Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein generally talks a lot of good sense about journalism and his latest interview, with Big Think, is no exception.
He says he isn't too concerned about the state of investigative journalism because papers like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal continue to do excellent work by uncovering secrets in the halls of power.
But he is more concerned about modern readers, believing that too few of them read serious journalism. Here are a couple of other highlights:
The secret to becoming a great journalist lies in being a good listener- and too many journalists today don't listen.
Could a Watergate-style investigation happen again? Absolutely. "A bigger question is, how would readers respond? How would the political system respond?" Bernstein is not so sure that the system would be as accountable.
And finally... "There's a little too much nostalgia about maybe a golden age of 'investigative journalism' that never really existed."
That echoes a point he made at a conference I attended in Italy in 2008.
The myth of golden ageism is not confined to journalism (how often do we hear that life was better a generation ago?) but it is annoying to have to rebut it so often.
Source: Big Think
