Famed investigative journalist Bob Woodward waded into the fray Tuesday. In remarks made following a screening of “All the President’s Men” in Washington, D.C., Woodward criticized the media’s open bias toward President Trump.
One of two then-Washington Post reporters who broke the Nixon Watergate scandal (which the media now love to compare with the Trump administration’s “malfeasance,” whatever that might be) said it’s crucial that the press retain the trust of the public and execute a deep “fair-mindedness” when reporting.
Upon being asked about the media’s treatment of Trump, Woodward pointed to a list of Trump’s “lies” compiled by The New York Times , most which he dismissed as distortions reeking overt bias toward the president.
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“[Number three on the list] was that Trump said he was on the cover of Time magazine 14 or 15 times when it was in fact 11 times,” Woodward said. “That’s not a lie.” He likened Trump’s statement instead to someone getting pulled over for speeding and telling the traffic cop that they were driving the speed limit.
“Tone matters, and headlines matter, and you want people to [trust you],” he said.
“[It] really betrays the anti-Trump media bias,” Woodward added, regarding the media’s coverage of the investigation into Russian meddling in the election. “I think a kind of brief, deep fair-mindedness is essential, but as essential or maybe more essential is a game plan for reporting this and going to Moscow and finding ‘the bookkeeper.’”
The reference to “the bookkeeper” was a nod to a key source for Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Watergate coverage.
Woodward has been a consistent voice for journalism in recent months, calling the Buzzfeed dossier “a garbage document” and saying that the Comey investigation was “not yet Watergate,” contradicting frequent mainstream claims.
His comments come in the wake of a heated debate about whether the American people should trust the mainstream media. A Gallup poll released Monday found that Americans’ trust in newspapers is rising at 27%, but is still very low compared to confidence in other institutions, such as the military at 72% and small business at 70%.
This report, by Andrea Vacchiano, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
