INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200140001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 27, 1976
• Content Type: NSPR

WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Release 2004f1i0/1P76ClA-RDP88-01350R9,
Inve
s ip -'af t i 1v e R eP-,'u-,-,t,, iv
Godfrey Hodgson Book World
The reviewer is a former .~ THE NEW MUCKRAKERS. By Leonard formic Jr.
editor of the London Sunday (New Republic. 2691 ;)n, 5 O)
School of Journalism, lint-
versify of California, Berke.
ley, and co-author of "An
American Melodrama."
You might be forgiven for
thinking that this was going
to be just another 'book of
the film of the book. But
you would be wrong. -
This is a thoroughly read-
able, indeed absorbing ac-
count of the recent boom in
investigative journalism in
the United States: It raises,
but to my mind stops short
of doing full justice to, the
important , political, moral
and professional issues in-
volved.
Leonard !Downie' is~ the
metropolitan editor of. The
Washington Post. As every-
one knows now, it fell to
these hard-working and rela-
tively unsung men, the
Metro staff, to inform the
citizens of Washington
about a certain burglary at
the Democratic National
Committee's offices. One of
twins only twinkle through
the first chapter. The rest of
the book sketches the , per-
sonalities and working
methods, and chronicles the
feats, of other investigative
reporters, from 1. F. Stone
and Carey McWilliams to
young tearaways of the
underground press, stopping
by to visit some of the most
interesting journalists now
working in America.
The second chapter, no
doubt also inevitably, is on
Woodward and Bernstein's
arch-rival, Seymour Hersh
of The New York Times.
According to a quoted re-_:
mark by John !Marks, author
of "The CIA and .the Cult of
Intelligence," Hersh was
never really happy working
on Watergate because "He
was never No. 1 to outsiders
You have to have a big
ego - problem when you're
the world's greatest investi-
gative reporter."
d
erestimate ziersn s
the many consequences of un
those events has been that extraordinary string o f
men whose lights might achievements itMy Lai,
nder General- Lavelle and the un-
d hidde
ha
e
i
ve r
ma
ne
n u
a green eyeshade have be-,I
come celebrities, and Leo-
nand Downie is one of them.
begins with the twice-told
tale of the stardust twins of
The Washington Post (if
that phrase embarrasses
you, it's not mine, it's the
metropolitan editor's).
Leonard Downie, may
have interesting things to
say about the real Bob
Woodward, the historic
Bernstein, and his portraits
are certainly unvarnished.
He is especially' sharp with 1
Bernstein whom he charges
(pre-Watergate) with "ly-
ing" as well as with most
quirer, whcse,.big investiga- In a word, much investi;ga-
tions-into housing subsidy five journalism still, pro-
fraud and criminal justice ' reeds from the assumption
in Philadelphia, then into that there are some things
oil companies, tax evasion . that people are up to that
and foreign aid-depend are generally agreed to be
more on painstaking use of wrong, and the reporter's
"dull" official records than job is to expose these se'cret
on dramatic interrogations acts of wickedness.
or the sibylline utterances More frequent, and more
of mysterious sources. interesting, surely, are the
This, I suspect, will be the cases where the : eporter
investigative journalism must not only discover in-
with the longest and most formation that is previously
important future; The sort unknown, but also explain
of journalism which asks to the reader what it means.
the right question, and sifts
through masses of undra-
matic evide~ce to find the
answer, and then quietly per-
suades the readers that a
What is overdue, in short,
is a new synthesis between
investigative and interpreta-
tive jotu?nalism. For a long
time, Washington was over-
subject they thought was run with "commentators."
dull is not dull at all, and who spun the same hack-
that r'2ost of what they neyed or untrue "facts" into
thought they knew about predictable sermonettes.
that subject was not true, Then came the new muck.
Leonard Downie has been rakers. Did they create a
an investigative reporter . time of skepticism, as Dow
himself, and he is particu- rile suggests ? Or were they
lar] ; the product of it?
y hood on the rewards In either case, I dissent
and pressures of ' the job: from his bunch that the new
The subtle pressures when era of muckraking will pass
sources dry tip, a reporter as abruptly as the first.
becomes less productive, his There will be more and
editors begin to lose faith in more things that those in
him, and the dauber is that power want to hide from us.
he may lose faith in himself; We will need men and
and the hardly less danger-women- who can find them,
ous.exhilaratiort of the chase. and can also teach us what
There is nothing wrong they mean.
with the joy of the chase in
itself, it seems to me. Inves-
tigative journalism means
telling the reader something
somebody doesn't want him 1
to know. Only some strong
motivation will make a re-
porter persist in overcoming
the difficulties about that
kind of work. It is far, far
easier to sit in 'an office and
pen judicious comment.
The danger is that the
hunt should become an end
in itself, Then injustice and
even cruelty may be done to
te the
o e
:I,--
.,.
Only serious Watergate ad- ..
diets, though, would find ing, therefore, as we moved , tant, the investigative jour-
i
this book worth buying for away from the "main- . nalist is in danger of beeom-
'stream." I was intrigued by ing obsessed with his own
its newsroom view of the his account of Donald prowess and technique; con-
great national morality play. Barlett and James Steele text and explanation can
' l hia tli n di ap ie r
of TJt Ph
Approve d Fore`e~ase 24/10/3 I~P88-013508000200140001-8
authorized bombing of
North Vietnam, and the
revelation of 'thy CIA's il-
legal` activity in the U.S.
have been only the peaks of
his-range. And, again, it is
easy to:' forgive Hersh a
certain pique at being de-
prived of; the. glory for the
greatest coup of all.
But what fascinates me in
that remark, and in
Downie's-account of Hersh
generally, is how close tile
attitude of at least some
American investigative re-
porters is to the competitive
model of the corporate and
political. world they spend
their time embarrassing...
I found Downie's chapters