is how much of that process was based on the fact that most cities, certainly washington, not a monopoly in terms of a news monopoly, but that the news business t newspaper business was basically characterized by geographical monopolies or duopolies. >> it wasn't at the time. we had huge competition from the washington star and "the new york times" in watergate. >> but still in terms of -- >> i remember talking with don graham's mother catherine, it was 1977, 1978, a number of years after watergate. she said oh, we had a really good business year, we made you know, millions of dollars and so forth. and i said well, i thought it was a pretty good news year too. and she said that doesn't make any difference.

and i remember going to ben and crying and said what do you mean, what are we doing this for? she said it doesn't make any difference. what she meant is they had a monopoly, that if there were lots of good stories in the paper, you really wouldn't sell more newspapers or more advertising. but what she said and what she did and what don does and what the current leadership at the post does, says we're going to spend the money on having a news organization, reporters and editors, that will go the extra mile. >> how is that different? >> i guess my point is, i think it functions both on the editorial and the business side. so many of the things we're talking about here, i mean the fact that, you talked before about you know, how many reporters are you know, on the investigative squad. well, these all go back to you know, no secret to anybody here,

loss of classified ads, the disaggregation of news and advertising used to be toward news, i think it's very similar on the editorial side. it goes to the different kinds of competition, the fact that other mediums can kind of play into to what used to be kind of print space. i think a lot of these things, to me that's the most interesting perspective to see this through. is the way that the practice of journalism has been changed by the destruction of those monopolies. it's a vast influence. >> do you think, i'd like to ask both of you, whether you think it's possible that the institutional change that we've seen, that the diet before the internet of sensational, manufactured controversy, the

coarse, the vulgar for lack, and i'm hardly you know, a prude. that the change in what we put on the air and into our papers before the web, that there is, i think perhaps there was already a huge shift underway towards -- i did a piece called the triumph of idiot culture in 1990 i think for the new republic about some of this. and the influence of murdoch, that the diet that most media outlets in america started putting out had changed before the internet. and there was -- despite all of this talk about with everybody going to journalism school and imitating this methodology, i'm not sure that's where the effort went on the parts of the management. >> i think there was that trend before these things but if we talk about idiot culture, look at the newspaper world in 1900. a lot of it idiot culture.

much less monopolistic. >> if carl and i are two young reporters working for you, josh, what do you want? in other words, we know and we knew what bradley wanted, good stories, keep going, dig, take the risk. >> break news. good journalism. frankly -- >> very clear. >> we had the first part of our site that we opened up we started hiring original reporters was dedicated to investigative journalism. and that just characterizes the whole organization. that's what our focus is. >> with marcus, now the executive editor of "the washington post," we were talking about this before this group assembled here, and that is, when they were doing the movie version of all the president's men they decided

they wanted to hire jason robards to play bradley. they seemed to look alike and they offered robards the part, this is in mid-70s. they said we'll pay you $50,000 and boy, that was great. i'm going to get $50,000. and they gave him the script and he went home and he read the script and came in to the director and the actors and he said i can't play ben bradlee. they said why? he said well, i read the script and all he does is run around and say where's the fucking story? and they said to him, that's what the editor of the washington post does. that is his job. and all you have to do is find out 15 different ways to say where's the fucking story. telling that to marcus he said that's right, that is my job.

>> amanda, did you want to add? >> i was thinking of again about all of the changes and again, trying to put myself back in the previous thing before watergate was watergate and somehow it becomes intimidating and we think that we're supposed to be swinging for watergate every time we do something. and i was thinking that some place in the room i hope is another very young person who took on another big institution that probably in her world was every bit as the president which is the young reporter who broke the story at state college. at penn state. small paper, no big resources, young woman, a woman editor. the thing she was pulling on was pretty much in front of your face the same as yours was and had to face down a big thing for probably as big as yours was. i don't know that it takes the big staffs that we're talking

about, the big tweetings and thing. you were two people, there was a staff around you, but it only takes one. >> but that's why asking josh about this, you have to create the incentive for the reporters for them to feel you're saying where is the story, i want the story. >> i remember -- >> and you have -- that's where i'm saying i'm not sure it changed that much. >> i hope you're right. >> talking about why this is the importance of a family-owned newspaper. even once it goes public, having that kind of role that instills values that go beyond the pure business aspects of a paper. >> there's less investigative reporting throughout the country than there used to be. i think the business pressures have made that. i just judged the seldom ring awards, 40 entries from 29 legacy papers this year. ten years ago there were 110. >> how about less real reporting on communities. i think that's the real

question. >> i'm going to guess some of you might have a question. i think we have time for one or two. i just give us your name, no nostalgia, just ask the question. >> two-part question. did you guys ever fight over any big issues during this story? and are you guys good friends now? >> yes, yes. >> give us an example of something that you fought over. >> actually, during the reporting of watergate i think almost never is the answer. we very quickly, i think, came to have very high regard and saw the skills worked in a complementary way. >> be careful of that phrase almost never. >> there was the writing the book together. >> and ask him, didn't you authorize the tapping of some of

the reporters and the national security officials in the nixon white house. his answer was almost never. >> yes. >> my question is, what went through your minds on november 8th, 1972, when the election results came in with 61% of the popular vote, every state going for nixon except massachusetts, and where we are today, after that great reporting effort that you made. was there an oh, shit moment? how did you feel? >> it didn't surprise us and i don't think it affected us one bit. you know, we knew that the story hadn't gotten that much traction by then and there was a lot of reporting left to do. i think, we had a real moment in

september of 1972. we found out that john mitchell, while attorney general of the united states, had controlled the secret fund among other people that paid for the bugging at watergate and some of these other undercover activities. and woodward and i would meet in the vending machine room off the newsroom floor, get our good cop bad cop routine 18 row to take to bradley. >> guess who was the good cop and who was the bad cop. >> so, i put a dime in the -- that's what a cup of coffee cost then, a dime in the coffee machine and we just found out, had written the mitchell story. i felt this literal chill go down my neck the likes of which i can remember today. literally. aturned to woodward and said my god, this president is going to be impeached. and wood ward looked at me and said my god, you're richt we can never use that word in this

newsroom lest someone think we have some kind of agenda. we just kept going. i think that's the answer. >> yes. >> quick question for josh and the panelists. i was really struck by the notion, the question raised about going after the one fact to gept it on the web because i think that is a lot of what the day is. and i want to come back to you, josh, i think that does undercut what woodward and bernstein pioneered. you can't leave your desk if you're after one fact. if it's 2, 2 1/2, i think it prevents you from going at night and door stopping people. i think it undercuts it. >> i don't agree because i think, maybe i'm not being clear enough by you know, there are different facts. there are facts that mean nothing out of a broader context, you have to add around them. there are some new pieces of

information that, i've seen it many times and i see it every day in the paper where you have a story that is basically one key new piece of information. one new development. but in a daily paper, there's no -- there is no format for a paragraph. because sometimes that if you are -- if you have an ongoing arc of a story, where your readers understand the broader story, the context, the players involved, that is all that is really required, all that is necessary. so stated the way you state i agree. but yes, if you were looking for every new fact of information, you put everything up sequentially i totally agree but that's not what i'm saying. >> any other questions? i have one question about thinking about the big stories in the last four decades. which one do you think is the

closest analog to watergate? jeff? you look like -- >> well, i think watergate really was the 100-year storm. >> watergate was the 100-year storm. there really isn't anything that combines all of those elements in the same way. i think that in terms of impact of great investigations that i'd seen i would pull a little bit of a switch and say i think "the boston globe" investigation of the catholic church had that kind of worldwide impact where it just moved like a tidal wave and -- >> and still moving. >> still moving. that comes to mind. >> but we don't have priestgate. >> right. >> bob, what about you? >> i would tend to agree with that. but you know, i also, there is sometimes a reluctance in the

reporting profession, investigative in depth daily coverage, to not really go after the power centers but to take on stories that are good stories, but not go after the power centers. and you know, carl and i are dear friends but if you look at the books carl has done since we did watergate, hillary clinton, power center, the pope, one of the great power centers or one of the big power centers in the world, and sometimes i think that tips come in or there's a lot of low hanging fruit where people will say let's do a big story on this, let's do that. and not to sit around and ask the very hard question, who has the power and how do we hold them accountable? >> carl. >> that's a great answer. but i think you can elaborate that at every level. i think whether it's state

college, pennsylvania, and i mean, that is a whole community that is unbelievable power center and that sports program. one of the other things i think just might be worth mentioning is a lot of the great reporting of the last 30 years has been in books. i'm not sure why, but there are notable examples of it. and because partly because those reporters have had time to do it and have found the forum perhaps a little more receptive. >> as a board member for the fund for investigative journalism i would encourage you to apply for some of the grants we have to write those books. amanda, what about you in terms of big stories. >> i think what you're saying about going after the power center is a great thing but that's not really what you guys did. you pulled a string that was a

phone call that came to you by serendipity and you kept pulling the string. what you did is believed something that appeared to be unbelievable. and i think that's where the catholic church probably does and it changed the way we thought about all of the institutions. >> but we knew we were dealing with the white house. >> right. but you weren't sitting around going like this and saying i wonder what we can do to look at the power of the white house. >> no. but from the date of that notebook i talked about showed up in the pocket, it was either that or the cia we were looking a. we knew that much pretty clear. >> but that i would agree that in terms of the way it changed what we thought of an institution, in the catholic church thing, believing something that appears on the surface to be unbelievable, and that's the same thing with the paterno thing, believe something that appears unbelievable. >> i think about state legislatures, i mean, those are great stories. all over america they are

real -- i mean that's not low. it is really important. really powerful. if you think that the role of money, look at where these super pacs are putting their money now. it's more in state races in many ways than it is in the presidential race. and if you think that state legislatures are really doing the weal of the people, i think it's pretty easy to get motivated. >> josh. i want to be fair and then i'll go to the question. is there a big story that you feel is an analog to watergate? >> you know, i think more of the ones that thought they were watergate but weren't, the ones that come out to me. you know, i still feel like in some ways that corruption of the intelligence process before the iraq war. but in the nature of it -- and this goes to some extent to the point you were making before, in

a much more polarized political environment, that's a story that couldn't quite overcome the sort of -- the you know, the solid defense of the 40 yard line on both sides of harvest and divide. i think that's a significance. it's dissimilar to watergate in a lot of ways but to me in some ways as much great journalism as there was about it, because of the political polarization and because the intelligent process is so dark and unexplorable, i kind of feel it never quite got off the ground as the story it should be. besides that i can't really think of others. >> oh, yes. mr. bradley. >> something i never thought about. one of the reasons -- >> one moment. >> one of the reasons was the --

that it was different as a story, received differently at the newspaper and received differently by the world, was that the two reporters that were writing it, the story, nobody had ever heard of. you know, it wasn't chalmers roberts, it wasn't blah, blah, blah those guys, you know they wipe their nose it's on page 1 and everybody, all of their buddies behind them right away. and they weren't behind you right away. >> could everybody hear it? >> go ahead, don. >> don graham talking now. >> the amazing thing about the story and this came up in josh's. you were reporting the story and the thing that's hard to believe now is there were a lot of other big powerful news organizations in town and you took the story

seriously and nobody else did for a long time. you've talked to a lot of other people who were reporters in town and you've asked them, why do you think that happened? why didn't other news organizations take it as seriously as you did right off, for months. >> well, i had only worked for the post nine months at that point. and i was very much an employee, and i was much more subservient in that period of my life. >> no more. >> no more. that's right. >> that was 40 years ago. >> you know, it was kind of work on this. you have to capture the environment and that's why when we're talking about how do you get to stories like this, it's leadership from the top. it's somebody saying this is what we do, this is the business we're in, this is our purpose, and not doing that just

from on high in a weekly meeting, but floor walking. ben used to always say, be out floor walking. he actually had a swagger stick. he'd go around and everyone say why is he talking to jones over there. why is he at this desk and so forth. it was infectious. go to it. you can't live on high as a newspaper editor or as a blogging editor or at bloomberg. you have to be out there stimulating. >> there's another element to this, that is reporters love great stories. i was 16 i went to work at the washington star i thought it was the most exciting damn thing and i think it remains that way today. that you go into a newsroom, the place is electric. and it's' electric because the people who are in that newsroom know that there are stories out

there and that's what they do. and you know, there's fun to it. you know, we can talk all we want about you know, about the national interest and all these heavy things. but you know a good story is a hell of a lot of fun. and what better thing in the world to do than this. and there's real purpose to it as well. i don't think it should take all the motivation that perhaps we're talking about on the part of journalists. >> ed. >> outstanding panel. this question is principally for jeff but -- i'm wondering how the environment has changed for investigative reporting now in light of the intensity and the effectiveness of counter measures of the state the government is using against sources. a half dozen espionage investigation understand der way, and some of them at least the law enforcement has bypassed reporters and gone directly to

sources using various kinds of electronic devices. i'm wondering how that has changed the kind of measures that you take, jeff, and how that might have changed the world had watergate been happening now. >> we spent time talking about burn phones and encryption, something we never used to do. have i bouncing off of that question, i have kind of a radical thought. i do not think watergate would unfold the same way today. there's too many things are different. for one i don't think there would be any tapes. i think in the same way that watergate changed journalism it changed government officials, it changed the public. so it would play out completely different. as josh said, that original third rate burglary would be white hot. it whould be white hot news 24/7 an election bearing down you would have incredible heat. i'm not sure the time for the story to unfold in the way it did would be the same. i think that prosecutors have

learned more, judges have learned more, congress has learned more, the white house has learned. >> congress learned more? >> well, we all are hopefully cynical. >> i feel this thing would be completely different and who knows but maybe it's over by the election. who knows but maybe it's a 6-month story than a two-year story. who knows but maybe you never get the smoking gun tape. >> who knows. this is history. >> the what if. >> one of the colleges asked students in a journalism class to write a one-page paper on how watergate would be covered now. the professor sent -- >> why do you say what school it was which is interesting. >> yale. steve brill, the professor. and he sent the one-page papers that these bright students had written, and then asked that i talk to the class on a speaker phone after. i got the papers on a sunday

night, read them, and i think came as close as i have to having an aneurysm. because the students wrote that oh, you would just use the internet and you would go to nixon's -- >> wikipedia. >> you would google nixon's secret font and it would be there. >> this is yale. >> yes. that somehow the internet was a magic lantern that led up all events. they went on to say, and in fact, the political environment would be so different that nixon wouldn't be believed and all the bloggers and tweeters would be in the lather and nixon would resign in a week or two weeks after watergate. now, this is you know, i have attempted to apply some

corrective information to them. but the basic point is, the truth of what goes on is not on the internet. it can supplement, it can help vastly, the truth resides with people. human sources. and that you have to find a way to build the relationship of trust with human sources who -- that will tell you okay, this is what really goes on. and you learn time and time again in journalism, and it's -- it is a cold shower believe me, you do a couple of interviews with somebody and think i'm really getting there. and you say well, you know, i've got some time, i'll go back for a third, a fourth, a fifth. and then you realize on the eighth interview, you start getting the real story of what's going on. and so i think -- i think if there were some story like that

that required the incremental coverage, that people would do it, using the tools of the internet but not being deluded that somehow these are going to really tell you something that's hidden and concealed. >> the watergate hearings went on for about three months from may to july of 1973. they made a huge difference. >> i can't remember this town being as -- >> ben is making a great point about the watergate hearings. he says he can't remember this town being as gripped by any event. >> it wasn't just the town, it was the country. they were on all three networks live, they ran them at night. ben tells the story --

>> that's right. >> but the real point is -- the institution of the congress of the united states responded, and i have grave doubt that the institution of the congress of the united states would respond to anything today. >> sam irvin who led the senate watergate committee called us up and asked we'd like -- he would like our sources. and we said no. we're not going to give you the sources and he said well, we're going to conduct this inquiry, you laid out your version of what you believe happened. and carl -- if you look at those hearings begin in may of 1973, finished in august, they are the gold standard. they had haldeman, mitchell, john dean, they discovered the tapes, they laid out the whole

money trail, they -- and the special prosecutor's office discovered all of this corrupt campaign money. >> a republican on the committee said what did the president know and when did he know it. >> i'll add from my book that the average home watched 30 hours of the hearings that went from may 17 to august 7 and they filled 237 hours of television. but really, other than 9/11 i can't think of an event that gripped the nation and that only did for a week and this went on for months. i think we have to wrap it up. i want you to know i have a few copies of this book. i was on a panel with them a few years ago and i came out and they were signing my book and bob looked up, for people buying it and bob looked up and said do you mind? i was like no. then i told my son, go buy a copy of my book so i can get them to sign it. thank you all. [ applause ] >> stay with us for