Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward criticized the paper’s coverage of the Steele Dossier and revealed that Washington Post reporters did not heed his warnings.
Woodward’s comments came in a report from the Columbia Journalism Review. It examined the media’s coverage of Trump’s supposed links to Russia.
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Talking to Jeff Gerth, Woodward said that the outlet’s coverage of the subject “wasn’t handled well,” and that he believed the Washington Post’s readers had been “cheated.”
The only thing left to do, he added, was for newsrooms to “walk down the painful road of introspection.”
Woodward was publicly known to have found the dossier a “garbage document.” He described it as such in a Fox News appearance. Behind the scenes, he told Gerth that he even reached out to individual reporters to explain his reservations over the document. Reporters were less than receptive.
“To be honest, there was a lack of curiosity on the part of the people at the Post about what I had said, why I said this, and I accepted that and I didn’t force it on anyone,” he said of their reaction.
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An editors note from Kyle Pope, author of the Columbia Journalism Review report, noted that the media’s coverage of Trump’s supposed Russia links were a defining moment of his presidency, convincing the president of the media’s permanent hostility.
“No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate. The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes as well as embarrassing retractions and damaged careers. For Trump, the press’s pursuit of the Russia story convinced him that any sort of normal relationship with the press was impossible,” Pope wrote.
