Texan Mosaic

“The Post” is a spectacular movie filled with empowerment, drama, and heart.
The movie takes place in the early ‘70s. The Washington Post, at the time, was just considered a local newspaper striving to catch up to the New York Times. Katharine Graham, (played by Meryl Streep) the Post’s first female publisher, and Ben Bradlee (played by Tom Hanks) were at first not seeing eye to eye but eventually teamed up to expose the corrupt government and its secrets. The secrets were pages of a study known as the Pentagon Papers that proved the government knew Vietnam War was a failing endeavor but continued sending troops there.
The New York Times was the first to publish parts of the papers soon after, but the government threatened the publication with a law suit. Since then, Bradlee and others on his news team worked endlessly to obtain copies of the secret documents.
While that is happening, Graham is struggling with other issues. Being the first American woman publisher, Graham had to work through a lot of stereotypical issues that occurred in the ‘70s. Eventually the Washington Post got a hold of hundreds of documents. After that, it was up to Graham to create a voice of her own and really take the company in her own hands.
Under a lot pressure from different voices, Graham must make the decision to risk her career and maybe even the company to publish these documents or do what seemed right at the time and expose the government. At the end, Graham listened to her own voice. The choice she made prevailed, ending in the Post being bigger and better.
Not being born near the early ‘70s and watching movies that date back to things that really happened is so intriguing. I am obsessed with history and journalism, and the movie is the perfect combination. For those who weren’t born in the ‘70s, you almost feel like you lived through that time. Everything was different during that time for women, journalists, and politics.
“The Post” took you back to the struggles people faced during the early ‘70s, from equality for women and the growing press freedom.
At the time, the New York Times was the main newspaper. Everyone wanted to work there and be on that team.
The movie shows how the Post went through a rough time having a woman as a publisher. At that time, it was not heard of that a woman was in power or control. It was a man’s world, so having a woman in control made others nervous and skeptical of what she could do. But she proves everyone wrong. Throughout the movie, Graham took every task given to her seriously and took pride in her position as publisher, taking over after the death of her husband.
Everyone chosen for the cast was perfect to play the part. Hanks is amazing, as he did very well playing the driven, outspoken journalist. His team was amazing too. The movie really showed how much heart journalists had and everything they had to go through. There wasn’t the Internet and easy access. There was not computer hackers that could just go through a couple of codes. Face to face action was essential to journalism back then. If you wanted information, you had to have connections, and “The Post” shows just that.

 
It was incredible to see how brave the New York Times and the Washington Post were to come together to do what’s right and exercise First Amendment rights. Exposing political leaders had to be terrifying, but they did it and won a 6-3 decision in front of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The movie definitely kept you on your toes. It was exciting to see how Graham found her own voice and followed her heart instead of listening to the voices around her. Little did she know that by doing her own thing she impacted many other women. It shows this in the scene after the ruling by the Supreme Court. The NYT was getting all the publicity, but the Post was getting recognized for so much more.

I don’t know if it is because I am involved with journalism that I could relate so much more, but it was an amazing prospective movie that I recommend everyone should watch. I give this movie a 10/10.