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Spielberg's homage to lost world of newspapers

This is a film is for anyone who loves newspapers.

Director Steven Spielberg deftly explores the issues around the Washington Post publication in 1971 of the explosive Pentagon Papers. 

The newspaper is struggling financially and about to go public. Proprietor Katharine Graham, played by Meryl Streep, wrestles with the dilemma of whether to publish or not.

Her hard-bitten editor Ben Bradlee, determined to best arch-rival The New York Times, gets hold of the papers and wants them on the front page.

Troops

But the story is explosive, revealing that the US government had long known that the unpopular Vietnam War could not be won, yet continued committing troops to the region. 

Streep and Hanks are both superb, delicately portraying the often-tense interaction between newspaper editor and proprietor. 

And production design on The Post is a beautiful homage to the 'hot metal' era of newspapers.  

Spielberg perfectly captures the noise and controlled chaos of the old-style newsroom with its long-gone industrial-style model of production.

Sub-editors

The copy boys; the sub-editors working with a pen; the copy sent by vacuum tube down to the compositors; the Linotype machine; the printers waiting to roll the presses; the vans lined up outside the building waiting to distribute the news.  

It’s all here and the love that The Post shows for this lost era makes it alone worth seeing.