Imagine the movie. A reporter gets a query from a mysterious source promising information so damning it could lead to a head of state resigning. The source insists on anonymity.
Sounds like what just happened in Iceland this week. The prime minister resigned amid a spate of reports on the so-called Panama Papers, triggered when a German reporter was offered 11.5 million documents pilfered from a Panamanian law firm that specializes in secret offshore services.
The events mirror what happened in the iconic journalism film All the President’s Men, which debuted in theaters nationwide 40 years ago Saturday. The movie spins the tale of two young Washington Post reporters — Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — who with relentless sleuthing and the help of a famous anonymous source, Deep Throat, uncovered evidence that forced President Nixon to resign in 1974.
While the reporting duo wrote a 1974 book of the same name, Woodward and Bernstein and the Washington Post truly catapulted to fame with the 1976 movie starring Robert Redford as Woodward, Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein and Jason Robards as Post editor Ben Bradlee.
The blockbuster movie turned the pair into national celebrities, earning them attention previously unheard of for most journalists. On TV, in magazines and on the speaking circuit, they were often introduced as the two men who profoundly and permanently changed journalism.
All the President’s Men drove a generation of Woodstein wannabes into journalism and became standard fare shown at journalism schools. It still holds up as one of the best films made about the craft of journalism and just how risky investigative journalism can be.
"We're under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there," Robards says in the film to the twentysomething reporters. "Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f--- up again, I'm going to get mad. Good night."
The movie was Redford’s idea. He was drawn to the contrast between Woodward and Bernstein.
“They couldn’t be more different,” Redford told me. “Bernstein was radical, Jewish, intellectually inclined, very liberal. Woodward was bland, boring, a WASPy Republican. How in the hell could they work together? The tension intrigued me.”
Redford had a clear vision that this film would reveal the mysterious world of investigative reporting. He wanted the public to understand the rigors of investigative journalism, to show how meticulous reporters need to be, how many dead ends they pursue, and how repetitive, sometimes downright boring, investigative reporting could be.
He promised the reporters, who went along reluctantly, that he'd make a serious movie about reporting, not a flashy Hollywood movie about the shifty Watergate figures surrounding Nixon or a screwball comedy about newspapers.
He succeeded.
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The movie educated my generation on the need for documents and the importance of following the money — much like Spotlight, the 2016 Oscar-winning movie about The Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s disastrous sex abuse scandal and coverup, is educating this generation.
The good news is that investigative reporting, thought to be moribund in the new digital order, is enjoying a resurgence. Investigative teams at Buzzfeed and Fusion are the most recent digital ventures. ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, the Marshall Project and TheTexas Tribune, among other non-profit investigative outfits, are all noteworthy digital muckrakers.
Just this week, the importance of shining a spotlight on corruption was highlighted, with the massive data drop and reporting project shepherded by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), another non-profit.
The ICIJ managed to closely collaborate with 400 reporters working for 100 media partners around the world to handle the largest data leak in modern history — and keep it secret for a year. They revealed how high-profile heads of state, celebrities, athletes and public officials across the globe managed to launder billions of dollars, evade taxes and avoid sanctions through the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama.
This project is as exciting and pioneering as the Post’s Watergate coup. How the ICIJ pulled off one of the most stunning investigative reporting collaborations in history not only portends well for the future of journalism, it also would be a movie as worthy as All the President’s Men.
Mr. Redford, are you listening?
Alicia Shepard, a former NPR ombudsman who recently spent two years in Kabul working with Afghan journalists and the U.S. Agency for International Development, is the author of Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate. Follow her on Twitter: @Ombudsman.
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