Bernstein, Carl

Carl Bernstein is a journalist and author best known for his Watergate reporting with Bob Woodward at The Washington Post, and who continues to write, teach and appear as a political analyst for CNN.

Based in

New York, NY Notable work All the President's Men Role Journalist & Author

Notable work and positions

CNN — Political Analyst (since 2008)
Vanity Fair — Contributing Editor
The Washington Post — former reporter (1966–1976)
ABC News — former Washington Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent (1979–1984)
Time — former writer
Indiana University — 2024–25 Poynter Chair and Visiting Roy W. Howard Journalist-in-Residence

Biography

Carl Bernstein was born February 14, 1944, in Washington, D.C. He began his newspaper career at 16 as a copy boy for The Washington Star, and followed a Star editor to the Elizabeth (N.J.) Daily Journal in 1965 after leaving the University of Maryland without a degree, winning New Jersey Press Association awards for stories on teenage drinking and a 1965 blackout. The Washington Post hired him for its metropolitan staff in 1966. In 1972, Bernstein and colleague Bob Woodward were assigned to cover the break-in at the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters; over the following 26 months their reporting on the Nixon administration's abuses of power and cover-up contributed to The Washington Post's 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and, ultimately, to Nixon's 1974 resignation.

Bernstein and Woodward's account of their reporting, All the President's Men, was published in 1974 and adapted into a 1976 film starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman that won four Academy Awards; their second book, The Final Days, about the end of the Nixon presidency, followed in 1976, the same year Bernstein left the Post. In 1977, he wrote a Rolling Stone article on the CIA's Cold War-era recruitment of American journalists. In 1979, ABC News hired him as Washington bureau chief, a role that lasted 16 months; he then became a senior correspondent for the network's news division in New York, reporting on national security for programs including Nightline and 20/20 — including a 1981 story on a secret U.S. alliance arming Afghanistan's mujahideen — before leaving ABC in 1984.

Bernstein's first solo book, Loyalties: A Son's Memoir, about his parents' blacklisting during the McCarthy era, was published in 1989. In 1990 he became a writer for Time magazine, reporting from Iraq ahead of the Gulf War before being expelled from the country, and in 1992 wrote a Time cover story on an alleged Cold War-era alliance between Pope John Paul II, President Reagan and the CIA against Poland's communist government, as well as a widely discussed New Republic cover essay, “The Idiot Culture,” criticizing the state of American journalism. In 1996, he published His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time with Italian journalist Marco Politi. In 2000, he briefly served as executive editor of the political news site Voter.com, which went bankrupt the following year. His biography A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, researched over roughly eight years, was published by Knopf in 2007.

Bernstein has been a political analyst for CNN since 2008 and is a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. In 2011, writing for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, he reported on the News International phone-hacking scandal and Rupert Murdoch's media influence. His memoir Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, about his teenage years at The Washington Star, was published by Henry Holt and Company in January 2022. During the 2024–25 academic year, he served as the Indiana University Poynter Chair and Visiting Roy W. Howard Journalist-in-Residence. On CNN in 2024, Bernstein reported that sources close to President Biden described an accelerating cognitive decline, commentary that drew wide attention amid calls for Biden to leave the presidential race.

Career highlights

1. Watergate reporting, 1972–1974With Bob Woodward, reported on the Nixon administration's abuses of power and cover-up, contributing to The Washington Post's 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and Nixon's 1974 resignation.

2. All the President's Men, 1974Co-authored with Woodward; the book's 1976 film adaptation, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, won four Academy Awards.

3. “The CIA and the Media,” Rolling Stone, 1977Reported on the CIA's Cold War-era recruitment of American journalists as intelligence assets.

4. George Polk Award for National Reporting, 1972Shared with Bob Woodward for their early Watergate coverage.