Journalist, born in Geneva, Illinois, USA. A reporter for the Washington Post (19718), he became metropolitan editor and assistant managing editor (from 1981), and was best known for unmasking, with Carl Bernstein, the Watergate scandal and cover-up. Their coverage of the investigative story of the century won almost every major journalistic prize, including a 1973 public service Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper. He also wrote the controversial insider books, such as The Brethren (1979, with Scott Armstrong), Wired (1984), and The Commanders (1991).
While an investigative reporter for that newspaper, Woodward, working with his co-employee Carl Bernstein helped uncover the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Woodward has written twelve best-selling non-fiction books and has twice contributed reporting to efforts that collectively earned the Post and its National Reporting staff a Pulitzer Prize.Career
Early career
Commissioned as a naval officer (as was his father before him) after graduating from Yale in 1965, Woodward was discharged from the Navy as a Lieutenant in August 1970 after serving as an aide to the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Thomas H.
He had applied to several law schools, but had also applied for a job as a reporter for The Washington Post.
Watergate
He and Carl Bernstein were assigned to investigate the June 17, 1972 burglary of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in a Washington, D.C. The 1976 film, starring Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, transformed the reporters into celebrities and inspired a wave of interest in investigative journalism.
The book and movie also led to one of Washington D.C.'s most famous mysteries: the identity of Woodward's secret Watergate informant known as Deep Throat, a reference to the title of a popular pornographic movie at the time. Woodward said he would protect Deep Throat's identity until the man died or allowed his name to be revealed. For over 30 years, only Woodward, Bernstein, and a handful of others knew the informant's identity until it was revealed by his family to Vanity Fair magazine as former FBI Associate Director W. Woodward has confirmed his identity and published a book, titled The Secret Man, which detailed his relationship with Felt. Bush Administration
Woodward has spent the most time of any journalist with President George W. Woodward's three most recent books, Bush at War (2002) Plan of Attack (2004), and, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III (2006) are detailed accounts of the Bush presidency, including the response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Woodward has been accused by a few critics of being too close to the Bush administration, and some say his relationship with the current administration is in stark contrast to his investigative role in Watergate. In 2004 both the Bush campaign and the Kerry-Edwards campaign recommended his book Plan of Attack, and The New York Times said the book contained “convincing accounts of White House failures... presented alongside genial encounters with the president.” Rick Hertzberg in the New Yorker wrote “Plan of Attack” is Woodward’s best book in years" and that "Woodward is welcomed as a fair witness." Woodward's latest book, State of Denial, describes alleged tensions and dysfunctions within the Bush administration in the lead-up to, and following, the invasion of Iraq.
On Monday, October 2, 2006, Woodward's new book "State of Denial" was released.
Involvement in the Plame scandal
On November 14, 2005, Woodward gave a two-hour deposition to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Woodward therefore appears to have been the first reporter to learn about her employment from a government source. The deposition was reported in The Washington Post on November 16, 2005, and was the first time Woodward revealed publicly that he had any special knowledge about the case. Woodward testified the information was given to him in a “casual” and “offhand” manner, and said that he does not believe it was part of any coordinated effort to “out” Plame as a CIA employee. Later, Woodward's source identified himself.
Woodward said the revelation came at the end of a long, confidential background interview for his 2004 book Plan of Attack.
In his deposition, Woodward also said that he had conversations with Scooter Libby after the June 2003 conversation with his confidential administration source, and testified that it is possible that he might have asked Libby further questions about Joe Wilson’s wife before her employment at the CIA and her identity were publicly known.
Woodward’s revelation was controversial because he had not told his editor at the Post about the conversation for more than two years, and also because he had publicly criticized the investigation. On another occasion, he said of the investigation that he thought there was “nothing to it,” and that Fitzgerald’s behavior had been “disgraceful.” In later interviews after his deposition, Woodward said he had meant by his “junkyard dog” comment to suggest colorfully that Fitzgerald was a tenacious prosecutor, and that the “disgraceful” comment concerned the tactic of putting journalists in prison to coerce them to reveal their confidential sources.
Woodward apologized to Leonard Downie, the editor of The Washington Post for not informing him earlier of the June 2003 conversation.
Other professional activities
Woodward has continued to write books and report stories for The Washington Post, and serves as an assistant managing editor at the paper.
Awards and recognition
Woodward has twice contributed to collective journalistic efforts that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In addition, Woodward was the lead reporter for the Post's articles on the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks that won the National Reporting Pulitzer in 2002.
Woodward is widely regarded as one of the top reporters of the last half-century, and has earned trust and accolades from government officials and journalists of all political persuasions. In 2003, Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward "the most celebrated journalist of our age." In 2004, Bob Schieffer of CBS News said "Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time.
Style and criticism
In writing his books, Woodward collects detailed records, including interviews, documents, transcripts, and recordings.
While this style may have earned Woodward commercial success, many literary critics consider his prose awkward and his approach inappropriate for his subject matter. Joan Didion said Woodward finds "[nothing] too insignificant for inclusion," including such details as shirts worn and food eaten in unimportant situations.
The narrative, reporting-driven style of Woodward's books also draws criticism for rarely making conclusions or passing judgment on the characters and actions that he recounts in such detail. Didion concluded that Woodward writes "books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent," and finds the books marked by "a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured."
Some of Woodward's critics accuse him of abandoning critical inquiry to maintain his access to high-profile political actors. Yet Rick Hertzberg in the New Yorker pointed out that for this reason, and because neither analysis nor context—political, historical, even personal—is part of the Woodward package, the information he provides is open to multiple interpretations that are consistent with multiple, and highly inconsistent, points of view. and Christopher Hitchens has accused both Woodward and George F.
Woodward has said that his books "really are self portraits, because I go to people and I say — I check them and I double check them but — but who are you? Critics complain that this style allows the biases and beliefs of his sources to steer the narrative and that those who talk to Woodward are painted more favorably than those who don't. Woodward points out recently that the ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was one of his primary sources for "State of Denial," yet is perhaps the most harshly portrayed figure in the book. Other sources who have spoken to Woodward also confess to having failed to "spin" him, as they had hoped to do.
Woodward's dual role as journalist and author has opened him up to occasional criticism for sitting on information for publication in a book, rather than presenting it sooner when it might affect the events at hand. In The Commanders (1991), for instance, he indicated that Colin Powell had opposed Operation Desert Storm, yet Woodward did not publish this information before Congress voted on a war resolution, when it may have made a difference.
Woodward has also been accused of exaggeration and fabrication by other journalists, most notably regarding "Deep Throat", his famous Watergate informant. Woodward was also accused of fabricating his deathbed interview with Casey, as described in Veil; However, the CIA's own internal report found that Casey spoke to Woodward 43 times, sometimes alone at Casey's home, and his deputy Bob Gates wrote in his own book that he was able to communicate with Casey at that same time and quoted Casey making short statements similar to those reported by Woodward. Finally, a book review New York Review of Books challenged a story about Brennan, but Woodward and Armstrong had one of Brennan's clerks confirm the story on the record.
Despite these criticisms and challenges, Woodward has been praised as an authoritative and balanced journalist. The New York Times Book Review said in 2004 that "No reporter has more talent for getting Washington’s inside story and telling it cogently." The publication of a Woodward book, perhaps more than any other contemporary author's, is treated as a major political event that dominates national news for days.
Commentator David Frum has said, perhaps partly tongue-in-cheek, that Washington officials can learn something about the way Washington works from Woodward's books: "From his books, you can draw a composite profile of the powerful Washington player. That person is highly circumspect, highly risk averse, eschews new ideas, flatters his colleagues to their face (while trashing them to Woodward behind their backs), and is always careful to avoid career-threatening confrontation. We all admire heroes, but Woodward's books teach us that those who rise to leadership are precisely those who take care to abjure heroism for themselves."
Personal
Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois to Alfred and Jane Woodward.
Woodward now lives in the Georgetown section of Washington.
Books
Woodward has co-authored or authored ten #1 national best-selling non-fiction books, more than any other contemporary American writer. (2004) ISBN 0-743-25547-X State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III - which revealed some interesting information about the Bush administration and the War in Iraq. (2006) ISBN 0-743-27223-4
Other books, which have also been best-sellers but not #1, are:
The Choice - about Clinton's re-election bid; (2005) ISBN 0-743-28715-0Newsweek has excerpted five of Woodward's books in cover stories;
Criticism of Bob Woodward
Rich, Frank. "All the President's Flacks," New York Times. (December 4, 2005)
Pease, Lisa. "Bob Woodward" Probe Magazine, January-February 1996 (Vol. 2)
Pop Culture References
On The Simpsons episode Whacking Day, Bart reads a book called "The Truth About Whacking Day", written by Bob Woodward.
In the movie The Skulls, the character Will Beckford tries to compare himself to Woodward while reading his column in the school newspaper.
In the movie Dick, which is about Watergate, Woodward is played by actor/comedian Will Ferrell. Woodward and Bernstein are depicted as two bickering, childish near-incompetents, small-mindedly competitive with each other.
The graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore is set in a version of 1985 where Nixon is a fifth-term President. A throwaway line reveals that a pair of unknown journalists, Woodward and Bernstein, were found murdered in the early seventies.
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