Bob Woodward On 'Witch Hunts,' Plus Corporate Legal Operations Heroes

He was accepted to Harvard Law, but turned down a spot in the class to become a reporter. The rest is history...

Bob Woodward (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

It’s not every day a reporter gets to investigate and report on government and political scandals and dirty tricks. Well, maybe today it’s more common, now that I think about it. Bob Woodward, however, has been doing it since 1972, when he and Carl Bernstein broke the story of the burglary of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. More recently, the associate editor for the Washington Post penned Fear: Trump in the White House, which details events within the White House under a president who clearly appears to be out of his depth.

It is also not every day that I get an opportunity to listen to and meet a journalist like Woodward. So, when eDiscovery software company Zapproved invited me to their Third Annual eDiscovery Heroes Awards Dinner, at which Woodward would be a featured guest, I could not say no. My friend and colleague Craig Ball, whose occasionally acerbic, yet presentation comedic style is well-known, was given the enviable task of interviewing Mr. Woodward as part of the evening’s events, and because I’m a bit of a political news junkie, I knew this was bound to be a good evening. It occurred to me, too, that not everyone will be able to attend, so I decided to pay attention and report some of what I heard.

The evening began with awards given to corporate legal luminaries who have achieved eDiscovery milestones at their organizations over the past year. Cecil Lynn from PayPal received the Trailblazer Award; Michelle Spak from Duke Energy received the Smooth Operator Award; Sonya Judkins from Sprint received the Maximizer Award; and Robert Levy from ExxonMobil received the Guardian Award.

Next there was a moving tribute to former U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola, which was led by former U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin and the Hon. Paul W. Grimm. Judge Facciola was awarded the Shira Scheindlin Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to eDiscovery education, his contributions to the industry, and of course, his jurisprudence on the subject.

And then it was on to Bob Woodward. Craig Ball began with a bit of history on Woodward, including his time in the U.S. Navy. Woodward was also accepted to Harvard Law School, but he turned it down and opted instead to become a reporter. His career obviously spans many years and he’s written at last count 19 non-fiction books, all of which have achieved great success, but would it surprise anyone to know that he started off as a junior reporter working the police beat at the Washington Post from early evening into the early morning hours?

As fate would have it, one night in 1972, a security guard at the Watergate office complex noticed a door that had been tampered with and he called the police. Five guys in suits were arrested that evening for burglary and Woodward was assigned to attend their arraignment the next morning.

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Now, as a general rule, burglars don’t usually do their handiwork in suits, so the arraignment seemed odd to begin with. But when the judge asked one of the defendants where he had worked and the defendant muttered the acronym “CIA,” Woodward said “holy shit” and realized he was on to something.

The rest is history as they say, and Woodward has gone on to become one of the most respected and revered reporters in American journalism. More than once in the room tonight there was talk of speaking “truth to power.” But what struck me this evening was the quiet reserve that this man displayed. He had an audience, he recently published a book that is critical of the siting president, and he clearly could have unleashed some nugget of information that had yet to be heard by the public. But he had no interest in dishing or bashing. Instead, he preferred to talk about the process of reporting — the methods, the tools. He talked about developing relationships over his career. One such relationship led to his source on the Watergate break-in, a source he protected for many, many years despite death threats.

Woodward shared that it was never really his intention to write in his recent book about the Russia investigation or any of the other scandals in the Trump administration. His purpose, he said, was to write about how the president governed and “let the political system handle the rest of it.”

On July 22, 1972, a headline in the Washington Post read “Nixon sees ‘Witch Hunt,’ Insiders Say.” For Bob Woodward to hear the current occupant of the White House utter the same phrase today raises some eerily familiar tones that back then led to the unseating of a president. He did not opine on whether something similar would happen to the current president, but that we were not at this dinner to judge or to criticize. We were here to celebrate heroes.

Thanks to our friends at Zapproved for a great evening and congratulations to the newly minted corporate legal heroes. Lastly, thank you Bob Woodward inspiring the last few generations of journalists.

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Mike Quartararo

Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@edpmadvisory.com. Follow him on twitter @edpmadvisory.