All the President's Men (1976)It pains to hear the trend of interviews that our reporters pursue as they are invited to a press conference. The questions posed appear so timid and lacked the incisive power to tease out the right information. Quite so often the interviewees wrap them around their fingers and control their strings. The reporters end up as stenographers, but when their reportings draw flak, the respondents would claim that they were misquoted.
Now with the hustle and bustle that had hit our land with allegations of misappropriations of funds and other wrongdoings, one is compelled to think that reporters would have a field day, scooping information here and there with the plethora of information available in cyberspace. Unfortunately, it is business as usual. Just another day in paradise.
This 1976 film is about the success story in the field of investigative journalism. What started as a routine reporting on a break-in into the Democratic Office by burglars opened a can of worms that eventually forced President Nixon to step down. Reporters Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) smelled a rat when the burglars had past employment with the CIA. With in-depth inside information from their reluctantly anonymous informant 'Deep Throat', they track a trail of money that led them all the way to coffers in high places. They soon realise that that the whole government machinery is hoodwinked to cover the path. The entire system which was set up to take care of the welfare of the majority is streamlined to protect the select few. Hey, I thought it heard this story quite recently! Well, history has the unsavoury habit of repeating itself, and we forget quickly.
Woodward and Bernstein had the shield of the First Amendment of the US Constitution of freedom of speech, and their weapons were the legal system, supportive backing and responsive public who were not content with just passing the buck but went a step further by pushing the envelope.
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