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(upbeat music) - And now, Crosscut Festival Main Stage, featuring a selection of curated sessions from this year's Crosscut Festival.

Thank you for joining us for Breaking News with Carl Bernstein, moderated by Matthew Powers.

Before we begin, we'd like to thank our Power and Policy Track sponsor, Amazon.

We'd also like to thank our founding sponsor, the Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation.

- Hello, and welcome to The Crosscut Festival.

I'm Matthew Powers, associate professor at the University of Washington, where I teach classes in the Department of Communication, and co-direct the Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy.

Today, I'm honored to have the opportunity to have a conversation with Carl Bernstein, a legendary journalist best known for his Watergate reporting that led to the resignation of president Nixon and set the standard for investigative reporting.

Carl is also the author of Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, which chronicles his earliest days in journalism at The Washington Star from 1960 to 1965.

Carl Bernstein, welcome and thank you for joining me today.

- Good to be with you.

- So, you've had an incredibly storied career in journalism that spans decades.

So, why did you choose to focus on your first five years in the profession for this book?

- Well, first let me say a little bit more about what the book is.

It's about this kid who at age 16, has one foot in the juvenile court, one foot at the pool hall, and maybe a toe or two in the classroom.

And is lucky enough, talk about luck, to basically, get the best seat in the country at age 16.

To go to work for what's really the best afternoon paper in America, in the nation's capital, and to have these extraordinary opportunities over the next five years, to learn to be a reporter, to learn the newspaper trade, to understand the makings of politics in the capital of the United States.

To come to all sorts of understandings about the notion of the truth.

And so everything I know really about journalism and about reporting has its roots in this extraordinary period of my life, taught by the greatest reporters of their time.

And, so, I've always wanted to write about it because also, it's the most joyous period of my life, if you can imagine such a thing.

It's a kind of unadulterated joy, there's pain in it from certain things that happened along the way, where I'd get tripped up, or personally, in my life, something would happen, but it's an extraordinary experience.

And then, the book never has the word Watergate in it.

It's not written by the old man looking back, it's written in the voice of really this kid around the age of 20 or 21 telling this story.

And, but then when I had written a draft of it, I began to see, oh, this is almost a prequel to All the President's Men, the two fit together inextricably.

Because, and there's a quote from Bob Woodward on the back of the book.

And I won't go into the, where he goes overboard and extolling, (Carl chuckles) me, a little too generous, I'd say, but Woodward says, he talks about my, teaching myself or being taught the genius of perpetual engagement that led us to Watergate.

Watching, looking, questioning, and overwhelming the moment.

His rules go anywhere, listen hard, push and push some more are to this day, the touchstone in investigative reporting.

And we can talk a little bit about that because yes, I brought that to The Washington Post when I went to work there, in 1966, but at the same time in Watergate, you can see all kinds of things that we did that have their roots in this book and what I learned at The Star.

- What are you thinking of in terms of some of the stuff that's in there?

- Well, first thing, the basics that Bob talks about there.

About going out of the office and knocking on doors.

I mean, this was not a place where reporting consisted of getting on the telephone and make a couple calls and write your story.

And there's no internet, of course.

So, you have to do things long hand as it were.

But really also the so-called two source rule that we had, in Watergate, where if the information was significant, we had to have it from at least two sources.

We had that at The Star.

It wasn't called the two source rule, but you had to have multiple sources to make sure the story was pinned down.

The whole notion, Bob and I talk a lot about the best obtainable version of the truth, the idea, that's really the fundament of what good reporting is, the best obtainable version of the truth.

It comes from a phrase and we use it, you know, we've used it for 50 years now, comes from a phrase that we had at The Star about the context of the truth and the idea that it's not just a bunch of facts strung together, but there's a contextual element to the best obtainable version of the truth.

There's a point in this book where I say, because it comes from covering civil rights at a very young age, and lynchings, literally, and there comes a point where I say, I learned from these great southern reporters who were covering civil rights, southerners themselves.

The truth is not neutral.

And I believe that, and I think that was true in Watergate, also.

Fairness is one thing, but the truth itself, you take the story, Bob and I wrote, it finally made some sense out of this break-in, not as an isolated event in 1972, but then we were able to write a few months after the break-in that it was part of a vast campaign of political espionage and sabotage run from the White House.

That's not neutral.

At all.

That is a statement of what the contextual truth is, but it's anything but neutrality.

And in fact, in their so-called denial about that story, we didn't give the denial half the story, 50,50 down the middle, we gave the denial what it ought to be in context, a few paragraphs, a chance for them to respond, but not to propagate a whole series of their misstatements and lies.

- So, one of the things that really stuck out to me as I was reading the book, is that not only was it very, very meaningful to you as a youngster, getting into journalism, but it was also extremely fun, right?

It's just there throughout the book.

And I was asking myself, as I was reading it, is journalism still that fun for someone that age?

- Look, I'm 78 years old, Woodward's 79.

I think each of us still have some of that joy.

When you get onto the story, you're in another zone.

Reporters love good stories and love to get to the truth of things, if they're any good.

And so, and yes, I think the joy is still there in the profession, but I think it's a very different profession in many regards.

And it needn't be as different as it is because the basic, this is a book, as is All the President's Men, All the President's Men, and you see it in the movie, perhaps even more clearly than you do in the book, it's a primer on reporting.

Neither is about our personal lives and who we are going deep into our characters, or whatever.

It's about, both of them, are about what's the process here?

What's the methodology?

How do you get the story?

What are the rules?

Et cetera.

And so, the joy is in that.

And I think that's when kids are really doing what they need to be doing.

I can't imagine they don't feel that joy.

- Now, you're known, obviously, best known for Watergate, but you're also the author of multiple books and numerous long form investigations.

So, I'm curious, what's the work, besides Watergate, that you're most proud of at this point in your career?

- I tell you one of the amazing thing, this book has caused me, and I don't wanna sound grandiose here, has caused me to look at my life differently.

There's a continuum over these 62 years, since I went to go work at The Star.

And it all is of a piece.

As is my life, maybe, you know, I didn't understand that until now, but I don't think it came together until this book.

It's a book end.

Yes, it is.

And, what's the constant through there and in my life as well, you know, you fall down along the way, but I now see it as a whole, and that includes books, you know, a biography of Pope John Paul II and his remarkable role in the history of the 20th century and the defeat of communism.

He's a pivotal, a pivotal figure with Ronald Reagan, that tale, in that book from all of this deep reporting that I, and Marco Politi, my co-author did on that book.

The memoir of my, this is really, a third memoir.

If you looked at All the President's Men as a memoir, it really isn't.

And then I wrote, you know, the next thing, then we did The Final Days, which is a kind of long form reporting.

It really was different than what came before.

And after that, I did a memoir about my family's experience and my experience in the family, growing up in a left wing family, and during the height of the witch hunts, the McCarthyist witch hunts in America, which very much affected my parents and my growing up.

I did a biography of Hillary Clinton.

Read that book now.

And, You know, I think it provides some real understanding about her that even now, becomes more powerful in some ways.

And also, I think in retrospect, those books give us some historical perspective that may not have been quite so apparent at the time.

Particularly, for instance, the relationship between Reagan and the pope.

- Right.

So, I'm curious about the question of impact, because your work has set the standard for modern investigative reporting.

And, you know, the idea, not just that journalists can take on power, but if done right under the right conditions, that it might even take down power.

So I'm curious, what's your sense of like, what impact should investigative reporting, investigative journalism aim for?

- First of all, I get a little wary in terms of looking at, quote, investigative journalism as a kind of pseudoscience that's apart from the body of other reporting.

Again, it seems to me that all good reporting is the best obtainable version of the truth.

And, let me say one other thing, and you see it here in this book, what I learn.

What's the most important thing a reporter or a news organization does?

It's to decide what is news.

Everything is predicated on that.

You can't get to the best obtainable version of the truth until you've decided what is news.

So in Watergate, we decided the news at The Washington Post, was his break-in.

The other news organizations didn't think it was news.

For about three, four months, generally.

In Chasing History, you watch these decisions about what is news.

You watch the kid, learning how to handle events and put them together in terms of what is news.

And so, if you go back to your question about impact, I don't think the object of any kind of reporting ought to be impact.

The impact comes coincidentally and because of the work.

Look at Watergate.

I thought the first few days, this story was gonna go to the CIA, not to the White House.

The preconceived notion, you have to have some picture of where you're going, but then, you go out, as you see the kid doing here, and he becomes just amazed at what he's finding out.

That gets back to the joy of it, as well.

But also, how is it that we have impact?

We have impact because we do this through this methodology.

And it doesn't matter if you're covering sports, or city hall, or business, it's the same deal.

At the be beginning of this book, first of all, you know, I see a newsroom for the first time.

I hear the ching and clatter of the typewriters right after I've interviewed for a job at The Star and, the guy who's gonna hire me eventually walks me down the middle of aisle where all the reporters' desks are.

And, he pulls a paper.

The presses are going underneath me and I can feel the rumble with the presses, and a copy boy with papers stacked up in a little wagon comes by.

And this guy I'm with pulls off one of the papers, hands it to me, it's still warm from coming right off the press.

And I knew at that moment, I say it here, I knew I wanted to be a newspaper man.

And, the copy boy took me down that same aisle.

And he wanted to show me how the place worked, and who worked there.

And there were three desks with no one sitting there, and he took me to each one, but at first, he addressed me as if these three desks were almost a unit.

And, not coincidentally, all three desks were those of women reporters.

Three Pulitzer winners.

The first desk was that of Mary Lou Werner, who became a great mentor to me.

She had won the Pulitzer the previous year for her coverage of massive resistance to integration of schools in Virginia.

The second, was another Pulitzer winner, Miriam Ottenberg, who had been the first real reporter in the newsroom, woman reporter, when she went to work there in 1939.

She had won the Pulitzer that year, that I went to work there, for she was an investigative reporter, for a series about used car, you know, scams, all kinds of ways of cheating people.

A great, great series that she had written.

And the third woman whose desk he showed me was Mary McGrory.

Probably the greatest pro-stylist in Washington, in Washington, the second part of the 20th century and into the 21st, when she went to work at The Washington Post.

So, that's what you see in this book and you see the learning and you see the joy of the experience.

- What's the thing people get wrong the most, that the public misunderstands or misremembers about Watergate?

- I think, first of all, I think the public is a very tricky phrase.

Because we have a different culture that we had at the time of Watergate.

Including, and I think one of the things we do worse in journalism is, and it helps both explain some of the polarization, as well as, how we've missed the big story over the last 20, 25 years.

And that is the change in the culture of our country.

And we look at journalism, politics as apart from this larger culture.

It's a big, big mistake.

I can't put a metric on this, but the number of people, today, who are looking for the best obtainable version of the truth in what they read and see and in news, is infinitely smaller than it was at the time of Watergate.

So, what do I see is the biggest difference?

It's that.

That people are looking for news and information that fits and buttresses their already held political, religious, ideological beliefs instead of being open to the best obtainable version of the truth.

So, the difference in perception of Watergate, then and now, is that most people in the country unquestionably were open to the best obtainable version of truth, including, the leadership of the Republican party, the Republican party in Congress, people who voted Republican understood that Nixon was a criminal president and had to be removed from office.

The final shove that made him resign, Barry Goldwater, the great conservative 1964 nominee of his party for president of the United States.

He went with a group of Republican leaders, see it in The Final Days, where we found out about this, went to the White House and they sat around with Nixon and Nixon was sitting there thinking, well, how many votes do I have in the Senate to not be convicted?

Goldwater looks at him and said, Mr. President, right now you might have four and you don't have mine.

That was the end of it.

Imagine, had Mitch McConnell done that, that would've been the end of Donald Trump.

And, so another difference is we now have a craven Republican party, enthralled, and afraid of the first seditious president in the history of the United States, and make no mistake, look at what we've learned about January 6th and that investigation, in The House, they've got the goods, they have it.

And, so we are getting and have the best obtainable version of the truth about, not just what happened January 6th, not just about, and what is sedition?

It's about promoting insurrection against the government.

Trump staged a coup.

The only seditious president we've ever had in this country was Jefferson Davis, and he was the president of the Confederacy.

Never, despite all the awful things presidents have done, including Nixon, nothing like this, nothing like a seditious president.

So, the difference in Watergate and the public perception, to go back to your question.

The mistake now is, there are too many people now who believe that Watergate was some kind of left wing plot against Nixon, not too many, but more than at the time.

I think, I think there is a real recognition that has stayed, because partly of the journalism that was done on Nixon, not just ours and the report of the Watergate committee, and the fact that Republicans did this, that Nixon was a criminal president.

Unlike any other until this.

- Yeah.

You're talking a lot about things that are kind of worrisome about the present.

I wonder what's most exciting to you about the state of journalism today?

- I think that there is an awareness in journalism today, all over the world.

That democracy is in trouble.

And that gradually, news organizations in countries all over the world, including this one where democracy is in trouble, we're in the midst of something unthinkable, a ground war in Europe, by one of the two nuclear, or one of the nuclear superpowers.

A genocidal war in Europe begun.

By, let's not even characterize his psychological state, Putin, and what his objectives are.

That's part look, we were gonna have, we won the cold war, supposedly, and we were gonna have this great peace dividend.

And there was gonna be democracy was gonna triumph.

And we, our triumphalism was perhaps part of the problem and democracy was gonna spread its wings like a Eagle and, come to countries all over the globe.

What happened?

The pendulum has swung the other way.

Even in Europe, even in this country, we have one of our two parties that no longer is wedded to democratic ideals, a party that doesn't want people, certain people to vote in this country and tries to suppress the right to vote.

The most basic element of a democracy.

Look at what's happening in the French election, no matter who wins.

A neofascist, that's putting it mildly, candidate who has captured the imagination of French people.

Look at the government in Hungary, look at Myanmar, look all over the world, look at the Arab Spring, which lasted not even till fall.

So, the pendulum has swung against democracy.

And so, you have great and brave reporters, even in Russia where they've been killed.

To me, the hopeful thing is that more and more, and in this country and other countries, there is a recognition.

Poland, which right now has stood with the West against this genocidal butcher, but, look where Poland was going and where its leaders and its president have been.

Not toward democracy, the opposite.

So, I think this is the great story of our time and that it's becoming understood.

What is news?

Back to what I started this with.

Now, that's one of the things I'm encouraged by.

And I think I'm encouraged by new kinds of news entities, nonprofits, like ProPublica, all over, again, all over the world.

The Panama Papers, that not traditional news organizations that are producing great, great work.

And obviously economically, it's been a disastrous period, for traditional news organizations.

Those that put out newspapers and magazines.

It certainly has not been a disaster for television networks, and cable, et cetera, et cetera.

But no, I think, though, at the same time, that fake news, real fake news, such as practiced by, by Fox news, and other, quote, news organizations.

So, I think there's a lot of room to be discouraged as well as some really bright spots.

And, we still have really great reporting done by The New York Times, The Washington Post.

A good number of news organizations.

CNN, do some really, really great reporting day in, day out.

- Well looking at the clock, unfortunately, Carl, I think we're out of time.

It's been fascinating talking with you today, and I appreciate you joining us at The Crosscut Festival this year.

- Well, it's gonna be fun.

And I hope, you know, people read this book and have fun with it, as well as I think it helps explain some of the things you've been asking about, well, how did we get from here to there?

And you see the link of what was happening historically and in the life of this, this kid, who got himself, because of these wonderful people, out of the pool hall and out of the juvenile court.

- Thank you to all at home for are joining us at The Crosscut Festival.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy some of the other fantastic sessions.

You can go to crosscut.com/festival to see all the incredible speakers and sessions.

For now, have a great night, everybody.

(uplifting music)