Southern Adventist University Invites Watergate Reporter Bernstein To Campus

In the 1970s, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post, which lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Bernstein's career since Watergate has continued to focus on the theme of the use and abuse of power via books and magazine articles. He has also done reporting for television and opinion commentary. He is the author or co-author of seven books: All the President's Men, The Final Days, and The Secret Man, with Bob Woodward; His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time, with Marco Politi; Loyalties; A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Chasing History, a memoir of his early years in journalism. He is a regular political commentator on CNN.

Two years after leaving ABC News, Bernstein released the book Loyalties: A Son's Memoir, in which he revealed that his parents had been members of the Communist Party of America. He states in the book that he is proud of the choices of his parents.

Southern Adventist University

On December 1, Bernstein was invited to Southern Adventist University for an interview in the Iles P.E. Center. More than 1,500 students, employees, alumni, and community members attended the event.

According to the local newspapers and attendees, Bernstein spent the first half of the interview recounting the Watergate story; the second half answering questions from the audience and sharing his political viewpoints.

Here are responses from people in attendance:

  • “Really enjoyed this. Good interview. It inspires me to be a journalist.”

  • “He said that Fox News was not truthful, but when asked to name any other news networks that were untruthful, he danced around the subject like a press secretary, even though he said, there are others.”

  • “The first part was good, he spent the second part railing on Donald Trump.”

  • “He said basically that people are not looking to the press for truth, but rather looking for those who support their point of view. The Press does too much to manufacture controversy.”

  • “Carl Bernstein isn’t really a journalist so much as he’s a liberal advocate. That’s his right, but we shouldn’t pretend he is what he’s not.”

  • “It was terrific!”

  • “When writing about his communist party parents he said ‘“I am proud of the choices they made.”’ I am saddened that a Christian school would invite such a politically divisive individual to its campus.”

Southern's School of Journalism and Communication may have other invitees to this lecture forum. Historian and American commentator Victor Davis Hanson might be a worthy counterpoint to Bernstein. If you could get him.

That’s the news on the Adventist landscape. Have a blessed day.

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“No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4).