Even though it was an “old” movie when I was in high school, All the President’s Men was one of the primary reasons I was inspired to write for the Hellgate High School newspaper, The Lance, and aspired, one day, to be a journalist. The 1976 film based on a 1974 non-fiction book tells the true story of the Watergate scandal and the two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who broke the story. It features some great power acting from Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman and it was nominated for eight Academy Awards — and it continues to be a classic journalism movie, which is why The Pulp is sponsoring a screening of it at The Roxy on Tuesday.
Watching it as a teenager I was, admittedly, drawn in by the film’s cloak-and-dagger elements: The clandestine meetings with Deep Throat. The anonymous tips. The danger of it all. And, of course, the rush the reporters experienced as they connected the dots between the burglary at the Democratic Party headquarters and the White House. I also liked the antiquated (to me) backdrop — a newsroom full of clacking typewriters and a cork board used to plot out each new discovery.
Looking back, I realize it wasn’t just the drama that stuck with me, it was the quiet persistence of journalism. The hours spent combing through records, the seemingly dead-end phone calls, the painstaking process of fact-checking. It was definitely intriguing and easy to romanticize, but the film didn’t portray journalism as glamorous, per se. It did, however, portray it as essential. Watching Woodward and Bernstein methodically build a case — source by source, document by document — felt like witnessing truth slowly emerge from darkness. That kind of reporting takes time and guts, and that’s true now, as well, especially in a world where news breaks in seconds and misinformation spreads faster than facts. Case in point: Contemporary journalists investigating the Trump administration’s actions — ranging from alleged ties to foreign powers, to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, to today’s aggressive, Constitution-flouting immigration crackdown — have had to rely on confidential sources and push past institutional resistance.
And, for me, All the President’s Men offers both a warning and a guidepost no matter where you live and no matter where you are on the political spectrum. The film’s resonance suggests that even though tools may change, the investigative journalist’s mission remains steadfast: follow the facts, protect the sources, tell the truth, etc.
All the President’s Men is high-stakes political intrigue on a national scale. But what the film gets right, and what translates perfectly to a community paper, is the journalism process. That kind of relentless curiosity and willingness to dig. We are big fans of those things at The Pulp, which is why we want to share this film with you whether you’ve seen it many times or never. See you there?
