Bob Woodward in conversation with Evan Smith at Paramount Theatre

Name: Bob Woodward in conversation with Evan Smith at Paramount Theatre
Start: 2025-10-01T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Paramount Theatre

Schedule

Wed, 01 Oct, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Paramount Theatre | Austin, TX

The Paramount Theatre presents
Bob Woodward
in conversation with Evan Smith

The Paramount Theatre
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Doors: 6pm
Show: 7pm
“Everyone has their own version of the truth, but there are facts,” says Bob Woodward, who first gained international attention when he and Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal in 1973. Since then, Woodward has worked to shine a light on the inner-workings of secret government. His factual, non-partisan revelations to readers and speech audiences provide an unflinching view of Washington leadership they won’t get elsewhere. Woodward has written about the last ten U.S. presidents and whether Democrat or Republican, he has always pursued the best version of the truth with equal vigor. Woodward is author of 23 bestselling books – 17 went to #1 – more than any contemporary nonfiction writer. Currently associate editor for The Washington Post where he’s worked since 1971, Bob Woodward has won nearly every American journalism award including two Pulitzers.
Former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he wished he’d recruited Woodward into the CIA, “He has an extraordinary ability to get otherwise responsible adults to spill [their] guts to him…his ability to get people to talk about stuff they shouldn’t be talking about is just extraordinary and may be unique.” Therein lays the genius talent of Bob Woodward. No one else in political investigative journalism has the clout, respect, and reputation of Woodward. He has a way of getting insiders to open up in ways that reveal an intimate yet sweeping portrayal of Washington and the political infighting, how we fight wars, the price of politics, how presidents lead, the homeland security efforts, and so much more. His work is meticulous and draws on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of recorded interviews with most of the key players, including the president. This is why Fear: Trump in the White House sold more than 1.1 million copies in its first week in September 2018 – breaking the 94-year first-week sales record of its publisher Simon & Schuster – and nearly 2 million copies in hardback, e-book, and audio in the first four months.
In October 2022, Woodward did something he’d never done before; he released the complete recordings of his 20 interviews with Donald Trump in audiobook form titled, The Trump Tapes. The audiobook is unique in that the listener gets the opportunity to hear his lengthy and raw interviews as well as exclusive commentary during some of the interviews – to provide vital context or clarification. The Trump Tapes is considered by Simon and Schuster “…as historically important as the Frost/Nixon interviews.”
Bob Schieffer of CBS News said "Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time." Lloyd Green wrote in a review for The Guardian that Fear “depicts a White House awash in dysfunction, where the Lord of the Flies is the closest thing to an owner’s manual.” The Weekly Standard called Woodward “the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever.” In 2003, Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward “the most celebrated journalist of our age.” In listing the all-time 100 best non-fiction books, Time magazine has called All the President’s Men, by Bernstein and Woodward, “Perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history.”
About Evan Smith:
Evan Smith is a senior advisor at Emerson Collective, working closely with journalists and funders around the country to support local news. He’s also a professor of practice at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches a course on the politics and issues of the moment. He previously spent more than thirteen years at The Texas Tribune, which he co-founded and led as CEO, and nearly eighteen years at Texas Monthly, including nine years as editor in chief and a year as president. Evan is the host of “Overheard with Evan Smith,” a weekly half-hour interview program that airs on PBS stations from coast to coast. He serves on the boards of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, the Austin Film Society, and the LBJ Foundation. A native of New York, he's a graduate of Hamilton College, which awarded him an honorary degree in 2023, and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, which inducted him into its Hall of Achievement in 2006.