Carl Bernstein after his lecture with St. Mary’s College President Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan (l) and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy Maija Harkonen
St. Mary’s City, MD –– “Pursuit of the best attainable version of the truth!” That was the message Ben Bradlee instilled every day in the reporters who worked under him at the Washington Post. One of those reporters, Carl Bernstein, along with the other half of “Woodstein,” Bob Woodward, would elevate the Post to legendary journalism status during the Watergate era.
Ben Bradlee, a part-time St. Mary’s County resident and long-time supporter of St. Mary’s College and St. Mary’s City, passed away Oct. 21 of last year. Bernstein told an audience at the annual Ben Bradlee Distinguished Lecture on Journalism April 26 at the Michael P. O’Brien Athletic and Recreation Center, that he was honored to be the first lecturer since the death of the man he called “my mentor, boss, friend and the most courageous journalist I have ever known.”
Bernstein used Bradlee’s guidance to his reporters to weave in and out of providing insights into the history of Watergate and the eventual fall of the presidency of Richard Nixon and also insights into the state of America and American journalism today.
Bernstein grew up in Maryland. He said in schools at that time there was the threat that if you didn’t do well “you would be sent to Charlotte Hall Military Academy,” now closed and the site of the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home. He reminded the audience that Sylvester Stallone was one of those students who was dispatched south to St. Mary’s County.
Bernstein witnessed the desegregation of the DC school system when he was in the sixth grade. At the age of 16 he went to work for the Washington Star. But he said reporters of that era had their eyes on what Bradlee was doing at the Post. “Like many young journalists I wanted to go to work for Ben Bradlee,” he said. His first beat was Montgomery County.
That was 1960, the times of President John F. Kennedy and the philosophy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Of those times, Bernstein said, “it sounds almost quaint today.”
In 1960, Bernstein said, no one would have ever dreamed that government wouldn’t be working and Congress would become dysfunctional and that money would be the determining criteria for what got done at the same time that students are burdened with debt and many people are “struggling to stay afloat.”
So in that era leading up to Watergate, Bernstein said Bradlee believed that if you “pursue the best attainable version of the truth,” and you did with “fairness, persistence and you weren’t lazy, people would read it.”
He said sadly, “Today the opposite is the case.” Bernstein doesn’t blame the situation so much on the press as he does the consumers of news.” He explained today they are “looking for reinforcement of what they already believe and think they know.” He added, “The common good and national interest isn’t considered.”
This attitude pervades leaders and citizens alike, he said. “Washington is largely indifferent to the truth,” he stated, while citizens get their version of the truth from media slanted in one direction or the other, such as Fox News and MSNBC.
Bernstein gave as an example Republican leaders encouraging the government shutdown to bring down Obamacare while at the same time “endangering national security and the country’s full-faith and credit.”
Bernstein compared today to the Watergate era, where, as the events unfolded, leaders in both parties united to do the right thing. “Our history has always been about finding the right balance.”
When asked during a question and answer session what happened to turn things around the wrong way in the country, Bernstein said he honestly didn’t know. He does suggest, however, a mandatory national service for high school graduates, not necessarily the military but doing something for the common good.
“It is very easy to attack the press. We need to look as our self. Do we want the best attainable version of the truth or do we want easy answers.” Later Bernstein said of the polarization: “It is robbing us of our soul as a people.”
But Bernstein clarified by saying that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with radicalism “as long and we can have a fact-based debate.”
Bernstein was asked about the future of newspapers. He said the investigative journalism probably would continue from the historic news companies, but much of it may wind up online in the future. “The web is a great reporting platform” he said, particularly with its unlimited space.
But repeating his theme, Bernstein said, “What is the future of great reporting when people who have access to it are not interested in it?”
Bernstein also decried the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which he called their worst decision in 50 years. “We need limits on campaign spending,” he added, noting that a U.S. Senate campaign now costs $200 million. “It’s nuts. It’s wrong,” he strongly concluded.
The lecture attendees were welcomed by St. Mary’s College President Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan, who said as an impressionable kid of 14, when she heard that President Nixon had resigned, she said, “Way to go!” She said the lesson was that “No person is above the law.”
Bernstein was introduced by the new executive director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Maija Harkonen, who comes to St. Mary’s College from Helsinki, Finland, where she served as director of strategic partnerships for the Finnish Consulting Group International, Ltd.
Harkonen said that the message of Watergate reporting reached her and inspired her in Finland. “It inspired people around the world to take an interest in journalism and politics.”
The lecture was co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy and the League of Women Voters of St. Mary’s County.
Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@thebaynet.com
