Few films have captured the work, responsibility, and power of investigative journalism as vividly as 'All the President's Men.' Released in 1976 and directed by Alan Pakula, the film stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, as Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose painstaking investigation of the Watergate break-in helped uncover a political scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Based on Woodward and Bernstein's book, the film received eight Academy Award nominations, it won four Oscars. Fifty years later, it remains a landmark portrait of journalism, of cultivating sources, verifying facts, confronting powerful institutions, and following a story wherever it leads. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 2010.
Last weekend WAMC and the Crandell Theatre in Chatham teamed up for a special screening of all the president's men, followed by a conversation about the film and the current state of journalism and investigative reporting. It was a full house, and our panel brought together four people with very different perspectives on the press, politics, and public life.
