‘Tricky Dick’: Behind the Prevailing Myth, There’s Another Story

https://whowhatwhy.org/2019/03/27/tricky-dick-behind-the-prevailing-myth-theres-another-story/?fbclid=IwAR2Um0-wSmfFM2BRPe8SubHa8liOnTmnYHOxVsSGyj8IVdzRB1ICidPARqU
A new CNN four-part original series on the fall of President Richard M. Nixon — Tricky Dick — had its premiere March 17. Its makers promise “fresh insight into a riveting story of politics, power and scandal.”
Frankly, we doubt it. While we believe that most journalists do their level best to tell the truth as they understand it, major news organizations have tended to be corporations participating in the creation of a consensus narrative. It has been the case regardless of topic, and it was no different with the stories we are told about Richard Nixon and his downfall.
The story everyone heard was the one we all remember: Nixon was a bad guy who committed a range of abuses, and paid the price. The heroes were the media and Congress. Russ Baker, founder of WhoWhatWhy, grew up believing that story. He believed it until his own research proved otherwise: that Richard Nixon, for all his flaws, was not the architect of Watergate, but the victim of it.
And then Baker stuck to his guns, telling a story that unsettled him deeply but was what he had uncovered. Because that is what an honest journalist does. It is what WhoWhatWhy does.
CNN will tell us a story that is entirely consistent with the prevailing myth, perhaps because its journalists only know the conventional story, but also perhaps in part because