Award-Winning Reporter Bob Woodward Visits Stony Brook University, April 11-12, 2007

Woodward meets with Stony Brook students	Woodward addresses University audience, April 11	Meeting with Journalism student advisory board
Woodward interview by Professor Robert Greene during class	Woodward describes lessons he learned as a young reporter	Journalism student Jennifer Gustavson asks a question

Photo Credit: Chris Lonardo

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By Lauren Sarakos
SBU J-School Reporter

“What is the thing we really should worry about as citizens and as journalists?” Bob Woodward, a prominent American journalist best known for unveiling the Watergate scandal in 1972, asked a crowd of journalism students, faculty, and Long Island residents at Stony Brook University on the evening of April 11. “I think the real thing to worry about, the thing that will do us in, is secret government,” he answered. 

Stony Brook’s new School of Journalism brought Woodward to Long Island Wednesday night. The dean of the School of Journalism, Howard Schneider, described how “Bob Woodward had found his passion” 35 years ago working at the Washington Post and is now a top journalist studying George W. Bush’s presidency.

An inspiration to the many aspiring journalists present, Woodward spoke of the Bush administration’s various secrets to the attentive crowd. Revealing information that can be found in three of his 12 best-selling books—Bush at War; Plan of Attack; and State of Denial, all about the Bush administration—Woodward gave his audience a glimpse inside the White House from his own eyes. Providing the most detail about his newest book, State of Denial, Woodward explained that the title came directly from the material that he had covered. He said that there has been an ongoing denial of reality within the White House.

“We have not been told the truth,” Woodward said of the Bush administration’s responses to U.S. citizens regarding the Iraq War. While violence overseas has continued to escalate, President Bush has continued to make speeches to the contrary, he explained.  While telling citizens from the confines of the Oval Office that “we have reached the turning point,” an average of four attacks an hour were being made on American troops in Iraq, Woodward added. Read more >>

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By Nathan Shapiro
SBU J-School Reporter

People had begun showing up well before the start of what Dean Howard Schneider of the Stony Brook School of Journalism had dubbed “the coming-out event” for the school. Journalism legend Bob Woodward was scheduled to appear Wednesday evening, April 11, in the SAC Ballroom, and a sold-out crowd was assembled to meet him.
           
The room of journalism students, aficionados and mere fans was buzzing with excitement as the time slated for Bob Woodward’s arrival neared. Anticipation only grew as the clock slipped past the start time without Woodward’s presence, but when he did step into the room minutes later, the room was filled with respectful applause. The “event” had begun.
Woodward sat on stage while Schneider introduced him to the audience and at the same time introduced the audience to the journalism school and its goals.

“There has never been a greater need to train another generation of journalists who are smart, prepared, committed, independent and can work in the public’s interest,” said Schneider, alluding to the traits he seeks to instill into his students. “Few journalists embody those characteristics more than Bob Woodward,” he said.

Upon taking the lectern, Woodward began with the unorthodox request for audience members to raise their hands to show who had voted for Bush or Kerry and, likewise, who supported the war in Iraq. After the count was taken, and the handful of “rich, white war-mongering Republicans,” as Woodward sarcastically called them, had been identified, he began discussing his topic for the night: why the Iraq war came to happen, why it turned out as it did and why the United States won’t leave. Read more >>