Ep. 34: Watergate Journalism's Bitter Harvest

Prior episodes have shown that the Nixon Presidency, churlishly
cynical though it may have been, was the victim of deceitful
journalism by the Washington Post which cast it far more
villainously than deserved.


Was the harm of this journalism limited to this particular epoch?
Unfortunately, no. This episode will show but a few examples of
how this greatly ballyhooed style of “investigative” journalism
caused far more harm than partisan electoral advantage. In its
effort to prosecute a target, such journalism must by its very
nature conceal and distort, which, when applied to matters of
national security, can endanger us all, either by excessive
manacles placed on our intelligence agencies, enabling terrorist
attack, or, at the other extreme, allowing these same agencies
carte blanche skullduggery when they are pursuing a partisan
domestic target to the benefit of a foreign adversary.  In
short, for decades American society has been reaping Watergate
journalism’s bitter harvest.

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