How important was television and newspaper reporting in uncovering the Essay

How important was television and newspaper reporting in uncovering the 1972-74 Watergate scandal - Essay Example However, with due course of time, the media publication has emerged as a business to generate profit with larger customer base rather than focussing on its core value to provide information to the common audiences. Despite, these have been of great aid while uncovering a few noteworthy and significant facts regarding the society. One such remarkable incident in the early 1970s political history of United States was the infamous Watergate Scandal. The time frame of 1972 to 1974 is remarked to be the most significant and indeed the most remarkable in the political history of the US. It is during this period that the then president of the US democrat, Mr. Richard Nixon had to resign from his designation which was the only resignation of the US president in the political history till date. It happened during the mid of 1972 when political parties were on the mode to set their images for election programmes (Steven, 2006). According to the published reports, in 17th June, 1972 five men we re recognised trespassing in headquarter of Democratic National Committee, recording and incepting the telephonic conversations and other communications. In 15th September of the same year, two other men were accused of being directly related to the conspiracy and the infringement of the central wiretapping laws. By the beginning of the next year, it was revealed that all the accused seven people were employed by the Campaign to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). The fact fuelled the probability of the involvement of superior government officials in this case. In the mid of 1973, one of the accused men of the five, wrote a letter to the trial judge, John J. Sirica addressing a cover up of the event (Alumni Chapter, n.d.). The cover up incidentally was published in different media publications including television and newspapers. Consequently, the investigation got stimulated revealing certain major facts regarding the then political environment highlighting the role of senior governmen tal officials. Worth mentioning the fact that media publications revealed a series of events demonstrating political corruptions by manoeuvring the investigation. The facts which were revealed by the investigation until 1974 stated that John Mitchell, the then Attorney General had a secret fund amounted to almost $700,000. This sum of money was intended to be expended against the Democratic Party in the falsification of letters, leaking untrue information to the press and also pilfering campaign files. It also stated that most of the American Corporations, including the Gulf Oil Corporation, American Airlines, International Telephone and Telegraph contributed large sum of money to the ‘Nixon campaign’. Moreover, the instance also revealed that Nixon had assured the Watergate intruders to provide them ‘executive clemency’ in case they were incarcerated. He also assured them to reward huge sums of money. A piece of evidence also exposed that $450,000 was paid to the intruders headed by the order of Erlichman, one of the superior White House supporters of Nixon. Several other facts were also revealed which demonstrated the pressurising of the ‘Nixon campaign’ on the FBI officials, CIA officials and other investigating