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Upcoming Book Takes Sharp Look at Woodward and Bernstein
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Bob Woodward
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By
Joe Strupp
Published: August 02, 2006 11:05 AM ET updated 1:45 PM ET
NEW YORK After more than 30 years of digging
up inside information about everyone from Pope John Paul II to George
W. Bush, Watergate legends Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are having
the tables turned on them in an upcoming book that seeks to analyze
their careers from the early days of Watergate to last year's
revelations about famed source Deep Throat.
For "Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow Of
Watergate" (John Wiley & Sons, to be published this November),
author Alicia C. Shepard was the first to extensively use the 75 boxes
of their recently donated Watergate-era papers at the University of
Texas in a chronology of both their personal lives and careers.
While Shepard, an American University journalism
professor and longtime media writer, hails their accomplishments on the
Watergate scandal, she also offers sharp critiques of each in the years
since. Negatives range from criticism of Woodward for allegedly putting
his books ahead of Washington Post scoops to what she calls Bernstein's
"sporadic" career. The book comes with a blurb from Newsweek's Michael
Isikoff calling it "the definitive account of the lives of two men who
changed journalism forever."
Woodward told E&P this week that he did not speak
with Shepard for the book. When asked what he thought of it, he said
only, "First Amendment prevails."
Bernstein, who is continuing to work on a Hillary
Clinton biography, said, "We didn't cooperate with her. I agree with my
friend Bob that the constitution, thank God, allows her to write
whatever she wants. Our real lives, and our work -- together,
separately, for books, newspapers, magazines, television, commentary --
are out there for anybody to judge on the merits."
The book grew out of Shepard's lengthy oral history
for Washingtonian magazine in 2003, for which she did interview the
pair. It acknowledges the duo's historic moment in the sun, but also
inspects their lives with an eye toward the mistakes and human errors,
following the pair through the Watergate reporting, the co-authored
books, and the resulting hefty incomes during the 1970s.
Shepard used the Texas treasure trove, as well as more
than 200 interviews and the archives of David Halberstam and film
director Alan Pakula. Along the way she provides tidbits on everything
from the original manuscript of "All the President's Men" to quotes
from actor Robert Redford's private notes on his first meeting with
Woodward, and ends with the outing of Deep Throat last year.
Bernstein takes the brunt of the criticism in the
uncorrected galleys for the 288-page book. Shepard calls one chapter,
"Bernstein Unchaperoned," and quotes from the divorce records of his
breakup with Nora Ephron, as well as a 14-page letter he wrote to her
about the depiction of the husband in her semi-autobiographical
"Heartburn" movie. But she also explores Woodward's three marriages,
his failures in the infamous Janet Cooke episode at the Post, and the
problematic nature of his reliance on anonymous sources.
In her acknowledgments, Shepard thanks, among others,
Washington Post veterans Ben Bradlee, Leonard Downie, Jr., Geneva
Overholser, Harry Rosenfeld, David Von Drehle, Richard Cohen, and Sally
Quinn (not to mention Redford and Dustin Hoffman).
Shepard wrote a column about the two reporters for E&P Online in April.
Joe Strupp
(jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com)
is a senior editor at E&P.
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