All The President's Men

The book I chose to read for this assignment was All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The book was about the biographical accounts of two Washington Post reporters and of how their investigative journalism played a major role in solving one of the largest political scandals in American history. Me being a history buff was happy that the book was on the list of selective readings that we could choose for this assignment and before even reading a page was most certain that I would enjoy the book. I knew some about Watergate already and was eager to jump on the chance to learn more about it, especially from the two people who played the major role of bring the whole scandal to the surface. I had seen the movie before and had known from past experiences that movies leave out so much information when they are based on a book so I knew that I would be getting the full detail in account from the authors that I missed out on before. I am not the type who enjoys reading and it always ends up being a hard struggle for me to get through an entire book, but this book ended up not being like pulling teeth for me. Reading the book ended up being the exact opposite, enjoying it so much that it was hard to put down, not only because of the fact that I was fascinated with the information being provided, but also in the direct way that it was presented.

On June 17, 1972, where the book starts, is on the day after five burglars had been caught breaking in to the National Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. The book from there tells how Bernstein and Woodward try to gain knowledge on the truth of the purposes for the break-in, which then lead to other findings of political espionage and sabotage of Democratic functions by the Nixon administration. It gives the first hand account of how the reporters struggled to get information because of how big the cover-up was because of witnesses refusing to talk, and for the ones who did, were very cautious as to not give too much information. Their most famous source, "Deep Throat," was an anonymous source whose name was never given in the stories; much like many who went on the record that was interviewed by the two, was an acquaintance of Woodward who gave Woodward many valuable leads and confirmations to leads they had gotten else where. The reporters were very effective in their investigation, leaving no stone unturned and most of the time wrote very informative, groundbreaking stories. At times the reporters broke rules for doing certain things that were not abiding by rules of journalism which they acknowledged in the book and broke federal laws trying to retain information which almost put them in jail. They also wrote a story with false information in it and had a miscommunication with a couple of their sources which put the Washington Post and both of the writer's careers in a huge bind. The Washington Post was also subject to scrutiny from White House personnel and Republican officials because they felt that they were practicing bias and unethical journalism for writing stories that were untrue and misleading about the things the reporters uncovered. The work the reporters did was a main cause in the aftermath of Watergate, which lead to the president's men being accused of wrong doings in the two reporters stories, pleading guilty to a grand jury and the resignation of the President, Richard Nixon, who himself approved the efforts of espionage and sabotage.

The book was written in a very effective way for many reasons. Instead of writing the book in the first person, which would be the most common way to do so with the authors informing their audience strictly based on personal experiences, the two authors wrote the book in the third person. This proved to be very effective because of the fact that it told the story better and gave a better perception as to what was going on in the book. If the authors' flip-flopped taking turns writing the book, each taking different sections, and the audience would not understand what was going on with the other reporter; how he viewed the