Washington Post Editor Leonard Downie is interviewed on whether the Washington Post gave the Reagan administration a relatively easy ride, whether he'd have gone after Watergate in the same way Bob Bradlee did, and what he proposes to do about the Iran...

Washington Post newsroom GVs / Leonard Downie interview / Carl Bernstein interview; Part 3 of 4USA: Virginia: Springfield: Washington Post:INTLeonard Downie (Editor, The Washington Post) interview SOT- (On how difficult it is for an editor to distance from the establishment) I don't find it difficult at all, I find great excitement in our role which is the observers role, the critics role, holding these institutions accountable to our readers, the citizens- (On whether the paper gave the Reagan administration an easy ride) No, oh no / again, it's all in the eyes of the reader / Reagan was an enormously popular President; we did many stories about how he relied on cue cards to get from one meeting to another / our stories were responsible for more resignations by people from his government than otherwise would have left for various matters of petty corruption for example / but none of this stuck, our readers weren't interested in that, their mood was different, he was a popular President and so none of that journalism made much impact / I often dispute how much people think the media lead the public rather than vice versa; it's difficult if there's not a ready audience for certain kinds of journalism to make a big impact with it, but you still plug away with it- (On whether he'd go after Watergate the way Bob Bradlee did) Since I was involved in that coverage as an editor during much of our work on Watergate I would certainly expect to / I was an investigative reporter myself before Watergate; my stories changed the local court system there, they caused all of Washington's savings institutions to withdraw all their advertising from the Washington Post / I've been an editor involved in most of the major investigative things this paper's done over the years / I'm very comfortable with that and I'd think I'd rise to that occasion- (On what he proposes to do about Iran-Contra) I'm not sure the October surprise is a major scandal / most of the sup...