''The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee'' is an American documentary film that premiered on December 4, 2017 on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

. Directed by John Maggio, the film explores the life and legacy of journalist Ben Bradlee.

Premise

''The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee'' is "an intimate portrait of Bradlee that traces his ascent from a young Boston boy stricken with polio to one of the most consequential journalistic figures of the 20th century."

Persons featured

The documentary includes interviews with: * Bob Woodward * Carl Bernstein *

Quinn Bradlee Quinn Bradlee FRSA FRAS FSA Scot (aged ) is an American filmmaker, author and advocate for improving the lives of disabled individuals. Biography Bradlee is the son of the late author and ''Washington Post'' executive editor Ben Bradlee, and ...

Courtland Milloy Courtland Milloy is a columnist and former reporter for ''The Washington Post''. He joined the ''Post'' in 1975 after working at the ''Miami Herald''. He is one of the journalists interviewed in the documentary film ''The Newspaperman''. Milloy is ...

* David Maraniss * David Remnick * Don Graham * George Vaillant * Henry Kissinger *

Ben Bradlee Jr. Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee Jr. (born August 7, 1948) is an American journalist and writer. He was a reporter and editor at ''The Boston Globe'' for 25 years, including a period when he supervised the Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation i ...

Jim Hoagland Jimmie Lee Hoagland (born January 22, 1940) is a Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist. He is a contributing editor to ''The Washington Post,'' since 2010, previously serving as an associate editor, senior foreign correspondent, and columnis ...

* Jim Lehrer * John Dean *

Norman Lear Norman Milton Lear (born July 27, 1922) is an American producer and screenwriter, who has produced, written, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear is known for many popular 1970s sitcoms, including the multi-award winning ''All in the Famil ...

* Richard Cohen * Robert Kaiser *

Robert Redford Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the List of awards and nominations received by Robert Redford, recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Awards, Academy Award from four nomi ...

Sally Bedell Smith Sarah Bedell Smith (born May 27, 1948) is an American journalist and biographer. She has been a contributing editor for ''Vanity Fair'' since 1996. Previously, she was a cultural news reporter for ''New York Times'' and ''Time.'' She has writte ...

Sally Quinn Sally Sterling Quinn (born July 1, 1941) is an American author and journalist, who writes about religion for a blog at ''The Washington Post''. Early life Sally Quinn was born in Savannah, Georgia, to Lt. General William Wilson "Buffalo Bill" ...

* Tina Brown * Tom Brokaw

Release

Marketing

On November 13, 2017,

released the first trailer for the film.

Premiere

On November 29, 2017, the film held its New York premiere at the HBO Screening Room in New York City.

Reception

Critical reception

''The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee'' has been met with a positive response from critics. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% approval rating with an average rating of 7.8 out of 10, based on 16 reviews. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". In a positive review, '' The Hollywood Reporter''s Frank Scheck said, "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." Similarly complimentary, '' The Wall Street Journal''s Dorothy Rabinowitz said, "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." In a more mixed review, Verne Gay of ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

'' gave the film two and a half stars out of four and said, "In the argot of Bradlee’s glorious trade, “The Newspaperman” is a puff piece. That’s OK. Bradlee deserves one. He was the greatest editor of one of the world’s greatest newspapers who supervised a story that will forever grace the Valhalla of journalism. But the problem with puffery, however well-meaning, is that it obscures subtler, more complicated, perhaps less complimentary truths."

Accolades

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Newspaperman 2017 films American documentary films HBO documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films