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What of Woodstein in the Rebooted World

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Dave Winer.

Every time I write about Sources Go Direct, like clockwork, someone asks how will we get Woodward & Bernstein reporting without great reporters sniffing around for stories that bring down Presidents.  

Never mind that it only happened once and hasn't happened since. Only Richard Nixon has been forced from office by the press (or anyone) and it turns out that had W&B not been sleuthing, the NYT had the story too, but they blew it. So it's possible that without W&B, Nixon would have remained in office. However it's hard to imagine that he could have been worse than Bush II, who the press of today did not bring down. (A fact the defenders of projournos never address.) 

Anyway... 

In the rebooted world, Deep Throat, the source, might go direct -- anonymously, using a proxy server, possibly -- and a Twitter account created for just such a purpose. BTW, I don't assume there won't be reporters in the rebooted world, but I do assume the sources will be able to go direct if they choose to. And in this case I don't see why they wouldn't. 

I write this from Berlin, a place that has seen huge change, many times, in the last 100 years. The kind of change that would make Americans weep with fear.