Alicia Shepard’s Woodstein Book
Author Alicia C. Shepard has penned a book — “Woodward & Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate” — and “was the first to extensively use the 75 boxes of their recently donated Watergate-era papers at the University of Texas in a chronology of both their personal lives and careers.” (Shepard profiled the two for The Washingtonian magazine in 2003)
But the book looks to be one of the first less than glowing portrayals of the journalism rockstars.
According to this E&P article, “Negatives range from criticism of Woodward for allegedly putting his books ahead of Washington Post scoops to what she calls Bernstein’s ‘sporadic’ career. The book comes with a blurb from Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff calling it ‘the definitive account of the lives of two men who changed journalism forever.’” Shepard also looks into Woodward and Bernstein’s personal lives and divorces, Bernstein’s rough post-Watergate career and Woodward’s “failures in the infamous Janet Cooke episode at the Post, and the problematic nature of his reliance on anonymous sources.”
Neither Woodward or Bernstein cooperated with Shepard on the book. But, “In her acknowledgments, Shepard thanks, among others, Washington Post veterans Ben Bradlee, Leonard Downie, Jr., Geneva Overholser, Harry Rosenfeld, David Von Drehle, Richard Cohen, and Sally Quinn (not to mention Redford and Dustin Hoffman).”
With that list of potential book supporters and the support of Isikoff, is this book proving that there’s some clear tension between Washington’s A-list reporters and Woodstein? Are they a bit eager to see them roughed up just slightly?
FishbowlDC also hears that the book reveals, initially, that Post editors expressed some interest in taking Bernstein off the Watergate story because his expense reports had been less than tidy.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online 
Nadine Cheung
Editor, The Job Post
FishbowlDC Twitter feed loading...
