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Case file

Carl Bernstein

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “american journalist who”. Today it says “american investigative journalist and author”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Carl Bernstein (born February 14 , 1944 ) is an American journalist who, as an investigative reporter for The Washington Post along with Bob Woodward , broke the story of the Watergate break-in and consequently helped bring about the resignation of US president Richard Nixon . Bernstein quit the The Washington Post in 1976 . He worked as a senior correspondent for the ABC network , taught at New York University , and contributed to Time . In 1981 , he returned to the Post as assistant managing editor for investigations. Bernstein authored two books with Woodward: All the President's Men , which detailed the successes and failures of the men's journalistic efforts against the backdrop of the unfolding scandal, and The Final Days , a recounting of the concluding months of the Nixon presidency. He co-authored the book His Holiness: John Paul II & the History of Our Time with Marco Politi . He is said to be working on a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton , though the May 2005 revelation of the identity of Deep Throat has led to speculation that he would contribute to a book that Woodward has written on Mark Felt . Carl Bernstein's second wife was Nora Ephron ; a character from her book and movie Heartburn was a thinly-veiled portrayal of him. He was also portrayed in the film based on All the President's Men and in the 1999 comedy film Dick . v t e1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16179132.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “american journalist who”. Today it says “american investigative journalist and author”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

american journalist who

Now

american investigative journalist and author

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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