‘The Post’ makes the case for a free and independent press

active on the Washington social scene and counting John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert Mcnamara and many other power elites as personal friends. When Graham inherited the newspaper from her husband upon his death in 1963, she showed little appetite for giving up her social status.

“The Post” is the story of the newspaper’s “coming of age” as it pursued a course of independence to take on the federal government. When, in 1971, The New York Times started publishing a series of articles based on a leaked classified study showing the federal government deceived and outright lied to the public and Congress about the prospects for winning the war in Vietnam — what are now called the Pentagon Papers — The Washington Post followed suit.

But the Washington newspaper was playing catch-up until the federal government ordered The Times to stop publishing articles for “national security” reasons. Graham and Executive Editor Ben Bradlee then made a bold decision: The Post would seek out a copy of the report and continue publishing stories on its content.

Graham and Bradlee’s decision to run the stories after a federal court ordered The Times to cease and desist was an act of courage. Had the government shut down The Post, the family-owned newspaper would likely have gone bankrupt. Despite this credible existential risk, Graham and Bradlee stood on their principles and continued to publish news articles based on the leaked documents.

The courts eventually sided with The Times and The Post, although that outcome was never certain or obvious.

At one point in the movie, while Graham and Bradlee are discussing the potential implications of publishing the Pentagon Papers, Graham becomes pensive and disheartened, disappointed that her friend Mcnamara, the U.S. secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968, had lied to her about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. She feels betrayed, believing that he had used their personal relationship to compromise her editorial judgment.

Bradlee then points out that Graham was just as guilty as Mcnamara, because she used her connections with the political elite to get special access to key players. The scene is hard-hitting, anchoring the movie plot in a fundamental principle of democracy.

The aftermath of the Pentagon Papers’ release saw an emboldened Washington Post take on the illegal and duplicitous acts that became Watergate and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The leaked document also hastened the U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War.

Today, few doubt the newspaper’s independence, or willingness to go after what it believes is corrupt activity, even as the Trump administration routinely assaults and trivializes the press with flippant charges of “fake news” and restrictions on access to the White House spin.

In this climate, “The Post” makes the case for adhering to James Madison’s prescient observations about the importance of a free and independent press even more timely and relevant.