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All The Presidents Men By Carl Bernstein And Bob Woodward

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All the Presidents Men Essay

The novel All the Presidents Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward details the journalistic practices that took place during the investigation of the Watergate scandal. The two reporters followed The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics; a set of guidelines for journalists to reference when making judgement calls. This code of ethics includes seeking the truth and reporting it, minimizing harm, acting independently, and being accountable. By analyzing the text, examples of each guideline being followed can be found. By seeking the truth and reporting it, a reporter can act as a check on the government. The two Washington Post reporters do exactly that. When Bob Woodward is first assigned the …show more content…

The men had broken into the Democratic National Headquarters. As the investigation continues, suspicion of the White House being involved in the robbery grows. For example, as Bernstein is doing research on the men involved in the robbery, he discovers that one of the burglars, James W. McCord was a security coordinator for the committee to reelect the president. The reporters also notice that during a press conference, Nixon says that the White House was not involved, “on this particular occasion”. By following up on suspicions of White House involvement, Woodward and Bernstein are seeking the truth, and making sure that Nixon's administration is kept in line.
In order for the duo to seek the truth and report on it, many interviews were required. In order to be ethical in their pursuit of the truth, the reporters followed the second guideline in the code of ethics. Minimizing Harm. This means treating a source or …show more content…

Throughout the reporting process, sources are being continuously cross checked by Woodard and Bernstein. Every time an article is published, both of the reporters names are published with it. This means that if any information is inaccurate, the writers will be accountable for their actions. H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of Staff, was thought to be the fifth GOP-member to have control over the Committee to reelect the presidents fund. The two reporters had four sources who they believed had implicated Haldeman as a controller of the fund. After the story broke, the attorney of source Hugh Sloan publicly denied that Sloan had ever implicated Haldeman. With each of the sources, there had been some sort of miscommunication that resulted in the error. This mistake was not only embarrassing for the post, but resulted in a credibility issue for the reporters. In order to remain accountable for their work, the Post reporters published a correction to the

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