guard against their overuse.”

Moen said he looks back on the time directly after Nixon’s resignation as one of optimism and excitement for journalists, an optimism he thinks has faded.

“(Journalism) stopped attracting the kind of people who wanted to save the world,” he said. “To many, it became more of a job than a calling.”

Moen also said the rise of media conglomerates in recent years has led to a decline in investigative reporting, with some of the companies that own news organizations minimizing or even avoiding investigative reporting because they don’t want to upset people.

But Davis said he still sees much of the idealism that grew out of the aftermath of Woodward and Bernstein’s work.

“I still see a lot of that optimism, no doubt about it,” he said.

A portion of this report first aired Tuesday during the “ABC 17 News at 10.”