"The Post"

This weekend my husband and I went to see the movie, “The Post” which is all about how the Washington Post published excerpts from the Pentagon Papers which revealed that the war in Vietnam was not going as well as the public was lead to believe.

The movie starts slowly with The Washington Post in the shadow of The New York Times who got a copy of the Pentagon Papers first. Meanwhile, the owner of The Washington Post, Katharine Graham, debates whether to make the company a public entity in order to sustain financial stability.

It probably goes without saying that Ms. Graham was quite friendly with many of the politicians her reporters attempted to expose. If that’s not a conflict of interest, then I don’t know what is. I certainly don’t envy her when it came time to make the decision whether or not to give the go ahead for the print run making the stories public. It is to her credit that she did allow it, though very much at the last possible minute.

The ripple effect was that suddenly all the other major newspapers followed suit with their own articles, so it was obvious the freedom of the press wouldn’t be stifled. Of course The Washington Post was taken to (Supreme) court, but a majority of judges ruled in favor of the Post.

Now I need to see “All the President’s Men” again, which is a good sequel based on events in the last few minutes of the film.