Bob Woodward in the CrimsonThe Crimson's magazine, FM, puts its "15 Questions" to Bob Woodward, who was in Cambridge flacking his new book, "State of Denial."
Since the interviewer, Francesca Gilberti, is apparently a freshman, I don't want to be too tough on her. But, Francesca...it is a good idea to do at least a little background reading on the subject of your interview. So that you know, say, that Deep Throat's identity was disclosed about a year and a half ago, and that therefore there's no need to make your first question of Woodward, "Who is Deep Throat?"
Alas, Gilberti gives no indication that she has read even one of Woodward's books. Instead, she asks him about blogs and whether he writes on a computer.
Woodward, for his part, shows a total lack of a sense of humor—not a huge surprise—and a real touchiness about criticism. Like when he responds to this question about his recent NY Times/Michiko review by saying,
I’m going to answer that very directly by saying I think she forgot the reviews that she wrote of the earlier book, "Plan of Attack". She said the following: "In his engrossing new book, ‘Plan of Attack’, Bob Woodward uses myriad details to chart the Bush administration’s march to war against Iraq. His often harrowing narrative not only illuminates the fateful interplay of personality and policy among administration hawks and doves, but it also underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence, Pentagon timetables, and aggressive ideas about military and foreign policy had in creating momentum for war."
About which one must say two things: One, he doesn't answer the question. And two—it's kind of weird that Woodward can quote an entire paragraph of a review from memory.
Woodward is also a little patronizing, as when he tells Gilberti that "you ask tough questions," when she obviously doesn't. But then, I suppose it's slightly understandable when being interviewed by someone who doesn't appear to have much idea what she's talking about. You can understand it when Woodward answers one question by tellng Gilberti, "Read State of Denial..." It's pretty obvious that she hasn't. One other thing that's a bit odd. Woodward emphasizes the importance of "digging" in journalism—certainly true—and says that during Watergate, Katherine Graham would tell him, "Keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving."
Keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving.
What were they smoking there at the Washington Post?
¶ 9:18 AM
Comments:
Richard,
The "Who was Deep Throat" question was obviously a joke. Perhaps, Woodward isn't the only one without a sense of humor.
Yeah, I thought about that. But it would have been such a lame joke, I decided to give the interviewer the benefit of the doubt and attribute it to simply not knowing. And since she didn't seem to know much else about Woodward through the rest of the interview, I felt pretty confident about that interpretation.
Richard, I have it on good authority that it was indeed a joke (the hard copy of FM today has the line teased on the front: Woodward Reveals Deep Throat--or something like that). Was it a great interview? Absolutely not. Was it a great question? Absolutely. Go back to picking on Sam Teller--he actually enjoys it, I think.
