On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested in Washington D.C. while attempting to place wiretaps in the office of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. During subsequent trials and a Senate hearing, it was revealed that these men were connected to the Republican Committee to Re-Elect the President. In addition, it was learned that some of President Nixon's top aides had been involved in the conspiracy to wiretap the Democratic National Committee. Furthermore, during 1973 and 1974, it became increasingly apparent that Nixon himself had been involved in the conspiracy. As a result of these disclosures, Nixon resigned from the Presidency on August 8, 1974. He was the first President in the history of the United States to resign from office. It can be seen that media coverage of the Watergate scandal played an important role in the way the case eventually turned out. This paper will discuss how the media helped to uncover the scandal and Nixon's complicity in it. In this way, it will be shown that the media play an important role in keeping the office of the Presidency accountable in a free society.
Prior to the Watergate affair, Nixon had already developed an antagonistic relationship with the news media. As early as 1960 and his unsuccessful television debate with Kennedy, Nixon had become aware of the power of the media in either making or breaking a President. After 1968, when Nixon had become President for his first term, this distrust of the media continued to grow. It has been noted that "Nixon had both an instinctive, visceral hatred of the news media and a compulsive desire to manipulate and tame them" (Kutler, 1990, p. 161). These feelings became even stronger during 1972, as Nixon and his staff began preparing for their re-election campaign. For example, early in the summer of 1972, Newsweek announced Nixon's intention to include in his campaign plans for an "assault on the press" ...