The Inner Woodward
The Post’s Bob Thompson devotes most of a page in today’s Style section to reading into Bob Woodward‘s new book. The article begins “It may well have been reported before, but it was certainly news to me that Bob Woodward once got so drunk he couldn’t walk” and only gets more interesting as it examines the pathology of Woodward’s personality and his career track.
The feeling inherent in Thompson’s piece–that few in the Post newsroom know Woodward–is certainly on the mark. Woodward holds such an exalted place in the 15th Street building that even in a building of marquee reporters, he is second-to-none. As such, though, there have been newsroom grumblings in recent days that Woodward isn’t giving proper due to the paper that made him a star.
This time the complaints are going a bit beyond the regular ones about Woodward’s isolation from the staff and how rarely some see the legend actually in the newsroom. As one bold-faced byline said, “He can get away with murder at the Post. He’s treats them like hired help.”
He’s played the Deep Throat so close to his chest that last week the Post got scooped even on the publication of Woodward’s book. USA Today tracked down a copy in Fairfax and a mid-afternoon article by Mark Memmott got the details. The Post then had to scramble to track down a copy itself and write a piece.
(USAT’s follow-up review today calls the book: fascinating and frustrating, revealing and disingenuous, self-critical and self-serving,” and the LAT’s Ron Brownstein snarks “If Bob Woodward were in journalism school, his professor might have handed back his new book, ‘The Secret Man,’ as incomplete.”)
At least some of the staff, it appears, would just like to feel like the paper that won the Watergate race is still in the lead somewhere. Instead it’s been playing catch-up since the story broke.
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Nadine Cheung
Editor, The Job Post
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