There are two sides to every story, they say, and it could not be more true with the whistleblower ones - one about the blowing the whistle, and the other about the megaphone held against that whistle for the shrill to be heard round the world loud and clear. Before the news agencies get hold of the juicy stories and rush the latest exposé through the "STOP PRESS” cycle, there is someone deeply enmeshed within the machinery who is even more deeply disturbed at the ways things were proceeding as to feel compelled at throwing wide open the tarp of administrative secrecy, that he is sworn to uphold and protect, that usually shroud the dreaded collective phrase "NATIONAL SECURITY". The conflict that the employee goes through unable and unwilling to no longer go along with the methods and practices that run contrary to his morals, beliefs and values is much much greater than all the board room machinations that happen after the fact in smoke filled room among news editors fighting for and against the publication of those confidential state secrets. Be it Daniel Ellsberg (of The Pentagon Papers), or Mark Felt (Deep Throat fame, of Watergate Scandal) or Mehdi Hashemi (of Iran-Contra affair), or even the current age whistle-blowers Bradley/Chelsea Manning (the Iraq war) or Edward Snowden (the NSA apparatus), these individuals are true patriots, as much as the different administrations would have the general public believe otherwise by throwing the book at them and slapping every known Espionage and Patriot acts written in those books, for, they felt a moral obligation to disclose to the world the lies propogated and perpetrated by their governments in the name of security, and more, at the expense of individual liberty and freedom. It is almost Freudian too that these administrative machineries choose to have all these top shelf state secrets written up and neatly documented, waiting to be discovered by the men of ideals and make it known to the world in a fashion that is revealing, shocking and embarassing. And the responses too to these leaks are almost out of the Fallout Playbook - first, deny the existence of the program, second, cover up the tracks as swiftly and clumsily as possible, third, charge the whistleblower with some treasonous offence and threaten the news agencies of serious consequences should the information be made public, and if all the containment measures prove futile, sheepishly acknowledge and quickly backtrack. In the current post-modern world, governments are held accountable by the same thing that they choose to withhold from its people - information - and whoever has it shapes the narrative, be it the administration or the whistle-blower, or the media or finally, the public, which ultimately decides whether the information indeed is meant to help them or harm them. This cycle continues, the same story, with different characters and similar conclusions, continues to break through different generations, the whistles keep on blowing and the calls for "STOP PRESS" keep echoing through the chambers of the newsrooms.

"The Post" is about the second step in the cracking the egg over the adminstration process, the publishing of the sensitive documents in the newspaper. It has come a long way from when editors and publishers of respectable newspapers pondered, mulled and torn over the ethical and legal ramifications of publishing state secrets, to the current day and age when all it needs is a click of a button to let it all in the open with little to no oversight (if it is on the web), or dash to be the first one to break the story on the electronic media with little to no room/time for any correction/retraction in case of a falsified story. The rush to be the first one for the "get" has always been there regardless of the media (print, electronic and now digital), but the intermediary steps in between from when the story lands at the door steps of the journalists, and then moves up the chain of command to the news editors, and if the matter is truly serious, like in this current case of publishing The Pentagon Papers about the ugly truths of Vietnam war, and finally into the boardrooms of the owners/publishers, is what that differentiates the news gathering process then from today, where the market place is even more splintered and the urge to land the story and take it to the audience trumps all other steps of filtration and distillation. Even back then, as pointed out in the movie, profitability remained the cornerstone of the news business, without which the tall tales of integrity and journalistic spirit would just had remained empty talk, but the key difference (again, as mentioned) was what drove that profitability upward in that business which had always had the slenderest of margins when compared to other lines of work. It had been the strong belief of resolute publishers back then that quality drove up the profitability and people would pay to read quality journalism from reputed newspapers to keep themselves informed about their governments and the world around in general. Compare that to the sensationalism that the news gatherers and publishers (specially in the electronic and digital worlds) go after to grab the eye balls and the clicks they so need to tout to their advertisers to trump up their revenue and profit numbers. The strong moral fiber that the news agencies need in spades to have enough discretion to sift the grain from the chaff, to make the right judgment in either publshing or withholding the information that, in their view, benefits their readers/audience, is what that distinguishes the really good to truly great media companies. (A simple example being, the discretion of some the reputed newspapers, like The Hindu, refusing to name the religions in the stories about communal clashes as to which side threw the first stone and drew the first blood). "The Post", though set in the halcyon days of journalism in the 70s, is very much topical in this context of judiciousness and discretion. Though the story is familiar to any history enthusiast, Spielberg, with his minimalist style (much like his earlier "Bridge of Spies"), keeps the proceedings swift, taut and even suspenseful. Much of the credit needs to go to (who else, but) Meryl Streep playing the beleagured widow pubslisher, who finds herself way in over her head over matters concerning legality, market economics, and even conflict of interest, having to decide publishing the information that would bring down the people who stood by her side in her time of need. Streep brings out all inner turmoil and conflict of the character with as delicate facial and body gestures as could be possible, much like a maestro fine tuning an instrument with a little twiddle here and a little fiddle there. "The Post" might not a groundbreaking feature, but it remains an impotant gesture in this age entagnled interests and intertwined narratives.

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