Socolow speaks with NBC News about timing of Woodward’s release of President’s COVID-19 remarks
Michael Socolow, an associate professor in communication and journalism at the University of Maine, spoke with NBC News for a story titled “Bob Woodward criticized for not releasing Trump’s COVID-19 comments sooner.” Socolow said the veteran Washington Post journalist, known best for his coverage of the Watergate scandal involving former President Richard M. Nixon, has used the same reporting practices for more than four decades and the ethics of his work “have been debated and discussed ad nauseum.” “The bigger issue … is that journalists hold incredibly damaging information all the time, for all kinds of reasons,” said Socolow, who also serves as director of the Clement and Linda McGillicuddy Humanities Center at UMaine. “To assume reporters always rush to publish all the valuable information they collect is to overlook a lot of the history of U.S. journalism … They might hold stuff for political reasons, or to enrich themselves, or for other reasons — and we can debate the ethics of that — but they withhold stuff. That’s reality.”