Assume Nothing: Journalist Robert Costa on his Approach to Work and Life
“Stress and anxiety are often rooted in assuming the worst when something hasn’t even happened yet. Choose to be nice to yourself. Assume nothing instead.”
It was November 2020. Writing a book wasn’t on Robert Costa’s mind when a colleague invited him over for what he thought was just a glass of wine and a quick catch-up. In hindsight, it probably should’ve been — considering the colleague in question was esteemed journalist and best-selling author Bob Woodward.
The true intention of the visit became clear soon enough: Woodward wanted to team up to chronicle the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations. “It was intriguing to say the least,” Costa remarks. “I hadn’t yet written a book in my career. I was in my mid-thirties and it was mid-pandemic.” The idea of doing something fresh and learning from a “master craftsman” sounded exciting.
But what really motivated him to accept the opportunity was the same thing that’s motivated much of his other work. (Like his celebrated coverage of the 2013 government shutdown. Or his ahead of the curve, early-2010s pulse on Donald Trump as a serious political figure.) It’s a guiding principle, a mantra, a catchphrase of sorts. And it’s surprisingly simple.
Just two short words that sit post-it-noted above his computer at all times: assume nothing.
“I’ve always found assumptions so crippling,” Costa explains with a twinge of emotion in his voice — noticeable against his usually sober, matter-of-fact delivery. “They’re almost always wrong because they’re not based in reality.”
Yet even with convictions as strong as these, he recognizes that negative assumptions are still quite easy to make. “It’s almost second nature to be like ‘Oh, this won’t work out. Or I’m not going to succeed.’ You have to challenge yourself to not be burdened by that type of thinking.”
And challenge himself he did. With the benefit of the doubt in his pocket, Costa decided to temporarily step away from his three steady gigs as a National Political Reporter at The Washington Post, as the moderator of Washington Week on PBS, and as a Political Analyst for MSNBC. Instead, he worked with Woodward for nearly a year on what turned into Peril, a revelatory account of the historic Trump-Biden transition and an instant best-seller.
In many ways, it was one of the more stressful things the Philadelphia-area-born-and-raised journalist has ever done. In other ways, it was less so.
Costa is no stranger to a demanding workload or a tough project. The previous four years entailed crisscrossing both Washington, DC and the country at large, a daily grind that stressed him out in ways he “wasn’t even able to articulate” until the shift to book-writing presented a different, slower schedule. With some time and space to finally reflect, he realized the three-job balancing act he had been doing left little opportunity for proper self-care. Exercise got truncated from full gym sessions to walks in-between meetings. Time with family and friends had to be tightly scheduled around deadlines, appearances, and travel.
For these reasons, the ability to silo his focus on a book project was refreshing. “I found joy in the deep dive. It was ten to twelve hours a day of reporting. I’d get up, have coffee, and work on only one thing,” he recounts. But just because the pace was a bit more relaxed doesn’t mean the work was easy.
Their reporting mostly followed Woodward’s method of marathon interview sessions, the back-end execution of which was especially taxing. Given its premise, ‘The Bobs’ (as the duo has fondly been dubbed by some colleagues) knew Peril would be scrutinized sentence by sentence — and they weren’t willing to make any editorial decisions that would compromise its accountability. “People have different versions of the truth,” Costa explains. “So you have to spend a ton of time with the transcripts to determine what is actually fact and of legitimate news value.”
All in, the rhythm of authorship is a lot different from that of beat reporting. The latter is speed-driven, with a goal of collecting all available information by an end-of-day deadline for immediate public consumption. But the former offers the luxury of time. And this, Costa says, increases the threshold for learning. “When you have nine or ten months to look into a story, you can step back and really ask yourself: ‘Who else might know about this? Could I go visit someone else? Could I call someone else?’” Suddenly, all the facts of a situation are on the table, rather than just some of them.
Peril delivered droves of previously unreported facts on one aspect of the Trump-Biden transition in particular — the January 6th insurrection.
Many of them, including a six-point plan to overturn the election circulated by Trump’s legal team in late 2020, are driving the congressional investigation into the attack. This is a point of pride of Costa, who believes one hallmark of strong reporting is informative, needle-moving content. “People buy books because they want to learn something that they can’t in a newspaper or on a website. I think we’ve offered that with ours.”
And I think the court of public opinion would most definitely agree. Peril was atop the New York Times best-seller list for eight consecutive weeks, an affirmation that helped quell some of the anxiety inherent to releasing work publicly. In true Philly fashion, Costa likens the experience to sports: you can’t predict the reception of a book in the same way you can’t predict the outcome of an Eagles game.
However, the account did ruffle the feathers of some prominent American politicos (and some online trolls). But Costa let his cooler head prevail in both situations.
In response to criticism by the more powerful folks, he points to the accuracy of the work, noting it has “never been questioned.” As for the Internet strangers, many years in a public-facing role have cultivated an understanding that not all feedback is created equal. He listens closely to those who really know him — colleagues, family, friends. But anything that enters his inbox with a ton of exclamation points or an overly emotional vibe, he ignores.
Isolating personal feelings from work objective is actually a skill for which he often receives praise, though he finds the support slightly misplaced. An analogy is offered up to explain: “If you go to a mechanic, you expect them to fix your car. You don’t expect them to tell you how they voted. A journalist’s job is to reveal as much truth as possible about a particular situation without telling people what to think in the process.” Doing it shouldn’t necessarily be cause for celebration.
That said, Costa does admit the role is getting progressively dicey as of late. When he was growing up, the topics of political interest were mostly “generic battles” over the ‘soccer mom’ vote or prayer in schools. But with global terror and misinformation moving to the forefront of the American psyche over the last two decades, the landscape has grown much darker.
“Unfortunately, we’re no longer in a time of general politics,” he says. Democracy is now the beat, and the responsibility for its coverage is uniquely two-fold. Journalists must highlight its vulnerabilities; the general public must stay informed. However, he’s careful to warn the latter party against being “over-dramatic” about their efforts.
To achieve a healthy balance, Costa recommends putting down the phone and picking up a piece of print news for a set amount of time each day — 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever feels right. “Engaging with a static piece of content is very powerful in a world where we’re always scrolling,” he explains. The Zoomer in me wants to reject this idea. But ultimately, I get it. And so does science — it really is less anxiety-inducing to read from paper than from a digital device.
His other prescription is less work and more play: make time for fun. Costa prefers activities that allow him to unplug and “engage in a sense of community.” Walks and patio visits with friends have been a pandemic favorite. Going to concerts, however, is where he finds the most joy.
And just like live music is making a comeback in the real world, so is Costa’s rallying cry in this article. He ends our conversation with a thought so wise that I briefly forget I’m speaking with a fairly young (by normal standards, not TikTok ones) man. “Feelings of stress and anxiety are often rooted in assuming the worst when something hasn’t even happened yet. Choose to be nice to yourself. Assume nothing instead.”
The phrase is taped to his computer. Some of us just might have to get it tattooed.
Be kind to yourself!