Last weekend I made a small resolution: sometime soon I will take my teenage daughters to see The Post. This new movie stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as part of The Washington Post team who revealed how the Nixon administration deceived the American people about the Vietnam war.
That is partly because the story — about the newspaper’s 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of decision-making on Vietnam — provides a searing and timely lesson in civic values. Though the Steven Spielberg film was planned long before anybody ever imagined Donald Trump as president, the tale of how reporters from The Post and The New York Times highlighted corruption and the abuse of power by a government feels uncannily topical at the moment; as do the efforts by Nixon’s White House to prevent this exposé with legal weapons and political intimidation.
For that alone, teenagers (and everyone else) should see the film as a reminder that, even in a cynical age, there are still many journalists committed to upholding their craft with integrity. Or as Oprah Winfrey observed this week: “Covering the absolute truth..… keeps us from turning a blind eye to injustice and corruption.”