This month marks the 50th anniversary of a much-revered classic of American cinema, All The President’s Men.

The 1976 movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman was an adaptation of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s 1974 book of investigative journalism detailing their two-year unravelling of the Watergate conspiracy. The shocking scandal brought down a president and profoundly shook Americans’ trust in government.

On June 17 1972, operatives working for President Richard Nixon’s Committee for the Re-election of the President (often satirically referred to as CREEP) were caught breaking into the Democrat party’s national headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. The subsequent attempted cover-up eventually led to the resignation of Nixon and many in his administration going to jail.

The book and film led to several words and phrases entering the popular lexicon, including “deep throat” as shorthand for informants, the expression “follow the money” and of course the use of the word “gate” tacked on at the end of a word to denote a scandal. The film is probably the most famous movie about journalism ever made and helped shape the public’s view of who journalists were and how they functioned.

In many ways it’s strange to see an America where the media were so trusted. At the time a significant majority of Americans held the view that if the Washington Post or New York Times printed........

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