Ep. 34: Watergate Journalism's Bitter Harvest

Prior episodes have shown that the Nixon Presidency, churlishly cynical though it may have been, was the victim of deceitful journalism by the Washington Post which cast it far more villainously than deserved.

Was the harm of this journalism limited to this particular epoch? Unfortunately, no. This episode will show but a few examples of how this greatly ballyhooed style of “investigative” journalism caused far more harm than partisan electoral advantage. In its effort to prosecute a target, such journalism must by its very nature conceal and distort, which, when applied to matters of national security, can endanger us all, either by excessive manacles placed on our intelligence agencies, enabling terrorist attack, or, at the other extreme, allowing these same agencies carte blanche skullduggery when they are pursuing a partisan domestic target to the benefit of a foreign adversary.  In short, for decades American society has been reaping Watergate journalism’s bitter harvest.

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