WOODWARD BEING WOODWARD

Should journalists necessarily report what they know, when they know it, if that may benefit the public? Really now, isn’t that their role?

Take Bob Woodward. Take him or leave him.

The topic here is some of the 18 audio recordings he made of Donald Trump for his just-released book, RAGE, telling the dogged Javert of reporters in February that Covid-19 was a lot more serious (“deadly stuff”) than he was disclosing in public. And telling Woodward in March that he was “playing down” the threat, painting a rosier picture because “I don’t want to create a panic.” 

Even from Trump, who pours deceit like blood from a hemophiliac, this is shocking. Not that he said it, but that we can hear him saying it. He’s not quoted by someone else. Not paraphrased. Not interpreted, his words dissected. It’s him, his voice, the evil twit himself blabbing to Woodward at times like a buddy over a beer, knowing he’s being taped.

And shocking, too, in some circles, that Woodward (and his publisher, Simon & Schuster) would withhold these pandemic-keyed recordings until now, protecting the book’s full blockbuster potential. But at what cost?

If Woodward, armed with recordings as evidence, had revealed earlier that Trump’s ho-humming public statements about the pandemic contradicted his true sentiments, could that have changed attitudes and saved lives? No way of knowing, yet we do know many millions of Americans march to Trump’s cadence. Flash back to August when Kristin Urquiza told the Democratic National Convention that her Trump-heeding 65-year-old father had died from Covid-19 after visiting a bar on the heels of Trump urging Americans to “get out and about.”

To be fair, put yourself in Woodward’s shoes: to report or not to report could be a tough call, one of those times when self-interest and public interest collide. Blowing the whistle on Trump’s pandemic views earlier would surely have aborted Woodward’s access to him, harming the book. A lot of money was (is) at stake. And besides, Woodward, now promoting RAGE endlessly, is ready with an excuse. He told the Associated Press about hearing Trump’s grim Covid thoughts: “He tells me this, and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, but is it true?’ Trump says things that don’t check out, right?”

Oh, c’mon. As if media don’t regularly—hourly, it seems—regurgitate what Trump blows out even when it’s likely BS? Trumpstink is ubiquitous, the fact checker’s nightmare. In fact, much of political news of all stripes is generated by public statements whose veracity is unknown, even questionable at the time. But out it zooms anyway, honoring the venerable press axiom: we report, you decide.

Some have done their own deciding on the delayed tapes release, with Woodward taking heat from a few corners of media. Said Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post: “The chance—even if it’s a slim chance—that those revelations (the tapes) could have saved lives is a powerful argument against waiting this long.” Amen. 

Many others give him a pass, affirming that journalists in some ways are a lot like the partisan politicians many of them cover and grouse about. When one of their own is publicly denounced or even second guessed, journalists circle the wagons. Just as Republican Party zombies do when Trump comes under the attack. 

Lawrence O’Donnell, among the smartest, best informed and most incisive cable news hosts, had Woodward on MSNBC for the entire hour Wednesday night, yet didn’t raise the tapes issue once. 

There’s a double standard here. Many of those giving Woodward a wink and a nod on the lagging tapes release were less charitable to former national security adviser John Bolton for reserving his slams of Trump on Ukraine and other issues for publication of his book, THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED. He was accused of elevating greed over country. 

But unlike Bolton, Woodward is hero-worshipped and regarded with awe by much of the media crowd. What’s more, the guy is a bestseller machine. Post columnist Eugene Robinson soft-soaped the topic, clearly uneasy when asked recently to comment on his friend Woodward waiting so long to out Trump: “Maybe we should let Woodward be Woodward.”

That is, play it down.