Meeting Carl Bernstein
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are the two Washington Post reporters credited with leading the investigation into the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, which eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon.
I have some mixed feelings about all of that.
On one hand, they inspired a lot of amazing journalism and journalists. On the other hand, a lot of journalists have since spent their careers trying to turn stories into the next ___gate. I’m not sure that’s always the best goal. There’s a difference in bringing light to problems in our institutions and letting the systems fix them vs. taking down the institutions.
A coworker recently made the analogy that the film about Watergate, All the President’s Men, was to Baby Boomer journalists as Almost Famous was to Millennial journalists. That’s an interesting analogy to me, especially and I think there’s something to the different kinds of inspiration these generations found.
I was already on my way as a GenX journalist when Almost Famous came out. Not surprisingly, it resonated. First, the killer soundtrack which used perfect songs, perfectly. The Tiny Dancer scene is top 5 uses of music in a movie. Second, the idea that journalism can be a ticket to adventures. Coupled with that is the dangers in trying to use journalism for access not only to events or concerts or experiences, but access to a lifestyle and a world of people you otherwise wouldn’t know.
Maybe that works in politics? The White House correspondents dinner is a mixer for the press and the people they cover. Seems to be some legit mixing there. Or maybe that worked in the 70s? The Baby Boomer and their parents have done a bang-up job of pulling the ladders once they climbed them, after all.
Woodward and Bernstein did make themselves a household name, and one that has stood for generations. That doesn’t happen too often, but I think a lot of Boomer and other journalists hoped it would happen to them if they could just bring down a Name, or a Star, or even a Hero.
Anyway, I always thought of Almost Famous as Almost Matt, the story of a different path I could have taken. Young William, the protagonist, is a would-be writer for a young Rolling Stone magazine. He flies too close to the sun – a band loosely amalgamated from Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers and more. He thinks he has made friends with the band and their fan community.
He think that he, like Woodward and Bernstein in a way, had become cool. I mean, they were played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the movie. That’s cool.
But cool is a real danger.
Then, in conversation with Lester Bangs (played perfectly by Philip Seymour Hoffman) he gets the best career advice a young journalist could get:
Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.
William Miller: Well, it was fun.
Lester Bangs: Because they make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.
William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.
Now, “cool” here is relative. Working as a journalist, especially a music journalist, is very likely “cooler” than a lot of other jobs. But it’s not “cool” in the way the people you cover are “cool.” In a lot of cases, the people you cover are way cooler than you are, which is the whole point of the job. You’re telling their story, not the other way around. Robert Plant, David Bowie, Madonna, Bad Bunny… how many of their songs are about that awesome rock critic they met?
The real Lester Bangs wrote some amazing things about Lou Reed, for instance. The two would spar in interviews but seemed to grudgingly respect each other. Lester wrote, “Lou Reed is my own hero principally because he stands for all the most fucked up things that I could ever possibly conceive of. Which probably only shows the limits of my imagination.”
But they were talking to each other in an interview. They were both essentially being paid to be there. And it was Lester’s job to write things like that.
When Lou would blather on about the Village Voice rock critic, Robert Christgau, or rock critics in general during his mid-show rants (cf “Take No Prisoners”) it seemed like it should have been beneath him to do so. And it really kind of was.
Lester should have Lou as a hero, Lou shouldn’t really think about Lester much at all.
Journalists. We’re uncool.
Wait. That’s not entirely true.
Journalists. We’re uncool. Except to each other.
Which brings me back to the Watergate Hotel.
One odd thing about leaving journalism to go work as technically a content marketer is that I was able to then start going to journalism conferences. I also do more journalism-y things, but that’s another point.
I was in D.C. at the Online News Association conference. A well-funded start-up sponsored a party for attendees. They decided to do one of the coolest journalism things possible. They hosted the on the roof of the Watergate hotel and hired Carl Bernstein to speak. (The following year they had Dan Rather speak at their event at ONA in Austin. Then Judy Woodruff the next.)
But here I was mingling with other journalists sipping cocktails with appropriately clever names like “The Wire Tap.”
And then Carl Bernstein spoke. And he was cool. His speech was so good that I approached him afterward and asked if he had a copy he could send me (he said he only had his own notes.) Somehow I got to join the small meet-and-greet after, as well and got a signed copy of the book he and Woodward wrote called All the President’s Men. My kid would later read it as prep for a Model UN session, and now knows everything about Watergate.
Again, Bernstein is one of the rare journalists who transcended and became cool in a broader context. Inspiring both good and less productive aspirations in generations of journalists to come.
But even he was only cool to a point.
I ran into a friend from high school at that same conference, having not seen her in the intervening 20 years. She told me a crazy story about working for AOL covering the 2000 Democratic National Convention. AOL had a luxury suite at the stadium for its staff and guests. And this one older guy kept coming in and grabbing snacks and pop. He seemed to just be freeloading, so my friend kicked him out.
At which point her colleagues told her that she had just met Carl Bernstein, too.
Cool has its limits, and even for the coolest, sometimes that limit is just a couple free Pepsis.