Role of the media
Who were the columnists tangled within the Watergate crime?
Watergate scandal
The connection between the break-in and the re-election committee was highlighted by media coverage — in particular, investigative coverage by "The Washington Post", "Time", and "The New York Times". The coverage dramatically increased publicity and consequent political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, "Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deeply into the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and the White House. Chief among the "Post's" anonymous sources was an individual whom Woodward and Bernstein had nicknamed Deep Throat; 33 years later, in 2005, he was confirmed to be William Mark Felt, Sr., the former deputy director of the FBI. Felt met secretly with Woodward, telling him of Howard Hunt’s involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the White House staff regarded the stakes in Watergate extremely high. Felt warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and other reporters were getting their information, as they were uncovering a wider web of crimes than first disclosed. In one of their last meetings, all of which took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Rosslyn, Virginia at 2:00 am, Felt cautioned Woodward that he might be followed and not to trust their phone conversations to be secure. Felt also planted leaks about Watergate to "Time" magazine, the "Washington Daily News" and other publications. "'During this early period, most of the media failed to grasp the full implications of the scandal, and concentrated reporting on other topics related to the 1972 presidential election. After the revelation that one of the convicted burglars wrote to Judge Sirica alleging a high-level coverup, the media shifted its focus. "Time" magazine described Nixon as undergoing "daily hell and very little trust". The distrust between the press and the Nixon administration was mutual and greater than usual due to lingering dissatisfaction with events from the Vietnam War. Public distrust of the media reached over 40%. Nixon and top administration officials discussed using government agencies to "get" what they perceived as hostile media organizations. The discussions had precedent. At the request of Nixon's White House in 1969, the FBI tapped the phones of five reporters. In 1971, the White House requested an audit of the tax return of the editor of "Newsday", after he wrote a series of articles about the financial dealings of a friend of the President's. The administration and its supporters accused the media of making "wild accusations", putting too much emphasis on the story, and of having a liberal bias against the Administration. Nixon said in a May 1974 interview with a supporter that if he had followed the liberal policies that he thought the media preferred, "Watergate would have been a blip." The media noted that most of the reporting turned out to be accurate and the competitive nature of the media guaranteed massive coverage of the political scandal. Applications to journalism schools reached an all-time high in 1974.