What started as a “third-rate burglary” ended with the resignation of a president of the United States.
On Sunday, October 22 at 4pm, the 1976 film “All the President’s Men” will be shown free of charge on the big screen at the Latchis Theater, followed by a panel discussion on the importance today of investigative journalism. On the panel will be deputy editor of The Commons Randy Holhut, long-time reporter for the Rutland Herald Susan Smallheer, and former editor-in-chief of the Brattleboro Reformer and now editorial manager for the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Kata Casa.
The story of how two young reporters at the Washington Post unravelled a criminal conspiracy that led all the way to the Oval Office inspired a whole generation of young people to get Into journalism. Alan J. Pakula’s multi-award-winning film, starring Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein, gave them the final push.
In The Age of Trump, “fake news,” and the discrediting of the journalism profession, the film is an excellent example of how dogged, thorough reporting keeps the powerful honest, the citizenry engaged and our democracy
intact.
This film is the second in the series. The first, the 1952 “Deadline USA” starring Humphrey Bogart, was shown in May. The festival will continue with a look at the darker side of journalism with Kirk Douglas’s gripping 1951 film “Ace in the Hole,” showing on November 19th; 1987’s caustic look inside broadcast media, “Broadcast News,”
will be shown on January 7th; and the 2015 Academy Award for Best Picture winner “Spotlight,” which tells the story of how the investigative journalists of the Boston Globe exposed a massive scandal of child molestation inside the
Catholic Church, will be shown on February 25. All the films are being shown at 4pm and all will be followed by panel discussions.
The event is being produced by a coalition composed of the Friends of Brooks Memorial Library, Brooks Memorial Library, The Commons, the
Brattleboro Reformer and the Latchis Theater.
