The biggest political scandal to ever hit the United States History was the Watergate scandal in 1972. This scandal was the start as to why there was a reelection during Nixon’s term in the United States. Nixon through the investigation of two journalists of the Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, was found to be doing illegal processes like political spying, bribery, and the illegal use of campaign funds. Because of this Nixon's resignation from the presidency in 1974 and the indictment of nearly forty government officials has happened. The movie showcases the power of the freedom of the press and how persistence always pays off. In the movie, the burglary was seen as a low and common type of burglary, however, when Bernstein and Woodward dug deeper into the issue, a large problem in the government unfolded. Through the simple and very common platform that is the newspaper, Bernstein and Woodward released important information that is very accessible by the public, which then led to the public being aware of all that is happening in the government that they weren’t beforehand. The public being aware of the truth affected the re-election of Nixon in 1972. This proves the point that the power of masses is much greater than the singular power in authority. The persistence of both journalists were commendable. Call after call, they did not stop in trying to look for a lead in the case. Even though they were often experiencing roadblocks and rejections, they still pushed with the topic and still tried to uncover the whole truth.
Being a journalist is no easy feat, nothing is to be spoon-fed to them. In the first part of the movie Woodward and Bernstein struggled in gathering information, this is because majority of the people that they have called are either unavailable or are requesting to be excluded from this narrative. This was a huge setback for them because they couldn’t move forward with their investigation without proper information. A solution for this is when they showed up to the homes of the people they want to interview. Normally, one would feel endangered, and to society it would have seen to be as unethical and invasive. However, due to the nature of their work they continued to seek for the truth. Another difficulty of being a journalist is when they are sometimes in dangerous situations. Having targeted the president, a powerful figure, obviously one will be placed in danger. In the movie it wasn’t directly shown that they were in danger, but because of the person that they targeted, President Nixon, needless to say a lot of eyes are now on them. Lastly, their credibility was being questioned. All writings are open to being questioned by the people. Both journalists were being judged if ever their topic was real or that they were just nitpicking and are trying to start a scandal with the president.
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