Ok, try this: Repeat the Washington Post’s new motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” without guffawing at the sophomoric self-importance. You can’t, can you? Think about that vapid aphorism perched above every thinly sourced Post hit-piece on Donald Trump, every dishonest “fact-check” and every repurposed DNC press release masquerading as “news analysis,” and try not to chuckle at the desperate plea to be taken seriously.
A glance at the Post any given day makes it clear the paper has given up even the pretense of objectivity and made it a mission to discredit the Trump administration and any conservative or Republican that crosses its radar. And the Posties seem to think that slapping a cliché in their header gives them cover.
If it wasn’t so funny, it would be sad. So one has to assume the just-announced movie, The Post, is a comedy, right? Nope.
Steven Spielberg is producing a film that “chronicles The Washington Post’s legal battle to publish the classified Pentagon Papers in 1971,” according to an article in Tuesday’s Washington Post (motto: Sufferage Suffers when not Suffused with Sunshine). Tom Hanks will star as former Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as Publisher Katherine Graham.
In case you don’t know, The Pentagon Papers were a top secret U.S. government study of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia from 1954-1967. They were leaked to the press without authorization and the New York Times published several articles base on them. The government sued to prevent the rest from being published by the Times and the Post (which also had them) and lost. They were damaging to U.S. strategy and an embarrassment to the government. So liberals loved them.
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And with Trump in the White House, and anti-administration leaks coming fast and thick, love is blooming again. The article in the March 7 Washington Post (motto: Self-Determination Dwindles in the Dusk) suggests that, “With journalism and ‘The Hollywood elite’ consistently drawing ire from the Trump White House, it’s no surprise that the two would eventually team up.” No comedy, The Post is going to be one of those “aren’t journalists just so heroic” melodramas – which in itself is pretty funny.
“With the media under attack, I think everybody has thought about it in a new light and realizes the importance of the people out there reporting on the facts,” Graham’s grandaughter Katherine Weymouth told The Washington Post (Motto: Hackery Haunts the Haze).
So basically, this is shaping up as revenge of the cool kids. Hollywood, stung by recent signs of its irrelevance, is going back to the All the Presidents Men well to try to retrieve the fortunes of the Post and journalism in general, and put the good guys back in charge of the narrative. Good luck with that.
