Like countless kids in the 1970s, Margaret Sullivan decided to become a reporter because of the breathtaking — and breathless– coverage of the Watergate scandal in the pages of the Washington Post.
She was barely a teenager, when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein chronicled the corruption in the Nixon administration and its cover-up. So, it wasn’t till the 1976 movie, All The President’s Men, that, she says, “journalism began to look downright fascinating.” And, “glamorous,” she adds in her new book, Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from An Ink-Stained Life.
Swashbuckling Hero?
The duo’s “swashbuckling cool” as portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman left its impression on the Watergate-enthralled teen. Fast-forward four decades, however, and Sullivan was looking at a hero with clay feet. Specifically Bob Woodward who, in September 2020, published, Rage, his second tome about Trump’s presidency.
This one contained some startling news, writes Sullivan: “That Trump knew early in 2020 that the coronavirus pandemic would be deadly, far worse than the flu. But as president, he blatantly lied about the severity of the virus’s threat, assuring Americans that it was nothing to worry about, that it would disappear.”
It was clear that Woodward, had gathered this admission from Trump early in 2020 — and had sat on the nugget while Trump told his lies and people died.
Waiting for the Book
Like myself and possibly hundreds of other journalists, Sullivan was, incredulous that Woodward –still a Washington Post editor at the time– had kept that information to himself while awaiting the publication of his book.
She writes: “I wanted to know why Woodward hadn’t reported this news months before his book came out. Why hadn’t he talked it over with Post editors and arranged to break off some of his book’s revelations for an immediate news story?
“I had Woodward’s phone number and was able to reach him quickly. He sounded defensive and wanted to avoid speaking to me on the record. Instead, he suggested we talk “on background”—meaning that I couldn’t attribute whatever he said to him directly. I wasn’t interested in that since I was seeking his rationale for holding back the news. I insisted that I wanted his response on the record. We tussled about the terms of our conversation for a while…
“…I held my ground, making it clear that if he didn’t want to speak on the record, I would just note in the column that he had declined comment. That would not be a good look for a legendary reporter, especially one dealing with his own newspaper. At one point, Woodward nonetheless started talking with these words: “On background.”
“I stopped him. Please don’t try to manipulate me into doing a background interview was the sentence I heard myself saying to one of the world’s most famous journalists and my teenage inspiration.”
Wrong Decision
In the end, Sullivan gets her on-the-record comment, but is not entirely satisfied with the explanation that an earlier revelation would not have saved lies, and that, anyway, the book had been published before the crucial election.
Sullivan writes that, in her opinion, Woodward made the wrong decision: “You never know what might happen when you put the truth out there in real time… And it’s not your job to make that calculation. It’s your job to dig it out and to tell it straight. And to publish without undue delay.”
In my opinion, Sullivan’s reaction to Woodward’s delayed revelation is rather low-key. As is most of her memoir. Granted, the book isn’t the memoir of a reporter covering a war — or a tumultuous election campaign (like NBC-TV’s Katy Tur covering Trump’s 2016 run for the presidency in Unbelievable)
As such, it is mostly missing the element of conflict which usually drives not only fiction, but should drive non-fiction accounts such as memoirs also.
Low-Key But Fascinating
It was fascinating for me, however. First, because of her insider’s insight into the workings of top journalists and newsrooms at the New York Times and the Washington Post. Second, because of the plum positions she occupied in those newsrooms.
She started at the Buffalo News in 1980 and became its first woman editor in 1999. She moved to the New York Times in 2012 to become its first woman public editor — a position where she wrote about readers’ complaints and the failings of her reporter- colleagues. A position you’d think had great potential for conflict.
Sullivan does acknowledge that she ran into some pushback at the New York Times on her criticism of NYT reporters over-using anonymous and confidential sources. And, she tells of some run-ins with a sports editor and a political editor. But, there’s no lively descriptions of any real stand-up, drag-out fights. Then again, that just might be my tabloid background talking!
Covering Trump
Eventually, in 2016, she became the media columnist at the Washington Post just as Trump was campaigning for the presidency of the U.S. She looks back on the coverage of Trump and is appalled by the way the mainstream press normalized Trump’s insane rantings (my characterization, not hers.)
She writes: “In every way, Trump was a deeply abnormal candidate, but the news media couldn’t seem to communicate that effectively or even grasp the problem. Instead, his every unhinged, middle-of-the-night tweet was covered like legitimate news.”
Is that a lesson to be learned — if Trump runs again in 2024? Seems doubtful. As Sullivan herself acknowledges: