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| Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as Kay Graham in The Post |
Many years ago I read
Washington Post publisher Kay Graham's autobiography,
Personal History. I didn't know much about her, but as one of the few women in power in the journalism business, it seemed like a must read.
She was hardly an aggressive powerhouse, instead pleased that her father, Eugene Meyer, had chosen her husband, Philip Graham to take over the Washington Post. However her world fell apart when Philip Graham committed suicide in 1963.
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| She details her career as The Post publisher |
Kay Graham took over and did the smart thing -- hiring people smarter than her. She worked with Ben Bradlee and their major break was publishing the Pentagon Papers that was the inspiration for
The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.
At first
The New York Times was ahead of the game, revealing the American government knew the war in Vietnam was a massive loss of lives, but that it would rather do that than admit going to war there was a mistake.
Then US President Richard Nixon got an injunction to stop
The Times from publishing further, which gave
The Post the chance to do further coverage.
During the film we see Graham as the only woman in the room full of bankers to discuss a public offering, and at first deferring to Frederick Beebe, the company's lawyer who later became chairman of the board. A character called Arthur Parsons who is a member of the board is fictional, but represents the opinion of many that a woman should not be running a paper.
Graham begins to realize, while the women's movement is happening, that she is the boss, and it is Bradlee's wife Tony, who points out how courageous Graham is to decide to publish the Pentagon Papers.
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| Publishing the Pentagon Papers was her hardest decision |
There is a subtle scene of vindication when she walks out of the Supreme Court and there are women lining the steps as she walks down, admiring her. It's also nice to see one of the top Post journalists was Meg Greenfield, who wrote editorials, but was part of the Pentagon Papers team.
There were also witty remarks here and there, but just barely enough humour to get through the film.
Nevertheless, we also liked the scenes of watching the reporters using rotary phones, using pencils and furiously typing on old school typewriters -- how did the news ever get out like that? They typed the stories out that were then sent to the sub editor who edited them with a pencil.
