Bob Woodward is going to publish a book on the Trump Administration. His books have fascinated me since I was in college. I’ve read several of them – “All the President’s Men,” “The Final Days,” “The Brethren,” “Veil” – multiple times. I’ve read every one completely, except “The Last of The President’s Men,” though I have read much of it. Here’s a look at his books, from best to worst.

The Final Days (1976) Working with Carl Bernstein, he takes you inside the climax and denouement of the Watergate scandal. The details are vivid, the people nuanced, the story-telling tight.

All the President’s Men (1974) OK, it’s more important than “The Final Days.” But it’s not as well written and well researched. In many ways it’s got a bit of a memoir in it and there are times it seems both Woodward and Bernstein are uncomfortable with that.

The Brethren (1979) Working with Scott Armstrong, he takes you deep inside the Burger Court. The fun part of this book, beyond the way he lifts the veil on one of our most secretive institutions, is that you can actually tell who his off the record sources are.

Shadow (1999) This tome is different than many of Woodward’s books because it isn’t a narrative of one administration or one event. He takes a look at how Richard Nixon’s scandal affected the following five presidents. Woodward’s books often offer scant analysis. This one offers more and his perspective is a valuable one.

Wired (1984) Easily the most un-Woodward title. He writes a biography of the late John Belushi, who attended his high school. It’s not his most popular book, but I’ll take it over some of his more recent ones because he writes more authoritatively.

The Price of Politics (2012) His look at how President Obama tried to work with Republicans to save the economy gives you a deeper look at what went right and wrong during those crucial 3 years.

Veil (1987) He takes you inside the CIA to look at some of the covert wars of the time. It’s a valuable book to understand today’s biggest international problems.

The Agenda (1994) A concise look at what were the legislative, political and personal struggles inside Clinton’s first term that shaped his presidency?

Plan of Attack (2004) Woodward shows how the George W. Bush Administration planned on going after Saddam Hussein early in his presidency. It’s far and away the best Woodward book on the Bush presidency.

State of Denial (2006) The third chronicle of the George W. Bush Administration, it showed how inept some of the decision-makers were.

The Commanders (1991) A look at the people who drove the success of the first Gulf War. This could use a rerelease with what we know today.

The Choice (1996) Woodward does his Theodore White impersonation, trying to follow an entire 1996 campaign. It’s a good book, but not the best on the 1996 campaign (I’ll take Michael Lewis’ rollicking “Trail Fever” on the Republican Primary.)

The War Within (2008) If he hadn’t already written three books on Bush’s wars, this book would have been incredibly impressive. However, when one considers what he’d already reported previously, this book should have had more perspective in it.

Bush At War  (2002) This one is kind of forgettable because it’s about the Afghan war, so there’s no real controversy. But reading it at the time, you could see that the administration wasn’t prepared for a 2-front War on Terror.

The Last of the President’s Men – One of three books that deviate from Woodward’s normal storytelling techniques. It’s interesting, but not incredibly necessary.

Obama’s Wars (2010) The facts surrounding the book – That Osama bin Laden recommended the book, saying it showed Obama’s ineptitude; was then killed in a raid ordered by Obama; and the book was found in his compound – is much more interesting than the book itself.

Maestro (2000) It’s essentially a hagiography of Alan Greenspan, who does not deserve a hagiography.

The Secret Man (2005) Woodward’s rushed biography of his valued source, Deepthroat. We now know it was W. Mark Felt. And, after reading the book, I cared less.

Let’s get something straight, right off the bat. A journalist’s job is not to try to be popular. Often, a journalist’s job is going to make them unpopular. No one likes someone pointing out their favorite candidate has some skeletons in their closet. No one likes someone who shows the world that the company they work for is doing some nefarious things. No one likes someone who reports on a relative’s misdeeds.

Teeth were gnashed and pearls were clutched last week when news broke about a poll that said three-quarters of republicans trusted President Trump over the media. Members of the media asked How do journalists reach these people and What can journalists do to improve their standing? This was quite the waste of time. It’s not a journalist’s job to scratch these peoples’ backs and stroke their egos. The trope that there is nothing the media loves to cover more than itself is incredibly true. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes, it’s incredibly stupid.

A journalist’s job is a complex one, but it can be boiled down to this: To tell the community it serves about the world it lives in as accurately and thoroughly as possible. That means journalists tell stories through words and pictures about the good, the bad and the gray in the world. That isn’t going to please most of the people.

If a journalist strives for thoroughness and accuracy, they’re going to do their jobs correctly 100 percent of the time. Those are the two north stars of the field. Nothing else comes close. It means a journalist is going to talk to more than one person, to strive to dig in behind the official story. It means striving to ensure a story has its facts correct. It means making sure you’re not painting with too broad a brush and getting into the nuance of an issue. It means finding the voices who don’t have a microphone.

We often hear about other goals – particularly “fairness” and “balance.” The problem is those two goals often send journalists down the wrong path. If a journalist strives for “thoroughness” and “accuracy,” they’re going to get every side that matters into a story and they’re going to give them the treatment they deserve. If a journalist strives for “balance,” that means treating two sides equally. Think about that and how absurd that is. We often only see asked for in political reporting, where access and not stepping on toes seems to carry more weight than “thoroughness” and “accuracy.” Here’s a non-political example: the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Coverage that strived for accuracy and thoroughness during the trial would tell you what he was accused of, that he had not been convicted yet, who he was, who his victims were, what evidence the prosecution had, what happened at the trial. But if “balance” is your north star, the terror of his actions could be balanced against his perceived slights. Or against anything else, really. That’s the problem with balance. Like fairness, it’s subjective.

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