- [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by.

- [Promoter] Chattanooga Funeral Home, Crematory, and Florist, dedicated to helping you celebrate your life or the life of a loved one for over 85 years.

Chattanooga Funeral Home believes that each funeral should be as unique and memorable as the life being honored.

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- [Alison] On this episode of "The A List," I learn how this renowned journalist got his start.

- I took the typing test, and the next day I got a call from this guy and he said, "Boy, you didn't tell me you could type like that."

And he hired me, $29 a week, and that was when I went to work in this exciting fabulous place, where I learned pretty much all I know about this trade, including the truth is not neutral, and about life.

- Join me for part one of my conversation with Carl Bernstein, coming up next on "The A List."

(upbeat music) In the world of journalism, it's hard to think of a name more synonymous with truth telling, integrity, and history-making investigative work than Carl Bernstein.

In 1972, he and Bob Woodward broke the story of the Watergate scandal, which led to unprecedented government investigations and the resignation of President Nixon.

Carl began his journalistic career at the age of 16, and since then, he has worked tirelessly to speak truth to power for the American public.

In December of 2022, I had a chance to sit down with Carl at Southern Adventist University for a conversation about why truth still matters, perhaps now more than ever.

In front of an engaged audience, including many aspiring journalists, Carl shared his own fascinating story and his philosophy on reporting.

I hope you enjoy part one of our conversation.

Carl Bernstein, welcome to Tennessee, welcome to Southern Adventist University, and welcome to "The A List," we're thrilled to have you.

- It's great to be here, thank you.

- So as they say.

- And lemme say this, - Oh yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

- It's so wonderful meet people here, both students, faculty, people from the community during that reception that just ended.

I wanna thank you for really tellin' me your stories a little bit.

Thank you so much.

- Well, and you're so gracious to come here, and as Elise said, we're talking tonight about why truth still matters.

So, as they say in your line of work, let's not bury the headline.

Let's lead with truth, and I know you've said before, "Truth is complicated and truth is not neutral."

What do you mean by that?

- Well, first of all, in 50 years, it's been 50 years since the Watergate break in.

And early on the first year of our reporting, Bob Woodward and I were asked by fellow members of the press, "What is your reporting all about?

"What do you call it?"

'Cause there's talk about investigative reporting and other stuff.

And we came up with this idea kinda simultaneously, "the best obtainable version of the truth," and for the last half century, that has been what we've aspired to and what it seems to me, real reporting, good reporting, great reporting, on whether it's your community or the White House is about, the best obtainable version of the truth.

And I think there's been entirely too much talk in journalism about objectivity.

The idea has evolved that objectivity somehow means that every point of view is equal, that every account of what has happened is equally valid.

So finally, I said in this book, what I learned from great reporters, as a kid covering the Civil Rights Movement, and I said, "The truth is not neutral."

And think about it, a lynching is not neutral.

- [Audience Member] Amen.

- And so from that evolves the notion, the best obtainable version of the truth is not gonna be neutral a good part of the time.

And so I'm gonna take a minute to explain that idea, beyond just the fact of covering a lynching, but let me say somethin' about covering the equivalent of a lynching.

In this book, which is really about my growing up in a newsroom from age 16 to 21 in the capital of the United States.

This kid, me, gets the best seat in the country.

And I've been there about three years, and the City Editor told me to go to National Airport and meet a woman coming in who was going to see President Lyndon Johnson.

And her name was Schwerner, and she was going to see Lyndon Johnson, the President of the United States, because her husband and two civil rights workers were missing in Mississippi.

And I stayed with her through that day.

She came from the White House, and she was the same age as I, she was like 21, a year or two older than I.

And she came outta a meeting with Lyndon Johnson and she said, "The President of the United States is not doing enough "to find my husband and the two other civil rights workers "who were missing, Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman."

Two weeks later, three weeks later, their bodies were found buried under a levee in Mississippi.

"Took my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry."

That story is not neutral.

The story of how those three young men were killed by members of the Klan was not neutral.

Their alibis, which we were able in the press to trace and know that they were lying, that story was not neutral.

So all I'm getting at, and now let's take it to a, and I'm takin' time on this for a reason because I think we can frame part of the discussion with this.

Let's say that downtown in Chattanooga there's a bank robbery, and the robber goes in, he's pointin' a gun at the teller and says, "Gimme all the money you got, put it in a bag."

He runs out, and there's a video camera goin'.

He runs out, cops can't find him for the next month.

Finally, he's found and arrested about two hours from here in Alabama, and he's got a lawyer.

Lawyer says, "My client was nowhere near that bank, "and listen to these relatives, "he's been here the whole month since this happened," and there's a whole string of alibis.

And yet, the press has, as do the DA, police department, the video.

How is that going to be objective?

How are you gonna give 50% of that story to the alibi and 50% to the videotape?

You're gonna give 90% to the videotape and 10% to the alibi.

So you go back to the best obtainable version of the truth, which is, oh yeah, the video is the best obtainable version and some other evidence, and if there's exonerating evidence or a little bit, then you put that in too.

And then, you talk about the truth not being neutral.

There's no neutrality about did he rob the bank?

And so what I'm seeing is we need a framework back to the title of this program tonight, about the truth.

We need a framework that our readers and viewers understand, finally, that we in journalism, who have done a terrible job often of explaining ourselves, we need to frame a discussion about what is truth in terms of examples and the kinda thing that I'm talking about.

And pardon me for the long answer, but, and my wife who's here tonight, says that I'm circumlocutious to the extreme.

(Alison and audience laugh) Cut me off, if I need to be.

- No, we're gonna get along just fine.

- And, we'll go on from here.

But, I like set the table with that.

- I love that, I love that.

And when you talk about Watergate, and let's talk about setting the table, you always talk about there being, not just a correlation but a direct line, from your time in.

You talk about this in your book, "Chasing History," which is phenomenal, about your time at "The Washington Star," as a young 16 year old, who frankly was terrible at school but great at typing.

And it got you into a newsroom, where really you found your passion, and you talk about that Sid Epstein specifically, that was your direct line eventually to Watergate.

But I wanna go back a little bit to frame your history and talk about those first steps in the newsroom and some of those moments where Sid Epstein and others gave you an opportunity to truly find your passion.

- Let's tell everybody who Sid Epstein was.

Sid Epstein was the City Editor of "The Washington Evening Star," the evening paper in Washington that competed against "The Washington Post" and usually beat "The Washington Post."

And that's where I went to work when I was 16 years old, and I stayed there from when I was 16 to 21, and he became my mentor.

- Well then, keep goin', so how'd you get there?

- How did I get to "The Star" or?

- How'd you get to "The Star"?

- Well, I was in high school.

I was a junior in high school, and I had one foot in the pool hall and one foot in the juvenile court and about a toe in the classroom.

(audience laughs) And my father could see that I was headed in the wrong direction, and he knew somebody at "The Star," government columnist there.

And he called this guy up and said, "Hey, possible my son could get a job there, "entry level job?"

And I went to see this guy, and he took me in to see the Production Editor of the paper, who was part of the owning family, and he said, "You wanna be a copy boy, huh?"

I said, "Yeah, yeah, sure."

He says, looked at me, and he, I could see he was skeptical 'cause I was really too short, had too many freckles, and he said, "Come back once you graduated."

And I came back a couple days later, (audience laughs) and he sort of said, "What are you doin' here?"

And I said, "Well, I'd really like to go to work here," because the first day he had taken me out of his office, not the way I came in, but into the newsroom through a door, and there was a commotion such as I have never seen, this purposeful commotion in this newsroom.

Newsroom about the size of this auditorium that we're in, and people were goin' about their business as if it were the most urgent things goin' on in the nation.

They were hollerin', "Copy," they were typin' on their typewriters, they were smokin' cigarettes, they were runnin' up to the desk, rippin' off pieces of copy, giving 'em to the editors.

It was the most exciting thing I ever saw in my life.

So I went back to this Production Editor the next day, and he didn't wanna see me, but he said, "Can you type?"

And I said, "Yeah," 'cause I had taken typing with the girls in the 10th grade.

(audience laughs) Tired of shop classes, no more buildin' those silly.

- You couldn't just type, you were an excellent typist.

- So I took the typing test, and the next day I got a call from this guy and he said, "Boy, you didn't tell me you could type like that."

And he hired me, $29 a week, and that was when I went to work in this exciting fabulous place, where I learned pretty much all I know about this trade, including the truth is not neutral, and about life.

- I wanna talk about two dates while you were there, the first, January 1961.

What did you get to do in January of 1961 that was an exceptional break for you?

- January 20th.

- January 20th.

- Which is Inauguration Day.

- Yes sir.

- And, Sid Epstein.

I had had a little adventure upstairs in the composing room where the type is set.

I had touched a piece of type, which I didn't know you weren't supposed to do, and so the composing room foreman had taken the whole front page and pushed it onto the floor.

And Sid Epstein looked at me and said, "Kid, go downstairs."

I knew something had happened, and he came down about half an hour later said, "Kid, in my office."

He said, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?"

I said, "I wanna be a newspaper reporter."

He said, "Why do you think you can be a newspaper reporter?"

I said, "Well, I've always been interested in secrets, "and I think I can write a little bit."

(Alison and audience laugh) And he said, "You don't wanna be a printer?"

I said, "No, I don't wanna be a printer."

He says, "Well, you gotta make me one promise, "that you'll never touch a piece "of hot type again as long as you live, "because that is the jurisdiction "of the International Typographical Union up there.

"You touch a piece of type, "and they're gonna throw the whole page out, "and it didn't cost, but 10, $20,000 what you just did."

And he said, "So you got it?"

I said, "Yeah."

Then he rolled out this long sheet of paper, newsprint, and he said, "January 20th, next week, "you go right here, 4th and Pennsylvania Avenue, "for the Kennedy inauguration.

"You just take notes "and call them in to Herman Schaden, the rewrite man."

And so I was able to cover the inauguration of John Kennedy at the age of 16, and it was really exciting.

- The age of 16.

- [Carl] Yeah.

- So, fast forward.

- Mind you, from the corner.

(audience laughs) But the whole parade went by.

I was able to really contribute to the story actually.

- So fast forward, barely a few years later, to November 22nd, 1963.

- Day John Kennedy was assassinated, and I was one of my attempts to stay in college.

I dropped out or got thrown out, and I was comin' out of an English class on my way to go to work 'cause I worked 40 hours a week and went to school.

And people were gathering around the radio, and I heard Walter Cronkite's voice say, "There's been confusion but no panic."

And I figured there'd been some explosion or something, who knows, you know.

He said, "The President has been taken to the hospital, "he's been shot in the head apparently."

And I raced down to "The Star" in my car, and as I got to "The Star," one of the reporters, a woman named Roberta Hornig, was running out with her notebook, and she said, "He's dead."

And I said, "No, "I've been listening to Walter Cronkite on the radio.

"How can he be dead?"

She said, "Jerry O'Leary got it from the CIA," one of our great reporters.

Got upstairs to the newsroom, and the newsroom was already, before it had been announced, going with the assumption that he was dead.

And I was this fast typist, and I sat, by that time I was no longer a copy boy, I was a dictationist, because I could type fast, which you put on a headset, the reporters call in their story to you, and you take it down and type it, you help 'em a little bit when their phrases are wrong.

And all of a sudden the National Editor said, "Bernstein take Broder from Dallas."

David Broder, great political reporter.

Put on my headset, and Broder took a deep breath, and he said, "Two priests walked out of Dallas Memorial Parkland Hospital "1:54 pm today, and said, 'The president is dead.'"

My hands were shaking so much that I misspelled hospital.

And then, for the next, and almost as soon as I had finished typing that, Sid Epstein said, "Kid, go up to the capitol "and see if you can find Speaker McCormack," who was the Speaker of the House and the next in line to be the President after the Vice President.

And I continued to cover the story through the weekend.

- What did those two moments and your time at "The Star" make you realize about you as a journalist?

- That, and look, it's not, I was also a journalist in Washington, which is my hometown, so there were two parts to what I was learning and what I did.

I knew my city, I knew the alleys, I knew the hangouts, I knew where the after hours club were, so it is that part, and then it's the capital of the United States, the great entity, it's the most important place in the world.

And I realized that there's a relationship between those two things, that what a reporter does is not just cover these elevated events, but you cover the surroundings and the context of it and the place in which it occurs.

And that part of the best obtainable version of the truth is context, it's not simply a set of facts.

And I think that is, you look at those two events.

I knew, in fact, as an example, when I was covering that inauguration, I was at 4th and Pennsylvania Avenue, and I knew and could see there were a bunch of buses parked about three blocks away, but I could see the buses, about 15 of 'em, parked three blocks away.

So I left my post 'cause I said, that's gotta be somethin', and I walked up to find those buses, and the drivers were there and I said, "What are you doin' here?"

And they said, "Well these buses are reserved "for the Kennedy family children."

I said, "Oh," so that became part of what I dictated to Herman Schaden.

And I said, "Where are you gonna go?"

And he said, "Well, they've got special seating "at the Treasury Department next to," so I'm learning how to do these things.

- Do you think though, being so young when you started and that natural curiosity and a little bit of naivete, gave you sort of a superpower that other journalists didn't have?

- No, I think the other journalists I worked with, many of whom were among the greatest journalists in the country, they had superpowers because their experience was so vast.

And one of the things about "The Star" was it covered news with a humanity that "The Washington Post" did not in those days, and we took great delight in beating "The Post" and the fact that we were a better newspaper.

But there was a great humanity, back to these two elements that I'm talkin' about, these reporters.

And also, one of the things about "The Star," that first day that I went to work there, the Head Copy Boy took me down that same middle aisle that the Production Manager had taken me down, and he started showin' me where people sat.

And then he looked at these three desks and he said, "This one belongs to Mary McGeary.

"She's really the greatest writing stylist "probably any paper in America."

The next one he said, "This one is Mary Lou Werner's desk.

"She won a Pulitzer Prize last year "for covering massive resistance "to integration in Virginia."

The next one, "This is Miriam Ottenberg's desk.

"She won a Pulitzer this year for investigative reporting."

There were women in "The Star" newsroom who were an integral part of this great reporting that you aspired to.

And so, no, it was them, not me, I was just learnin' really.

But what was the ticket?

Went to work there, and I got a yellow card, said "Evening Star" and a kind of bank note looking embossment on the back.

Everybody in the building had 'em, including the secretaries.

I got mine laminated (audience laughs) and punched a little hole in it, put a shoestring around it.

So I'd go up to the capitol, and I'd be sent as a copy boy to pick up a package to bring back, text of something to the newsroom.

I'd go up and I'd flash the card, and I'd get to sit in the press gallery and watch what was happenin' down below.

And I'd been there two weeks, and the Head Copy Boy said, "Bernstein, go out to Burning Tree."

This was before the election, just before the election between Nixon and Kennedy, and said, "Go out to Burning Tree Country Club."

Ike, who was in his last weeks as President, "General Eisenhower, the President, "is playing golf at Burning Tree, "and we've got a photographer out there takin' pictures, "and we wanna get the pictures in the last edition."

We had five editions of the paper.

"And you bring that film back here."

So I get to Burning Tree out in the suburbs, and I got this thing tied around my neck, and I show it to the head caddy, and he says, "Oh yeah, he's 'Evening Star'" and ushers me out.

And standin' 10 feet away from me on a putting green is the President of the United States, sinkin' putts like that.

And I notice he's got spots on his hand.

Had a notebook with me, I write down, "spots on his hand."

(Alison and audience laugh) And then the photographer signals me, he opens the back of his camera and hands me the film, and I'm still lookin' at the President.

But this kid gettin' to do these things, so it was amazing.

But what got me in places was that card and I learned, it was a press card essentially or I turned it into a press card.

And the notion and realization of the kind of entry that I could get once my foot was in the door.

And, of course, I just said that out loud, there's a scene in "All the President's Men," in the movie, and it's in the book as well, where I literally am tryin' to get my foot in the door to talk to the bookkeeper of the Nixon Reelection Committee.

And that's really what so much reporting is about.

Get your foot in the door and then you've got a chance to get the real story.

- Next week, we'll learn how Carl's formative experiences at "The Star" led him to his esteemed career at "The Washington Post."

Join me for part two of this conversation, as I talk about Watergate, "All the President's Men," and the state of journalism today with Carl Bernstein.

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- [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by.

- [Promoter] Chattanooga Funeral Home, Crematory, and Florist, dedicated to helping you celebrate your life or the life of a loved one for over 85 years.

Chattanooga Funeral Home believes that each funeral should be as unique and memorable as the life being honored.

- [Announcer] This program is also made possible by support from viewers like you.

Thank you.