The Watergate Affair

This analysis of the news media coverage will focus on the Watergate

affair which originally began on June 17, 1972 with the break-in of the

Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the prestigious Watergate office

complex in Washington D.C.. I will primarily concentrate on the negative impact

that media coverage had to the publics eye. This media coverage, although

justified and appropriate for the situation, ultimately destroyed the

credibility of Nixon's administration and the ability to run an effective

government which forced the first resignation of an American president.

The history of the events at hand is as follows. The Nixon

Administration financed a White House Special Investigative Unit called the

plumbers. This unit was initially established under John Erlichmann a top White

House aide, to “plug” leaks from the White House to the press and consisted of

former FBI and CIA operatives. It comes to fact that these plumbers were

involved in illegal break-ins and wiretapping before the Watergate scandal. On

June 17, 1972, the night watchman at the Watergate complex discovered adhesive

tape on the basement doors of the complex. Five men were arrested that night

and began a series of inquiries and investigations into the possible corruption

of 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 (CRP

also known as CREEP). (New York Times, June 21, 1972, page 1, column 3)

Immediately after the arrests, the news media had already began initial

accusations and offering possible motives to the public through statements like:

“ There was continuing speculation here and in the Cuban community in

Miami that unnamed men, in or out of an anti-Castro organization, had carried

out a number of politically sensitive operations to win the Governments sympathy

for 30,000 to 40,000 Cuban refugees living in Spain.” (4 Hunted in Inquiry on

Democratic Raid, New York Times, June 21, 1972, page 44, column 1)

On June 20, it came to the attention of President Richard Nixon that

there were connections made between the burglars and CRP and various White House

personnel. The president, on June 23, recommended that the CIA should prevent a

FBI inquiry into the Watergate incident based on national security interests.

To no avail, the FBI continued its investigation and eventually sifted through

the maze of paper trails and cover up. Evidence began to surface, pointing to

the 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