For this week’s episode, I had to decide how I wanted to present all the information listeners would need to understand who Jill Wine-Banks was. First, I knew that I needed to tackle the what exactly happened at the Watergate Hotel. I didn’t want to assume that anyone listening knew what had happened because I wasn’t sure myself. I ended up watching the move All The President’s Men starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, based on the book of the same name to understand what had occurred before the special prosecutorial team was put together. I also read through the articles Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had written for the Washington Post when the story of the Watergate broke to put events in chronological order.

I both listened to the audiobook and read Jill Wine-Banks book The Watergate Girl to take the majority of my notes for the episode. In my effort to uncover more sources, I was startled by how many sources focused on other (male) parts of the prosecutorial team and the main players of the Watergate Scandal and I wanted add into the episode a more critical eye at the sexism of the time that Jill herself came in contact with, and the implicit sexism that women of time suffered from. It was important to me that I included some information about what rights exactly women had just gained, (like the right to their own bank accounts or access to birth control) to really paint a picture of how incredible Jill’s accomplishments were.

I will say that I was really happy with the timing of this episode with everything that is going on today in politics. A look at the woman who helped bring down one criminal president, it was kismet that this episode was coming out during the time of another criminal president being indicted. There was no way that I could have planned this episode’s timing coming out when it did. While I have planned out who I am talking about each episode, that plan was made months ago!