by: Leonard Downie Jr. | The Washington Post

Investigative reporting in America did not begin with Watergate. But it became entrenched in American journalism — and has been steadily spreading around the world — largely because of Watergate.

Now, 40 years after Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote their first stories about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate office building, the future of investigative reporting is at risk in the chaotic digital reconstruction of journalism in the United States.