We rented "All the President's Men" last night.

[Writer]

I must say, watching it became a surreal experience, given Libby's (I almost typed 'Liddy's') indictment yesterday and my current graduate research. I recommend that anyone who hasn't seen the film do so now, or if you haven't seen it a while, give it another view.

I think what the movie provides is context. Woodward and Bernstein, without the Internet, computers, nor even push-button telephones, uncovered a concerted effort, financed by Republican operatives, to smear the reputation of Muskie so Nixon could run against McGovern in his reelection campaign.

I'm not sure how close to the book the movie followed, but I got the impression that these men were bungling fools compared to the men currently occupying the White House. To wit, those in the Bush administration are mafiosa terrorists versus Nixon's keystone cops. The parallels, and yet the comparative scales between Nixon and Bush, are awestriking.

In the movie, you can't count the file cabinets beneath the feet of Woodward and Bernstein. What they housed, I'm not sure, but that is the manner by which information was stored then. Consider how fluid information is now. What makes us think that this is better? Perhaps Nixon's crew counted on the limited range of information, and therefore, failed to cover their tracks. Now, a heightened availablility of information appears to have bred a better political thief. Hence Rove and company.

But leaving the movie, what especially grabbed me were the scenes with Bradlee and the Washington Post editorial board. The men occupying this room were from the WW2 generation. They had experienced the Great Depression, WW2, and were cynical as hell. They hated all politicians - of every stripe. When they entered journalism, it was merely a trade, not a profession as it is today. Likely none of them held a journalism degree. And they captivated me.

That, the Democratic control of both houses of Congress, a public still swooning over the days of Kennedy's Camelot, tilled the fertile ground into which those two cub reporters sowed their seeds. We had cynics in journalism, a political check and balance that uncovered the rest of Nixon's cabal, and a public ready to be outraged by it all.

What I'm trying to underscore here is how none of this is simple. Today we complain of a complacent media and believe that corporate control has eradicated its effectiveness. We have a Congress and a White House under the control of the same party, and a public who isn't so shocked by dirty tricks anymore. All of these factors work together. Any one being different may lead to a different political circumstance, and yet, these are the cards we've been dealt currently. We must do the best with the hand we have.

This time will not last forever. Sooner or later, a pillar will fall and we will be able to rebuild. In the meantime, there are many Pat Fitzgeralds out there, young Woodward and Bernsteins in J-school, and an American public who increasingly is aware of the chips in the false facade that is this administration.

Changes are bound to happen. Otherwise, this would not be America.

Edit: I am a spelling & grammar whore. ;)

[longship]

1. Another Obligatory Fitzmas Movie

Mrs. Longship and I just got back from seeing "Good Night and Good Luck" (Yikes!! $15.00 for two--senior price) which is another mandatory Fitzmas flick.

[catmother]

2. i read the book and then

saw the movie when it was released. i just saw it again recently on one of the cable channels.

i recently rented:

the reagans
the pentagon papers
salvador

all 3 of the movies show how many times this country has screwed up.

[RazzleDazzle]

3. Sure glad you invited me to this thread

'cause sure as shootin', it does indeed require some pushback from me.

But leaving the movie, what especially grabbed me were the scenes with Bradlee and the Washington Post editorial board. The men occupying this room were from the WW2 generation. They had experienced the Great Depression, WW2, and were cynical as hell. They hated all politicians - of every stripe. When they entered journalism, it was merely a trade, not a profession as it is today. Likely none of them held a journalism degree. And they captivated me.

You're all wet. How old are you, anyway? My personal experience of that whole generation was not that they were cynical about politics and politicians but quite the opposite -- that they were naive and trusting, in the main. And to a certain extent their trust was well-placed: unlike our current era, except for some really, REALLY bad guys here and there during that era, most of the people who made it to high places in government and even business were decent people who actually wanted to and tried to do the right thing. THEY could count on a basic, underlying (tho perhaps small) benevolence in most of their government and corporate leaders; we cannot.

Secondly, you're on the right trail re journalists, but miss by a mile. (Just how is it you are a "media scholar"?? WHAT media, and wht planet?) Anyway, you could say that journalism was a "trade" and not a "profession" and have some validity, I suppose, but IMO a more accurate characterization is that journalists in that era came from a working class or very average middle class background. That alone gave them a certain personal philosophy which was neither pro-corporate (unless they were loyal to THEIR corporate employer), nor pro-oligarch. With that background, they tended to be scrappers, willing to jostle and joust to find the truth. Also during that era the muckraking tradition of the 20s and 30s was still fresh in everyone's minds, and served as a powerful model for everyone.

Nowadays many journalists, especially broadcast journalists, are definitely elites, raking in a handsome annual salary, and aspire to even more position and power. Their ideological orientation is pro-corporate, pro-elite, pro-oligarchy.

The other huge change in journalism between then and now is that nowadays broadcast journalism at least and possibly print too is a profit center. In the old days (Watergate and before), TV news was seen as a public service with no need to generate advertising revenues. Newspaper advertisers could not demand -- and get! -- favorable treatment in the news and editorial sections of the paper. So money was actually spent on the business of investigating things in order to learn and report the truth, unlike now. Nowadays journalists can't even seem to make their fingers do the hard work of googling or nexis-lexis-ing.

So in the old days, reporters on the beat often had holes in the soles of their shoes from all that walking the beat and not enough paycheck to go around and these days, reporters and anchors just have holes in their heads.

I think these are the major changes.