The Rules of the Game

Author Q&A

You’ve written several works of nonfiction, but this is your first novel. What prompted you to turn to fiction?

I always wanted to write fiction about how journalists and politicians are affected by each other and power in Washington. Before I collaborated with Bob Kaiser on The News About the News, I had an idea for a novel that I filed away until our book was finished. A couple of years later, in 2004, I took it out of the file and still liked it. Believe it or not, the idea was that an older U. S. senator is nominated for president and, on the eve of his party’s national convention, shocks everyone by selecting an inexperienced young woman senator, who is a media darling, to be his running mate. And she eventually becomes president. That became the backdrop for the story that evolved about a young woman investigative reporter challenging the rules of the game—and that president—in Washington. One thing led to another as the characters took over the story and the intrigue built.

How did you come to the story of THE RULES OF THE GAME?

The elements of the story grew out of my own decades of experiences as an investigative reporter and editor in Washington, my fascination with the complex and often ambiguous relationships among journalists, politicians, consultants and lobbyists, and the ways in which they all often broke the rules with and without consequences.

This book is a fantastic tale of political intrigue—any inspiration from real life that you’re willing or able to share?

Although the story is entirely fiction, much of what happens, and where, is drawn from real life: confrontations over politics, corruption and national security among journalists, their sources and the targets of their reporting in actual locations all around Washington and across the country, including inside the CIA, the Capitol and the White House. I know this is the way Washington really works because I’ve lived it.

Speaking of something being true to life, the plot of THE RULES OF THE GAME shares some eerie similarities with our last election (as you illuminated in the first question). Were you surprised by these similarities as Campaign 2008 unfolded?

I was surprised and a bit spooked. That was only one fictional element of the novel that became fact in one form or another in real life before I finished writing, but readers will have to discover the others for themselves. They will find out how far inside the real Washington THE RULES OF THE GAME takes them.

What challenges did writing fiction present after a lifetime of reporting news and writing nonfiction books?

Taking literary license with everything I’ve experienced and reported on in Washington took some getting used to, but I found that the same kind of digging that produces good journalism also helps create a good story. Then, because it was fiction, I was able add more intrigue, suspense and danger—what really could happen, even if it hadn’t yet

Did you in any way feel you were able to tell more "truth" through the novel—in terms of how Washington works, what really goes on behind closed doors, how closely lobbyists and politicians work—than you could ever realistically reveal in nonfiction?

I was able to do it much more vividly in fiction and to take readers further behind those closed doors than a journalist would normally be able to go.

This may be like asking you to pick a favorite child, but do you have a most memorable story you can share from your decades at the Washington Post?

Many, many stories. The high-wire tension of the Watergate coverage. A memorable confrontational interview with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the climax of the Falklands war between Britain and Argentina. Conflicts with Bill and Hillary Clinton over coverage of the Whitewater-Lewinsky investigations. High stakes discussions with top officials in several administrations over difficult decisions about publishing stories affecting national security. Directing our coverage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

You recently accepted the post of the Weil Professor of Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, which you’ll begin in 2010. What will you tell your students there about the future of journalism?

The news media as we’ve known them are being completely transformed in the digital age in ways that critically threaten their business models but also offer exciting new multi-media ways to report news. What is most important to me is that journalism and newsrooms that hold the powerful accountable survive and prosper. And I hope those students will help to make that happen.