"The Post" Reflection

"The Post" made me realize the competitiveness of journalism. Not only was Kay Graham fighting for Freedom of the press, she was also fighting to compete with the New York Times. She had recently lost her husband who left the Post to her, and people didn't take her seriously. On top of this, a Federal restraining order was placed that could have gotten all of them charged with Contempt.

Graham had to decide if it was worth it to compete with the Times and fight for freedom of the press but risk losing her business. Everyone questioned her ability to run the paper, and if she was the right person for the job. It was truly inspiring to see her take charge and go forth with publishing the Pentagon Papers.

This spoke to how competitive newspapers were and still are to be the first to publish the big stories. On top of this, there was a lot of pressure, because Graham didn't have much time to make this decision. In the end, the Times was cleared, and thus the Post had made the right decision.

This also made me think about the times when journalists have gotten so caught up in the competitiveness of the industry that they end up publishing sensationalized or false stories. We saw this happen with the Rolling Stone "Rape on Campus" piece. The idea of having such a huge story probably set rose colored glasses on the reporter so they failed to see the red flags in their source.

With "The Post," it was clearly the right decision to publish the papers. They had come straight from the government and it was clear that the government was being deceptive about the conditions in Vietnam. Without even knowing if the Times would be cleared, Graham stuck to her decision to post the Papers, which was a very brave thing to do. It ended up being the biggest and best decision she could have made.