Date: Mar 08, 2012

Reporters Woodward & Bernstein to Speak on 40th Anniversary of Watergate

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY - Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the reporters who broke the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post and set the standard for modern investigative journalism, will speak at Hofstra University on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 for the 40th anniversary of the story that forced President Richard Nixon to resign.

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Their lecture,  “40 Years After Watergate: A Conversation with Woodward and Bernstein,” will be held at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse, South Campus, from 3 to 4:30 pm.  The event is free and open to the public, but registration is recommended. To register, go to www.hofstra.edu/watergate. 

The event is part of Hofstra’s “Debate 2012 – Pride, Politics and Policy” programming, a series of lectures, conferences, classes and other events designed to engage and inform the campus community about the election, politics and presidential history in the months before Hofstra hosts the second presidential debate on October 16. 

Woodward and Bernstein’s work covering the Watergate story began with the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and eventually exposed the Nixon administration’s involvement and attempted cover-up of a pattern of illegal activities financed by the president’s re-election committee. The stories earned The Washington Post a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1973, and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon a year later. Woodward and Bernstein  collaborated on two #1 national bestsellers:  All the President’s Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976), which detail their experiences covering Watergate and the Nixon presidency.  The first became an Oscar-winning movie by the same name starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. 

“No reporters more clearly show the value of a free press in a democracy than Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and I am delighted that they will be sharing their experiences with Hofstra students,” said School of Communication Dean Evan W. Cornog.  “Their work changed America, and their example has inspired countless aspiring journalists and others for the past four decades. 

Bob Woodward has been with The Post since 1971, where he is currently an associate editor. His work as lead reporter on articles about the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks helped the paper win the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002.  He has authored or co-authored 16 books, all of which have been national non-fiction bestsellers. 

Carl Bernstein is a political analyst for CNN, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine and a former Washington Bureau Chief and correspondent for ABC News.  He has written and lectured extensively about the role of the American press, and has also authored books about the lives of Richard Nixon, Pope John Paul II and most recently, Hillary Clinton, which was a national bestseller and chosen by Amazon.com readers as one of the ten best books of the year.

Upcoming Debate 2012 events at Hofstra include: an appearance by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on March 29, 2012;and a symposium sponsored by the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency on April 19,2012, comparing the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama that will feature  senior presidential fellows Howard Dean and Ed Rollins.  For more information about these and other events, go to www.hofstra.edu/debate. 

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 150 undergraduate and 160 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied health services and honor studies, as well as a School of Law and the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine

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