Talk:The Post (film)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the The Post (film) article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Film: American

	Film portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Film. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please refer to the documentation. To improve this article, please refer to the guidelines.FilmWikipedia:WikiProject FilmTemplate:WikiProject Filmfilm articles
	This article is supported by the American cinema task force.

Journalism Low‑importance

	Journalism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Journalism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of journalism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.JournalismWikipedia:WikiProject JournalismTemplate:WikiProject JournalismJournalism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Production companies[edit]

Will people please stop adding unsourced production companies? We have a source from Variety Insight for them. I'm getting incredibly annoyed at having to constantly clean up this article. See this consensus that production companies need to be properly sourced and should not be based on primary sources, such as posters, trailers, and other promotional material. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:44, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just to reiterate what NRP says above, the {{Infobox film}} guidelines stipulate that production companies "should be cited to reliable secondary sources that explicitly identify the production companies". Betty Logan (talk) 00:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jedi94: where does that source say that Participant Media is a production company? It just says it's "on their slate", which could mean anything, including that they're a distributor or invested without being a production company. This is exactly the sort of original research that the consensus linked above is meant to avoid. Also, Variety's own database does not list Participant Media as a production company. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I know what I'm talking about. You just need to chill out. Check out IMDB. There's your fuckin' source.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Radiation15 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The IMDb's data is user-generated and, in most circumstances, can not be used as as a source on Wikipedia. We need a reliable source, not press releases or the IMDb. They also have to explicitly label the production companies because there is a lot of original research that goes on by Wikipedia editors in identifying them. We don't use trailers, posters, press releases, the IMDb, etc. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So just because Variety's database doesn't list it, means it's wrong? Variety is not the sole universal metric to hold all reliability sourcing to. Let's say we were to find a secondary source that supported the other production companies and provided a completely different thereby contradicted Variety's database, what then? Are we to acknowledge one and exclude the other because of a discrepancy in information? I understand Wikipedia's policy of using secondary sources to support content, although primary sources may be used with cautious discretion but without personal interpretation. So stating from that, if we cannot use the trailer or poster to identify the production companies, how come we can base the order of the cast (as it appears in the infobox now) on the same billing block from that trailer? Sounds a bit hypocritical but I digress.

If anything, I'll wait until the film nears release to locate some more secondary sources, because right now such information is so sparse that I'm not having any luck finding any that aren't primary sources. Honestly, it's relatively fresh news that DreamWorks, Participant, and the like are involved in this film anyway, as it was previously reported by the trades to be just a Fox/Amblin production. Hopefully, time will bring forth some sources. I'm willing to cooperate as need be, NinjaRobotPirate. Also Radiation15, whether it's right or wrong, IMDb is never a reliable source to bring up as it is open for anyone to adjust and edit. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 21:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Variety Insight is professionally maintained, fact-checked, and sourced in part directly from the studios themselves. It is probably the most reliable source that we can possibly have for this kind of information. Interpreting primary sources is disallowed; that is what you're doing when you say that a something is a production company based seeing their name on a poster or whatever. Because editors insist on using their own original research to identify production companies, the consensus listed above says production companies should be explicitly identified as such by the source. This is to prevent people from saying, "Well, their logo is on the poster" or "Their name is mentioned in passing in this article as having been involved in some capacity". NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:00, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I know this an old discussion, but I would just like to say that we should seek secondary sources beyond Variety Insights, since entries are deleted from the page once the film is released.--Sunshineisles2 (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 10 November 2017[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change 'Tony Bradlee' to 'Antoinette "Tony" Bradlee'

Tony was her nickname, her full name was Antoinette. Mylorin (talk) 03:07, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:54, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References 8 and 9 don't actually mention Nixon, and only ref 9 mentions Trump - and not in the way suggested here. They state that because the film came together in such a short timeline, it is one of the first releases to "respond to" the Trump presidency. As for alluding to Nixon - the film doesn't allude to Nixon, it deals with his presidency directly - and, in a broader sense, you could say that this focus on Nixon *alludes* to Trump -- but that's not what these references are saying. find better sources please, or strike the line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.214.226.1 (talk) 02:19, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How historically accurate is the movie?[edit]

The article mentions the that the movie explores the difficulty of making decisions that seem clear 40 years later. Is there any information that could be added about how accurate that part of the movie is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mpearl (talk • contribs) 05:02, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong link[edit]

This article is linked to "The Papers" in Henry James' article.

Thriller?[edit]

The opening describes the film as a "political thriller." The term thriller tends to refer to movies filled with action and/or physical danger. I think "political drama" would be better description. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a search engine test, it looks like the film is more often called a drama than a thriller. For simplicity's sake, I would stick with that. The politics can be defined as an element in the film. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 23:00, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relevance?[edit]

What is the relevance of the Wash. Post's activities in regard to the Pentagon Papers? Might as well do a movie on the LA times activities in regard to the Pentagon Papers. Only the NY Times activities were relevant in regard to the Pentagon Papers. So the reader of Wikipedia walks away from this article as puzzled as before reading it. Very common experience across the US media/press landscape. Rtdrury (talk) 01:56, 22 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]