Several newspapers have written up a recent talk made by the reporters who broke the Watergate story - Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward - that included a discussion about whether reporters in the age of the internet would have been able to break the Watergate scandal as they did years back.
They note that students today seem to over-estimate what is on the internet:
The truth of what goes on is not on the Internet. [The Internet] can
supplement. It can help advance. But the truth resides with people.
Human sources.”
And that the resources they had available that allowed for the investigation do not exist any more:
Woodward and Bernstein’s main point was evocative of a previous,
plentiful era: Editors gave them the time and encouragement to pursue an
intricate, elusive story, they said, and then the rest of the American
system (Congress, the judiciary) took over and worked. It was a shining
act of democratic teamwork that neither man believes is wholly
replicable today — either because news outlets are strapped or gutted,
or because the American people have a reduced appetite for ponderous
coverage of a not-yet-scandal, or because the current Congress would
never act as decisively to investigate a president.
And they mention the negative impact of the 24 hour news cycle and the use of news sources to confirm deeply held opinions rather than obtain objective analysis:
“We had a readership that was much more open to real fact than today,”
Bernstein said. “Today there’s a huge audience, partly whipped into
shape by the 24-hour cycle, that is looking for information to confirm
their already-held political-cultural-religious beliefs/ideologies, and
that is the cauldron into which all information is put. . . . I
have no doubt there are dozens of great reporters out there today — and
news organizations — that could do this story. What I don’t think is
that it would withstand this cultural reception. It might get ground up
in the process.”
Of course they might just be a couple of grumpy old guys.
