Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
I was watching the film All The President’s Men from 1976. It stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Paul Woodward (Woodward and Bernstein) as the two Wash Post journalists who broke the Watergate Scandal involving President Richard Nixon. I was watching the moving because Robert Redford passed away last month, and I wanted to watch (re-watch) some of his work.
So much was different with the 70’s. The attire. The hardwire rotary dial phones (with multiple lines in fancy offices). The fact that people picked up their phones. If people were away from their desks, there were no answering machines. You would leave a message with a receptionist, and she (back then it was always a she) would leave the person a note (almost always on yellow paper) to call the person back.
What amazed me of Woodward and Bernstein was how easily they were able to access information, and how few barriers there existed back then to obtaining background information in those days. There are many more privacy barriers when it comes to access to information today.
In one scene, they attend at a library in Washington and they’re able to see instantaneously the names telephone numbers, addresses and amounts of all donors tied to the Democratic Party to elect the next President. With that hot list of contacts in hand, they’re able to knock door to door, or make cold calls. People actually either answered the door, or answered the phones to speak with these guys. Getting this sort of personal information so easily is almost unheard of these days. Getting people to cooperate with you is just as rare.
