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The Watergate Legacy

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40 years on from Watergate we ask if reporting has made Americans and journalists more mistrustful of government.

The Watergate Legacy: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

BBC World Service - The Watergate Legacy, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The reporters who were instrumental in bringing down a president

Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein discuss reporting on the Watergate scandal that exposed President Nixon's wrongdoing 40 years ago.

Modern journalism is the way it is because of the work 40 years ago of two Washington Post reporters who did most to investigate the White House under President Richard Nixon. They were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Newshour’s Owen Bennett-Jones – himself a former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton – looks at how their story, which started off covering a Washington burglary case, ended up exposing the wrongdoing of an American president. In the week running up to the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s resignation we ask whether their reporting made Americans, and journalists, more mistrustful of government and ready to believe the worst of their leaders.

Image: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, photographed in 2005. Credit: Getty

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