Bob Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is regarded as one of America's preeminent investigative
reporters and non-fiction authors. He has worked for
The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post. While a young reporter for
The Washington Post in 1972, Woodward was teamed up with
Carl Bernstein; the two did much, but not all, of the original news reporting on the
Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of
President Richard Nixon.
Gene Roberts, the former executive editor of
The Philadelphia Inquirer and former managing editor of
The New York Times, has called the work of Woodward and Bernstein "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time."
[1]Woodward was born to Jane and Alfred Woodward in Geneva, Illinois. He was a resident of Wheaton, Illinois. He enrolled in Yale University with an NROTC scholarship, and studied history and English literature. He received his B.A. degree in 1965, and began a five-year tour of duty in the U.S. Navy. After being discharged as a lieutenant in August, 1970, Woodward considered attending law school but applied for a job as a reporter for The Washington Post. Harry M. Rosenfeld, the Post's metropolitan editor, gave him a two-week trial but did not hire him because of his lack of journalistic experience. After a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, Woodward was hired as a Post reporter in September, 1971.
Woodward has authored or coauthored 15 non-fiction books in the last 35 years. All 15 have been national bestsellers and 11 of them have been _1 national non-fiction bestsellers -- more _1 national non-fiction bestsellers than any contemporary author. He has written multiple _1 national non-fiction bestsellers on a wide range of subjects in each of the four decades he has been active as an author, from 1974 to 2009.
Woodward's work for the Post and his books, which penetrate deeply into various Washington, D.C. institutions and seven presidencies, are often greeted with initial skepticism, criticism, and even denials. But time and time again, after the record, memoirs and various government investigations are completed, his work has proved to be accurate.
