Steven Spielberg directed a movie written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer titled “The Post”, featuring Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee.
In the American historical political thriller film, Katharine Graham, who was the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, attempts to publish top secret government documents regarding the elongated involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. These classified documents were famously known as the Pentagon Papers, first leaked by the U.S. State Department military analyst, Daniel Ellsberg.
Robert McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defense, claimed the war was hopeless to Ellsberg, but that he had confidence in the war effort to the media. Ellsberg photocopied hundreds of pages of classified reports documenting the country's involvement in Vietnam, dating back to the Truman administration to give to journalists from New York Times and The Washington Post.
Graham took a great risk in publishing the top secret papers because she would be in contempt of court, potentially destroying the entire newspaper. With her own newspaper on the line, she says “let’s do it”, and publishes the papers. The White House was furious when they were released, but in the case of New York Times Co. v. United States, the rule was 6–3 in the newspapers' favor.
The movie was directed and filmed very well in my opinion and is worth checking out especially because of how interesting the story is! It is also very well timed as the Trump Administration tries to control what we, the public, have access, and don’t have access to.
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