“Great reporting and great journalism have always been the exception to the rule,” Carl Bernstein said after a screening of All The President’s Men at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Saturday night.
The highlight of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s tribute to the life and work of Robert Redford, titled Artist & Activist and running through Wednesday, Mr. Redford spoke with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to discuss the making of the Watergate drama and its impact on the political conversation. WNYC’s Brian Lehrer moderated the discussion.
In the video above, the panel discusses how technology and the public relations industry have impacted the ability to report on corruption, and how President Nixon’s failings with Watergate compare to the atrocities – like torture and illegal wiretapping – committed during President Bush’s administration.
“Bush and Cheney cleverly used the color of law to do lots of the things they did,” offered Mr. Woodward. “So in terms of, ‘Is Dick Cheney going to be prosecuted?’ I would say there’s virtually zero chance because there were memos and there were rulings and there were briefings that said this is was legal and permissible.”
“They have all of those memos,” he continued, “Nixon never trotted out a memo saying ‘Oh, the Justice Department said it was okay to break into the Democrat headquarters.'”
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