The Post is a great movie about how great newpapers used to be

Lest there be any doubt. The Post makes clear once again that Spielberg knows how to tell a story; this one in other hands could strangle among its many narrative threads or smother in the blanket of its own good intentions, but Spielberg and his screenwriters keep the narrative clear, intense, informative, and entertaining, top to bottom. Of especial note, the fine performances from the 2 leads - Hanks as Ben Bradlee, editor of the Post during the Nixon administration, and Meryl Streep as his boss, the publisher Katherine Graham - as well as terrific re-creations of the tensions of the newsroom as the Pentagon Papers story breaks and, w/ some fine tracking shots, the madhouse atmosphere chez Bradlee as a team of editors race against deadline to publish on the papers as Bradlee tries to persuade Graham to defy the courts and publish, putting at great risk not only their reputation but the well-being of the Post itself, which was in the midst of its first public stock offering. There's also some smart use of actual recordings of Nixon bashing reporters and bashing the Post in particular. We get great background on the secret papers, which documented for all time that multiple administrations had consistently lied to the public about the course and cost and purpose of the war - which in the end was maintained at the cost of thousands of lives just because no president wanted to be the first to lose a war. Part of the story as well involves the competition against the NYT, which was the first to publish, which in the end led to an alliance w/ the Times in a court battle, successful, against prior restraint. Oddly, and sadly, this great film is something like a bookend paired against All the President's Men, also about the Post and the Nixon admin: All the President's Men, from the 70s, established investigative journalists and their brave and smart editors as heroes of our time and inspired thousands of students to enter the noble career of journalism; now, 50 years later, The Post has us looking back at that era and forces us to think about how much has changed - not only the old lead type and land lines - but the whole culture of newspapers: Spielberg captures the spirit of the time, but it now seems so long ago and so antiquated, though of course needed now more than ever (admittedly, there are now more sources for information and communication - but few w/ the integrity or resources of the great American newspapers).