His films take me back to Christmases of my childhood, way before streaming, DVDs or even video cassettes. You had to wait for these movie treats to come round to the Christmas television schedules, making living room appointments of films like The Sting or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
But to many of us editors, he was more. He was a part of the inspiration for the careers we have followed thanks to the brilliant dramatisation of the Watergate investigation that led to the downfall of President Nixon, brought to the big screen in All the President’s Men. It’s a film that echoes down the decades.
A conspiracy across the US government’s security agencies, from inside the White House, a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, and a cover-up that went to the very top.
In the seventies and eighties, even if you were too young to remember it in the news, we all knew about Watergate, the original ‘gate’ that led to the naming of hundreds more, some serious but many others not, from America’s Irangate and Monicagate to our own Partygate and even Gategate.
Most portrayals of journalists in movies are negative — to say the least. Think Richard Thornburg (played by William Atherton) in Die Hard (1988), who ends up getting punched in the face by Mrs McClane. But in All the President’s Men, the real-life Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are portrayed as heroes. Dustin Hoffman plays Bernstein brilliantly, as the more experienced and hard-bitten half of the journalist duo. But Robert Redford’s Woodward is not only hungry and determined, Redford was also very cool, incredibly good looking and by all accounts a really, really nice guy as well.
No wonder aspiring hacks wanted to be like them — more often Redford.
“... it involves the entire U.S. Intelligence Community. FBI... CIA... Justice... it’s incredible. Cover-up had little to do with Watergate, it was mainly to protect the covert operations. It leads everywhere. Get out your notebook, there’s more. Your lives are in danger...”
Redford painted a journalist’s life as exciting, important and, as it was in America, glamorous.
Of course, the reality turned out to be different for most of us. Budding journalists went into magazines or newspapers dreaming of their own British Watergate but soon found themselves reporting on rain-drenched flower shows for local papers or visiting company openings in Swindon for trade magazines.
We discovered though that, beyond the investigative, magazines could also be entertaining or newspapers insightful. Hats off to those who pursued the investigative stories. But whatever the kind of journalism, it was all about telling true stories. In that world, the truth prevailed, heads rolled, justice was done. Well, that was the idea. And it sometimes happened.
More often than now.
Few of us imagined back then that fifty years later, the environment for telling the truth would be so distinctly chillier rather than warmer, harder not easier, and the political consequences so much slighter, easier for those in power to deny and dodge.
A different time
It’s scary to watch and makes the political world of that time seem like another world.
It wasn’t perfect back then of course. President Ford pardoned his predecessor for any crimes Nixon might have committed over Watergate. He afterwards carried around in his wallet his own private self-justification: the text from a 1915 Supreme Court case that stated a pardon implies guilt, and its acceptance a confession. It’s hard to imagine President Trump worrying about such nuances, for any of the pardons he’s granted.
Nixon resigned before he was impeached. Trump has been impeached twice but managed a comeback rather than a resignation.
Nixon was shamed. It’s almost impossible to imagine Trump showing any embarrassment in similar circumstances. He’s not the only leader like that, just the most powerful.
Today’s populist politicians just brazen it out. Deny it often enough to sow doubt and attack your accusers to deflect, seems to work as a strategy. Create just enough confusion and enough people will just shrug it off or simply not care.
I had begun to wonder if anyone ever resigns over anything these days but we can see it can still happen in the UK. Even if rarely in the US. Those in power ride it out while their opponents are ‘fired’ for their views or standing up to power.
Near the end of the film, their editor reminds Woodward and Bernstein what their work means. “You guys are probably pretty tired, right? Well, you should be. Go on home, get a nice hot bath. Rest up... 15 minutes. Then get your asses back in gear. We’re under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing’s riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.”
Would such an investigation make such a difference today? Shit hitting the fan seemed inevitable after Watergate. Would it now? It’s a depressing thought but realistic to think that today, they’d probably get away with it.
Times have changed in the media too. The days of committing two reporters to one long investigation were over even before I entered the profession. They’re never asked to rewrite a press release or a newswire story, or go and cover any celebrities or just the usual daily grind of ‘other stories’. No churnalism for them.
It’s now data journalism rather than typewriters, vapes outside instead of smoking in the office, and more desk-based research than court reporting and notes on napkins and matchbooks. But we need that inspiration for tomorrow’s journalists and editors now more than ever.
The media should remember Redford. Not only did he star in the film and make journalism cool for at least a generation. He also bought the rights to the book and ensured it got made into a screenplay. And Woodward and Bernstein were quite important too.
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
