Few journalists in America’s history have had the impact on their era and their craft as Carl Bernstein. For forty years, from All the President’s Men to A Woman-In-Charge: The Life of Hillary Clinton, Bernstein’s books, reporting, and commentary have revealed the inner-workings of government, politics, and the hidden stories of Washington and its leaders.
In the early 1970s, Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post, leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and setting the standard for modern investigative reporting, for which they and The Post were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Since then, Bernstein has continued to build on the theme he and Woodward first explored in the Nixon years – the use and abuse of power: political, media, financial, cultural and spiritual power. Renowned as a prose stylist, he has also written a classic biography of Pope John Paul II, served as the founding editor of the first major political website, and been a rock critic.
From 1977-1978, Carl Bernstein spent a year investigating the CIA’s secret relationship with the American press during the Cold War. The resulting 25,000-word article for Rolling Stone, entitled “The CIA and the Media,” was the first to examine a subject long suppressed by both American newspapers and the intelligence community.
The author of five best-selling books, Bernstein is currently also at work on several multi-media projects, including a memoir about growing up at a Washington newspaper, The Evening Star, during the Kennedy era; and a dramatic TV series about the United States Congress for HBO. He is also an on-air contributor for CNN and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine.
In addition to his political coverage and commentary, Carl Bernstein has written and lectured extensively—and critically—about the American press, its role and responsibilities. In the political season of 1999-2001, Bernstein served as editor and executive vice president of Voter.com, a pioneering website that Forbes magazine named the best political site on the internet, and which initiated the now-standard practice of amassing and consolidating content from multiple sites.