The Next Watergate: It Won't Happen Without 'Big Journalism'

I sat right between The Boys, when our hair was dark and blood was in the air.

To my left, Bob Woodward--intense, methodical, precise, ambitious. To my right, Carl Bernstein--who never met a moment he didn't enjoy, a woman he didn't try to enjoy or a situation he didn't try to charm his way through.

I divide them as follows:

I once asked Bob for five bucks. He lent me ten.

Carl once asked me for five bucks. He owes it to me still.

Of course, they belong to the ages now, thanks in large part to Redford, Hoffman and that delusional wonder, Richard Nixon. As Bob and Carl's killer story gets reborn and redissected this week, thanks to Mark Felt, so, too, should the larger lessons, for the grand old lady called journalism.

The biggest, from where I sit (and sat), has nothing to do with anonymous sources. They will always be with us, and always have been. A reporter who swears off anonymous sources will soon be writing nothing but he-said-she-said journalism. It can't truly illuminate or truly inform.

The key for the next Woodstein is to have the right backing of your bosses, so you use an anonymous source in the right way. Not as the final authority, but as the truth-teller who ratifies the contributions of all others.

That's exactly what Woodward did with Felt--a point that is often lost among the legends of pot-moving and parking garages. Only rarely did Felt offer fresh information. Woodward used him as a human backboard. Bounce, bounce... am I on the right track here? Carom, carom... Is this guy on the level?

But Woodward never would have had enough rope unless a great news organization had given it to him. By "great," I mean both large and accomplished.

Only great editors (and there were more than Ben Bradlee) would have said, "Take the time you need to get it right, not just to get it first." Only great people on the business side (and there were more than Katharine Graham) would have said, "I trust Ben and I trust you. Don't worry about what it costs, or what it might cost. Be right, and go get it."

It's easy to aim darts at Felt, Bernstein, Woodward and whoever else is about to have a mammoth payday from a publisher. But that's our system, like it or not.

Big riches flow to those who capture imaginations (or touchdown passes, or stock options). The question is not whether Felt-stein deserves to make a buck 33 years after Watergate first detonated. The question is whether the bucks will deflate or pervert the future of investigative journalism.

I don't believe they will. What will do that if anything will is the impending shrinkage of big newspapers and TV networks.

When editors and executives worry about stock prices instead of the truth, they are less likely to say what The Post's brass said to Bob and Carl. It's oh-so-easy to duck a tip that might land someone in trouble, or in court. If you're selling 350,000 papers a day via high school sports and rancid Valentine's Day features, why take on faster pitching?

Watergate was about two great reporters, one key source and one defiantly great management. Without all three of those ingredients, there'd have been no souffle. Without all three, there'll never be another.