The ticking stopwatch of “60 Minutes” was once the gold standard for broadcast journalism. However, the CBS program was tarnished after producer Mary Mapes was fired after airing a 2004 story about George W. Bush’s Cadillac military service during the Vietnam War. Mapes alleged that a symphony of strings was pulled, placing the well-connected future president in a Texas Air National Guard squadron unlikely to see action until World War III. The controversy took down Maples’ staff along with one of the grand old men of TV journalism, Dan Rather, the respected anchor who reported her story.
Based on Mapes’ memoir, Truth and Duty, Truth tells the story from her side. The gist is that she got it right, despite questions over sources, and that supine corporate officers courting the Republican administration hounded all parties involved out of their jobs. This much is obvious enough: Mapes was bereft of support at a time when network news was growing dumb and dumber, reporting on “reality TV shows” rather than reality.
Robert Redford gives a solid supporting performance as Rather, but the star, Cate Blanchett, is marvelous as the hard-driving reporter who spent her professional life challenging the abuse of power. She broke the Abu Ghraib prisoner story. She won awards. And yet her investigation into Bush’s service record, with its allegation that he was essentially on holiday for most of his tour of duty, was derided as inaccurate and politically motivated.
It should be no surprise that Bush and many young men connected to networks of power stayed clear of combat during Vietnam. Preferential treatment was bi-partisan. And millions of other Americans of all political hues sought to remain out of harm’s way during the conflict. If Truth is entirely true (and Rather backs Maples’ story), what’s shocking is the length traveled by Bush’s handlers to insulate him from any taint of suspicion. An army of Internet drudges were employed to raise questions about the authenticity of the National Guard documents Mapes procured based on alleged discrepancies in font styles and character spacing. Fox News pounced and the other networks followed. Her case wasn’t helped when some of her sources crumbled or retreated. What’s lost, Truth says, is the actual story amidst the arcana and minutia. It argues that even if Mapes failed to cross every “t,” her report was essentially correct.
Writer-director James Vanderbilt can be excused for helming a move that feels a little long and drawn out. After all, it’s a story about the painstaking nature of information gathering and fact checking. What are unnecessary are the occasional Hollywood moments, the setups meant to yank the heartstrings like a clumsily played violin. That the music comes out flat shouldn’t obscure the message that big media is no longer eager to use its might to question the powerful. The media has become part of the problem.
Truth
3 stars
Cate Blanchett
Robert Redford
Directed by James Vanderbilt
R
