Say It Ain't So Already

What Would Katharine Graham Think?

April 11, 2009 at 10:42 AM Leave a comment

Katharine Graham is one of my heroes.  She was at the helm of the Washington Post during the crisis that spanned the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.  She was Bob Woodward’s and Carl Bernstein’s boss.  Despite being scared to death (read her wonderful memoir, Personal History), she essentially told the Nixon administration to go to shove it when they pressured her not to publish the results of Woodward and Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate burglary.   Talk about speaking truth to power and being the consummate journalist – that was Katharine Graham.

So I see it as a real tragedy that, thirty years on, the once mighty, proud and esteemed Post has apparently lost its way and its journalistic dignity:  Post Reporter Says it’s Not His Job to Check the Accuracy of People He’s Quoting.

Sad, not only for the Post, but for the nation as a whole.

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