Woodward Shares Wisdom with MCLA Students
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No, not Watergate, that would come later. This was a story guaranteed to command attention and spark water-cooler talk across the nation's capital — dirty restaurants.
"I had a human source in the Health Department who would give me the health reports on all the big famous restaurants in Washington," he said. "And whether they passed the health inspection. It turned out all the best, most expensive restaurants had the most unsanitary kitchens."
Then his source told him about a well-known hotel coffee shop that had the lowest score ever in Washington's history. Woodward promptly wrote up the story and handed it in early to get some feedback from his city editor.
The editor liked it; thought it was front page. Then he asked if Woodward had been to coffee shop. No, he hadn't. He was told he'd better get over there.
And it turned out to be a good thing he did. The coffee shop was in a different hotel than he'd thought.
He had the documentation (health reports) and a human source (the inspector). What he didn't have was firsthand experience.
"I was flat wrong," he said, speculating what would have happened if it made the Post's front page with such an error. "There would have been no Watergate story for one."
It's important to get that firsthand experience, said Woodward. "What's the source you trust more than anyone else?"
It was a question he posed to a roomful of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts students and faculty on Tuesday afternoon: Where do you go for information?
The students easily answered documents — books, newspapers, television, etc. — and talking to people; only one, a copy editor at the college's paper, The Beacon, answered the third: Experience it for yourself.
"Give him an A," said Woodward to professor Robert Bence. "Because I've talked to a thousand people at Harvard and no one came up with that answer."
That was the first passing grade the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist handed out as he quizzed the students on a range of topics.
The investigative reporter has chronicled some of the major political events and figures of the past 35 years, including his expose of scandals in the Nixon administration with fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein; the troubled, short life of comedian John Belushi, President Clinton's White House and four books on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.His talk with the students, and a public lecture that evening, was the first speaking event for the college's new political science and public policy major.
Interacting with both students and Bence, a political science professor, Woodward discussed a range of issues — from basic reporting to how many questions can you ask a president (500 for his last sit-down with President Bush).
Woodward had told him his talk would be a learning experience, said Bence, but he didn't expect himself to be part of it.
Woodward, however, called on the professor a number of times for his opinion or to comment on something a student said.
"What's the responsibility of a journalist? ... To report both sides or three sides or nine sides as factual as you can, not just people's opinion," he said, turning to Bence. "Did you notice that now more and more news stories quote professors? ... what do you think of that?"
"I think professors have learned to give sound bites," responded Bence. "... I suppose it's a shortcut to superficial objectivity."
Woodward said objectivity from an expert was valuable, if the person had done original work along that line. He added he was careful to say when he didn't have that kind of knowledge.
But most students weren't interested in Woodward's Watergate past or his take on future President Obama. It was his books and interviews with the outgoing administration that engaged them.
"Why would George Bush speak to you?" asked one student. "I find it fascinating and incredible."
Woodward has written four books on Bush and Iraq; Bush refused interviews only for the third, "State of Denial," published in 2006. Woodward thought it might be they figured he knew a lot already so it wouldn't matter speaking with him.
It was for the fourth one, "The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008," published in September, that Bush answered 500 questions over a total period of 3 1/2 hours.
Some answers Woodward found disturbing, primarily the president's failure to be involved with decisions that put more troops into Iraq. "I don't know that. You'll be happy to hear I'm not at those meetings," Woodward said the president told him. "I felt sick inside, I was not happy to hear he was not at those meetings."
Indeed, he said, the president seemed disconnected not only from staff making significant decisions but from Cabinet officials and close advisers. Commanders and chief executives need to be involved in decision making, he said, and it was an issue he planned to expand upon at his evening lecture.
There was a lack of aggressive questioning not only in within the White House but within the Congress and the media as well, said Woodward.
A show of hands found his audience pretty evenly split on the whether the press had some responsibility for the war in Iraq.
Woodward wondered what would have happened if he had gone into Iraq to get that all-important firsthand experience as the war drums were beating: "I should have been more aggressive."
"There's a lesson even at my age — be aggressive, be skeptical," Woodward encouraged his audience.
