Washington’s Scandal Culture

The history of muckraking journalism is very much the history of America. Our founders clearly understood the importance of a free press in a free society. Often times though, the work of the press has not served the interests of those in power and we’ve seen powerful push back as that power is threatened. We all remember The Pentagon Papers, the work of Sinclair Lewis, Walter Winchell, Woodward and Bernstein and today Julian Assange and Wikileaks.  Back in the days of Richard Nixon, another powerful newspaperman, Jack Anderson, would seek to tear down the wall of censorship that surrounded the Nixon administration. As you might expect, Nixon sought to retaliate and in so doing was born new chapters in the scandal culture of Washington. University of Maryland Professor and award winning journalist Mark Feldstein takes us inside a conflict that defined modern political warfare in his book Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture. My conversation with Mark Feldstein: .