Redefining the legacy of two star reporters and Watergate

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WOODWARD AND BERNSTEIN: LIFE IN THE SHADOW OF WATERGATE

By Alicia C. Shepard

John Wiley & Sons, $24.95, 304 pages

REVIEWED BY ROBERT VERBRUGGEN

After more than three decades of newspaper stories, books, movies and magazine features, America really should be sick of hearing about Watergate. It's easy to attribute the constant coverage to the media's obsession with itself -- after all, superstar Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are an integral part of the narrative.

But if anything the country needs a refresher course, because the myths surrounding the tale are many. Nixon-haters, breathless journalism students and the general public alike wax incessantly about the pair that "brought down a presidential administration!" and how important whistle-blower Deep Throat was to the whole thing.

"Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate," by American University's Alicia C. Shepard, takes a good, solid shot at being that refresher course. It chronicles the journalists lives before, during and after Watergate, drawing on newly available archives.

Ms. Shepard is clearly a fan of "Woodstein," but from the work's early pages she is careful not to overstate the duo's importance. If only all of America would read a few sentences from the preface:

"[T]he two reporters did not single-handedly bring down the president . . . The courts, the Congress, the grand jury, and the FBI all played key roles. In reality, had former Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield not told Senate investigators on Friday, July 13, 1973, that Nixon kept a secret taping system, Nixon might never have resigned."