The type of buoyant journalism career the late Ben Bradlee enjoyed barely exists anymore, and that’s both a good and bad thing. It’s great that American media is in far more hands now in our decentralized world, the “barbarians” having stormed the gates, though it would be better if more of those thumbing at keypads aspired to greatness. Of course, that’s not so easy with that industry’s currently complicated financial picture.

In David Remnick’s excellent New Yorker post-mortem of his late Washington Post boss, he shares that Jason Robard’s big-screen depiction of Bradlee was more restrained than the reality: “Younger people watching the actor Jason Robards’s portrayal of Bradlee in All the President’s Men can be forgiven for thinking it is a broad caricature, an exaggeration of his cement-mixer voice, his cocky ebullience, his ferocious instinct for a political story, and his astonishing support for his reporters. In fact, Robards underplayed Bradlee.”

Bradlee’s reaction to the film’s D.C. premiere, recorded in an April 19, 1976 People article, was far less revealing. An excerpt about Bradlee and his “chum” Sally Quinn:

“Jason Robards’ portrayal of Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee drew raves from Sally Quinn, a Post reporter who is a close Bradlee chum. ‘Amazing,’ she gushed. ‘Robards only met him twice, but he had his mannerisms down to a T.’ Bradlee himself would say only: ‘It was an interesting film.’ (The Post reviewer was less kind—he called the movie ‘absorbing,’ but carped at its lack of drama.)

Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, who declined to be portrayed in the movie, said she wanted to play down the paper’s role. ‘We just kept the story alive,’ she said, ‘until the process took over and worked.’ Then, asked whether the film would lure hordes of young people into investigative reporting, she gulped, ‘God, I hope not.'”