Robert Redford for WaPo: ’45 Years After Watergate, The Truth is Again in Danger’

In a guest column for the Washington Post, actor Robert Redford describes the difficulty he had in getting Hollywood producers interested in his 1976 film All the President’s Men, which revolves around the investigation into former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, and warns that 45 years after that politically momentous event, “the truth is again in danger.”

Redford writes at the Washington Post:

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This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Watergate scandal. Because of my role in the film, some have asked me about the similarities between our situations in 1972 and 2017.

There are many. The biggest one is the importance of a free and independent media in defending our democracy.

When President Trump speaks of being in a “running war” with the media, calls them “among the most dishonest human beings on Earth” and tweets that they’re the “enemy of the American people,” his language takes the Nixon administration’s false accusations of “shoddy” and “shabby” journalism to new and dangerous heights.

Sound and accurate journalism defends our democracy. It’s one of the most effective weapons we have to restrain the power-hungry. I always said that “All the President’s Men” was a violent movie. No shots were fired, but words were used as weapons.

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Read Redford’s full column at the Washington Post.