Woodward and Bernstein are the guys who did the early reporting on Watergate, authored the bestselling book about their journalistic experiences, and got to be portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in a really, really good & well loved movie. And they are described as chalk and cheese; two very different people with clashing personas.
They're superstars in the journalism community, they have footnotes in U.S history books, and I don't have any conclusions about them that others haven't already made. I just think they're neat...
Oh and ''Woodstein'' is their cute little portmanteau name given to them by one of their editors.
Bob Woodward
He's an enemy of the Ghostbusters. He enjoys Ovaltine. He's a book-writing powerhouse. And he looks like a scared baby kitten. There's something evil deep down in him.
Bob was born on March 26, 1943, in Geneva, Illinois, and grew up in Wheaton. His parents were divorced early on, and his Dad took custody and merged his family with his new wife's family Brady Bunch-style. It kind of messed Bob up a bit, especially when he used his budding investigative skills to figure out that his dad was buying more gifts for his new wife's kids than for his own.
He worked as a janitor at his Republican-lawyer dad's law office, and liked snooping on all the records and learning all the dirt about the people in the Wheaton community. Divorces, child custody cases, and financial debts, that kind of stuff. Bob would later write an experimental(?), fictional novel inspired by all the hidden misfortunes in his town, but his draft was rejected by the publishing company, and Bob ended up burning all drafts of his book.
Wanting to be financially independent from his dad, Bob got an rotc scholarship to pay for his Yale education, meaning that after he graduated, he would have to serve a few years in the military. He became a Navy lieutenant with control of nuclear launch codes, living on a few different boats during the Vietnam War, despite not supporting the war. He marched in his uniform at an anti-war protest later on in 1969. How sweet.
After a few years in the Navy he started working with the Pentagon in D.C, doing communications stuff or whatever. But while living in D.C. Bob took a liking to the Washington Post's coverage of Vietnam and thought they had a better grasp on it than the actual generals in the Pentagon.
Wanting to work at the post, Bob sent a letter asking for a job despite having no reporting experience, and got passed along because of his Yale education. He got rejected at first, so he went and got a job at a smaller newspaper in the area, then returned to the Post and got hired. The Post editors liked his insistent, hard-working attitude and promoted him often. A lot of his fellow reporters (especially Carl Bernstein) were a bit jealous and saw him as a boot-licker.
Before Watergate, Bob wrote some restaurant inspection stories, but also got some early political stuff in there with a story about George Wallace's assassination attempt.
Carl Bernstein
carl bernstein.
(still writing his section)
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