The Watergate Affair :: essays research papers

This analysis of the news media reporting will focus on the Watergateaffair which originally began on June 17, 1972 with the break-in of theDemocratic National citizens committee Headquarters at the prestigious Watergate officecomplex in Washington D.C.. I will primarily concentrate on the negative impactthat media coverage had to the publics eye. This media coverage, althoughjustified and appropriate for the situation, ultimately destroyed thecredibility of Nixons administration and the ability to run an effectivegovernment which forced the first resignation of an American president.The taradiddle of the events at hand is as follows. The NixonAdministration financed a White House Special Investigative Unit called theplumbers. This unit was initially established under prat Erlichmann a top WhiteHouse aide, to plug leaks from the White House to the press and consisted offormer FBI and CIA operatives. It comes to fact that these plumbers wereinvolved in illegal break-ins and wireta pping before the Watergate scandal. OnJune 17, 1972, the night watchman at the Watergate complex discovered adhesivetape on the basement doors of the complex. Five men were arrested that nightand began a series of inquiries and investigations into the workable corruptionof White House Officials. (Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, Volume 13,page 1603)Among those arrested on the night of June 17, 1972 were James McCord Jr.,security coordinator for the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRPalso known as CREEP). (New York Times, June 21, 1972, page 1, column 3)Immediately after the arrests, the news media had already began initialaccusations and offering possible motives to the public through statements resembling There was continuing guess here and in the Cuban community inMiami that unnamed men, in or out of an anti-Castro organization, had carriedout a number of politically sensitive trading operations to win the Governments sympathyfor 30,000 to 40,000 Cuban r efugees living in Spain. (4 Hunted in Inquiry onDemocratic Raid, New York Times, June 21, 1972, page 44, column 1)On June 20, it came to the worry of President Richard Nixon thatthere were connections made between the burglars and CRP and various White Housepersonnel. The president, on June 23, recommended that the CIA should prevent aFBI inquiry into the Watergate incident based on theme security interests.To no avail, the FBI continued its investigation and eventually sifted throughthe maze of paper trails and cover up. Evidence began to surface, pointing tothe administration itself. Realizing the internal nature of this situation,stories began to look like this No one was making any accusations yet, but in the midst of a curious