Education Quote by Bob Woodward

Confidentiality isn’t framed here as a perk or a cloak-and-dagger indulgence; it’s the working machinery of democratic oversight. Woodward’s phrasing is almost clinical - “ability,” “bond,” “often enables” - but the subtext is charged: power doesn’t volunteer its ugliest truths. It has to be coaxed out of rooms where careers can be ended with a phone call. The “bond” is the key word. It shifts confidentiality from a transactional quid pro quo into something closer to mutual risk. A source doesn’t just hand over information; they hand over vulnerability. The reporter, in turn, assumes responsibility that can collide with subpoenas, editors, and public suspicion.

Context matters because Woodward’s name is basically shorthand for Watergate, where anonymous sourcing wasn’t a stylistic choice but a survival strategy. His sentence reads like a defense brief against every familiar critique: that unnamed sources are slippery, that secrecy is anti-transparent, that journalists “hide behind” anonymity. Woodward argues the opposite: without protected channels, the public gets the sanitized version of government - the press release, the talking point, the hearing transcript scrubbed for C-SPAN.

There’s an embedded warning, too. If institutions weaken that “bond” - through legal intimidation, digital surveillance, or newsroom cynicism - the consequence isn’t just fewer scoops. It’s a thicker fog around decision-making, where the most consequential actions are also the least visible.