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“[A professor] asked students in a journalism class to write a one-page paper on how Watergate would be covered now,” said Bob Woodward, “and the professor — ”

“Why don’t you say what school it was,” suggested Carl Bernstein, sitting to Woodward’s left in a session titled “Watergate 4.0: How Would the Story Unfold in the Digital Age?”

“Yale,” Woodward said. “He sent the one-page papers that these bright students had written and asked that I’d talk to the class on a speakerphone afterward. So I got them on a Sunday, and I came as close as I ever have to having an aneurysm, because the students wrote that, ‘Oh, you would just use the Internet and you’d go to “Nixon’s secret fund” and it would be there.’ ”

“This is Yale,” Bernstein said gravely.

“That somehow the Internet was a magic lantern that lit up all events,” Woodward said. “And they went on to say the political environment would be so different that Nixon wouldn’t be believed, and bloggers and tweeters would be in a lather and Nixon would resign in a week or two weeks after Watergate.”

A small ballroom of journalists—which included The Washington Post’s top brass, past and present—chuckled or scoffed at the scenario.

“I have attempted to apply some corrective information to them,” Woodward continued, “but the basic point is: The truth of what goes on is not on the Internet. [The Internet] can supplement. It can help advance. But the truth resides with people. Human sources.”

—reported by Dan Zak, covering a Watergate-revisited panel
at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention,
“Woodward and Bernstein: Could the Web Generation Uncover a Watergate-type Scandal?”
The Washington Post,
March 24, 2012
Thanks to alert WORDster Brenda Cooper

• Editorial Comment: And then you could friend him on FaceBook and say, like, “Yo.”

• Facts Schmacts: Did you miss yesterday’s WORDs about what people believe and fact-checking? Click here.

• Relocation: The JCOM faculty are now baffled by stacks of boxes as we complete our move from the venerable old Animal Science Building to swanky new offices in the new Ag Building on the USU Quad.

• HELP WANTED: New Faculty for Fall 2012! The JCOM Department at Utah State is taking applications for a multimedia instructor, teaching our new required multimedia class and assisting with the Aggie TV newscast classes. For full position description, click here.

• JCOM Teaching Excellence: The Journalism & Communication Department is one of three finalists for USU’s 2012 department teaching excellence award. Junior Emily Landeen produced this video of student feedback on the department. Click on image of Utah Statesman editor Catherine Bennett (right).


News from our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café
• BREAKING NEWS: USU freshman goes on Leno Show with ‘Special Talent’
• Ski season’s not over yet—Try a hike up and ski down Green Canyon, by Evan Thacker, Aggie BluePrint
• Hard News Café Weekly News Roundup (April 2)
• Aggie TV News for March 28, 2012
• Corey Cozzens sweeps top 3 awards at Spice on Ice competition, by Steve Kent
• Nibley clarifies electronic sign ordinance; Petersen’s sign survives, by Tmera Bradley
• Cherry Peak ski area permit upheld by Board of Adjustments, by Josh Ruggles
• Hyde Parkers will always get top priority for park use, mayor says, by Shannon McCleve
• The Brady Jardine Story, on KUTV2’ Talkin’ Sports, by ATV Sports’ Bailey McMurdie
• City Council votes to expand River Heights with annexation, by Sean O’Sullivan
• The Aggie TV News Team Cache Rendezvous (March 21 edition). Bookmark ATV News
• DEADLINE EXTENDED to APRIL 9: JCOM Scholarships for 2012-13.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
Catalog here






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