The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee

I wanted more about Bradlee and Graham’s relationship, but that’s my only real complaint. The documentary opened up other windows into the fabled man for me.

Sharply recounts Bradlee's adventures in print with wit and warmth. [8 Dec 2017, p.52]

Both events [Watergate and the Pentagon Papers] are covered extensively in The Newspaperman. There is not a lot new there, but it’s interesting to hear it from Bradlee’s perspective.

As any rational person would expect, the subject of HBO’s The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee--the executive editor who presided over the Washington Post’s coverage of the Watergate scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office--quickly emerges as a heroic figure. What’s not so expected, what comes as something bordering on shock, of a gratifying kind, is how much else the film takes on in this buoyant and mercilessly frank look at Bradlee’s life and career.

Chronicling its subject's life and career in fascinating detail, The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee will prove catnip to journalism and political buffs, not to mention anyone who cares about the free press and its role in our democracy.

Maggio’s film is narrated by Bradlee himself, reading from his own memoir. The list of contributors all but ensures the hagiographic nature of the film: Quinn, Donald Graham (Katharine and Philip’s son), Woodward, Bernstein, Quinn Bradlee (Bradlee and Quinn’s son), TV journalist Jim Lehrer, TV producer Norman Lear, Robert Redford, historian Sally Bedell Smith and others. Henry Kissinger grumbles about the Post endangering national security, but no one brings up other shortcomings.

Warm, genial portrait of a great editor, but not much else.