Watergate: The virus that plagues journalism

The American people ruin things. We ruined the Middle East, we ruine chinese food via Panda Express. However, the most controversial thing that Americans ruined was the Presidency of Richard Nixon.

The citizens during the time forced Nixon to unnecessarily leave the oval office like they forced the United States to leave Vietnam. Even though at the time it was hailed at a journalism success, the incident of Watergate proved move harm to the idea of journalism than it actually appears. As one of the fundamental ideas of journalism is to always give the people the truth of the story, in some cases like Watergate, it is best for the truth to not to be told. Then came two reporters of Woodward and Bernstein.

What they did in Watergate ruined the credibility of the journalist. Sure it did change journalism, but now for the worse as the Lakeland Ledger Newspaper in April 1994 describes this changes as, “After Nixon got the shiv, the J-schools were overrun by  wave  after wave of star struck youth.  They got their degrees and set out to bring down someone-if not the president [than someone]”. This dramatically changed the outlook as now these new “big game hunters” only wanted to go into journalism for the possibility of the fame that Watergate got.

These hot shot college kids changed it to the core as it became more about the fame than the initial reason: for enjoyment. Watergate lost the source of enjoyment in journalism as time went on, less and less people encountered this profession because they liked it rather than this new reason.

This then lead to journalist like Stephen Glass, who came from this wave of journalism, to harm it because he wanted the fame credited with the Rolling Stones and other articles. Journalist like Glass who wanted to do anything in their power to make fame, even if it leads them  publishing articles that  were fabricated like Glass.

As more and more journalist only wanted the fame, the more the respectability of the field died. Even though they are hailed  as the champions of journalism, they actually started the virus that plagues the field today