Woodward & Bernstein: We're Not Fake News
Channel: Jany Home
Date: 30/04/2017

Woodward & Bernstein: We're Not Fake News

Shortly after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Bob and I were asked a long question about reporting. We answered with a short phrase we’ve used many times since to describe our reporting on Watergate and its purpose and methodology: we called it the best obtainable version of the truth.
The best obtainable version of the truth.
It’s a simple concept, yet something very difficult to get right because of the enormous amount of effort, thinking, persistence, pushback, logical baggage and, for sure, luck that is required, not to mention some unnatural humility.
Underlying everything reporters do in pursuit of the best obtainable version of the truth, whatever our beat or assignment, is the question “what is news?” What is it that we believe is important, relevant, hidden, perhaps, or even in plain sight and ignored by conventional journalistic wisdom or governmental wisdom?
I’d say this question of “what is news” becomes even more relevant and essential if we are covering the president of the United States. Richard Nixon tried to make the conduct of the press the issue in Watergate, instead of the conduct of the president and his men. We tried to avoid the noise and let the reporting speak.