If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidlelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." We don't want political or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be made without it.
You repeat, above, that HN is not for nationalist flamewar, and requires substance. But this post is nationalist flamewar and isn't substantive. Allowing it while shutting down similar content from the opposite perspective is... unsettling.
That being said, Woodward and Bernstein didn't publish verbatim what Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat) told them; they used his tips as starting points to look for corroborating evidence, which they published to great accolade.
The WaPo and other mainstream media were also institutions of far more integrity at that time: their mission was to publish truth regardless of the implications, and they weren't under the kind of pressure the press is under today. Also, society (and media outlet owners) trusted truth itself to result in societal good far more than they do today.