Bob Woodward started working at The Washington Post in 1971. Best known for his reporting on the Watergate scandal in 1972, he went on to cover nine U.S. presidents, share in two Pulitzer Prizes and write 21 best-selling books. On Wednesday, Dec. 8 at 12:00 p.m. ET, in a special Washington Post Live program, the veteran journalist and acclaimed author will be interviewed by his wife, Elsa Walsh, former New Yorker and Washington Post staff writer, about his storied 50-year career at the Post and his contributions to journalism.
Highlights
Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward is an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and second in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has authored or coauthored 18 books, all of which have been national non-fiction bestsellers. Twelve of those have been #1 national bestsellers. His most recent book, The Last of the President’s Men, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2015. Bob Schieffer of CBS News has said, “Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time.” In 2014, Robert Gates, former director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense, said that he wished he’d recruited Woodward into the CIA, saying of Woodward, “He has an extraordinary ability to get otherwise responsible adults to spill [their] guts to him...his ability to get people to talk about stuff they shouldn’t be talking about is just extraordinary and may be unique.” Gene Roberts, the former managing editor of The New York Times, has called the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate coverage, “maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time.” In listing the all-time 100 best non-fiction books, Time Magazine has called All the President’s Men, by Bernstein and Woodward, “Perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history.” In 2018 David Von Drehle wrote, “What [Theodore] White did for presidential campaigns, Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward has done for multiple West Wing administrations – in addition to the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Federal Reserve.”
Honors and Awards: Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 1973Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2003Heywood Broun award, 1972Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting, 1972Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting, 1986Sigma Delta Chi Award, 1973George Polk Award, 1972William Allen White Medal, 2000Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency, 2002
Interviewed by Elsa Walsh
Elsa Walsh is a writer and journalist who speaks frequently about women’s issues. She has been a staff writer at the New Yorker where she became known for tackling difficult subjects and mastering the art of the profile and before that, a reporter for The Washington Post, where she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the investigative journalism category. She is the author of Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of Three American Women, named as one of the ten best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly. In recent years, she has turned to screenwriting. Walsh is a trustee at Sidwell and was a longtime boardmember at Martha’s table. She lives in Washington DC with her husband Bob Woodward and his daughter, Diana Woodward. Her daughter Tali Woodward lives in Brooklyn.
