Yes, The Washington Post‘s longtime love child, Bob Woodward, reads the newspaper that raised him. Woodward is still an associate editor at The Post. He recently unleashed a new book, Fear: Trump in the White House.
This week, Woodward is at the Global Financial Leadership Conference in lush Naples, Florida.
NBC’s Dylan Byers reported that Woodward was asked what he reads apart from his own paper. Byers did not initially tweet this, but made it seem that Woodward doesn’t read his own newspaper. The Washington Post was not on Byers’ list for Woodward. Neither was CNN.
However shocking this may be, I think at 75, he’s earned the right to read and watch whatever he wants.
“+ What WOODWARD reads today: ‘The New York Times … Axios … I don’t do Twitter or Facebook. There’s no time.’ @nytimes @Axios,” Byers wrote on Twitter.
Woodward does have a Twitter feed. But he’s right — it looks barely used except for promoting his books, documentaries, events and media appearances. He has 151,000 followers and follows 682 people.
He also has a trail of accuracy issues that has dogged him over the years. Not that this necessarily means anything, but when he released his book on Trump’s White House, even President Trump said Woodward had credibility problems. Which is saying a lot from a man whose lies are tracked on a daily basis.
In September, Woodward took his book to Georgetown for any student who wanted to attend. Only about 30 showed up.
In 2010, Woodward solidified Axios’ Mike Allen‘s presence in D.C. media’s time capsule when he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Allen is a must-read.
“You don’t have to do anything else, just read Mike Allen,” Woodward said, as mentioned by NYT‘s Mark Leibovich in his famous magazine profile on Allen.
Woodward made himself a household name when he and fellow reporter Carl Bernstein, who is now a political bloviator at CNN, broke Watergate in the summer of 1972 at some newspaper called The Washington Post.
Correction: Despite NBC’s Dylan Byers making it seem like Woodward doesn’t read The Washington Post, he corrected me to say that Woodward does read his own paper. It’s a shame Byers didn’t make this clear in the first place and then made a lame attempt to scold me on Twitter. What an ass.