Graham

“I’M still the same person as the 15-year-old me,” decides Blur guitarist Graham Coxon.

“Still a romantic idiot, still reasonably innocent — and I think that’s a healthy way to be,” he continues.

“I don’t want to be a cynical old bastard, so I’m lucky I still have a magical outlook on life.”

I’m talking to Coxon, 57, about his “lost” solo album, Castle Park, which is finally set to come blinking into the sunlight.

The product of sessions which took place in the winter of 2011, it is named after his teenage stomping ground in the centre of Colchester — an affirmation of that younger “same person” self.

In a wider sense, it serves as a nod to his Essex hometown — a city since 2022 — where he attended Stanway School, met Damon Albarn and where, in 1988, they formed Blur with Dave Rowntree and Alex James.

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It was there, too, that his band leader and clarinet-playing dad introduced him to music, namely, “the Bs — Beethoven and The Beatles”.

The album cover resembles a classic picture postcard, divided into quarters and depicting scenes from the park with its vast Norman castle and an ornate Victorian bandstand.

Coxon says: “There were a few occasions when me and a group of friends would stay in the park rather too long, get locked in and have to climb over the fence.

“I remember being slightly inebriated and dancing around the bandstand — and then, of course, there was the statue.”

He’s referring to the imposing bronze Angel Of Victory which stands atop the Colchester War Memorial at the southern entrance to Castle Park.

“I had some dangerous moments when I climbed up and gave that statue a kiss,” he admits. “I used to do it regularly — she was very beautiful.”

If that fearless act of youthful exuberance was an example of Coxon’s romantic nature, it’s clear that he carried it forward to the album that was shelved until now.

“It comes through,” he agrees, “even though there are songs about getting dumped.

“There’s a lot of processing my own romanticism on that album, but not in a heavy way.

“It’s reasonably light-hearted for the first half at least, even if it takes a tumble down to the most depressing song I’ve ever written [album closer All The Rage]. But that’s life, isn’t it?”

Looking back at ten tracks of “romance, break-ups, heartache and alienation”, he says: “When I was writing them, I was in a very problematic situation emotionally. Somehow, songs have a way of describing your situation more succinctly than whatever is going through your mind.”

In 2026, I’m happy to report that Coxon is in a much better place. It’s 10am when I’m connected via video call to the home he shares with partner and bandmate in The Waeve, Rose Elinor Dougall, and their daughter.

“You’ve got me before my brains kick in,” he warns me, but he soon warms to the task of talking about his music outside of Blur.

Aside from the imminent release of Castle Park, this year sees reissues of Coxon’s back catalogue, beginning with his debut album The Sky Is Too High (1998) and its follow-up, The Golden D (2000).

He’s also working on the third Waeve album with Rose, which he describes as “a lot less hard-edged” than 2024’s City Lights.

“It’s more floaty and summery,” he reveals, before reaffirming his romantic credentials.

“Lyrically, there’s a lot more affection. Rose and I go through life together and, sometimes, saying things in lyrics is the nicest way to show affection away from our normal hectic lives.”

But it is his “lost” Castle Park, with lyricism and songcraft as assured as anything in his solo repertoire, that we are focusing on. So, how come the album joined a legendary list that includes The Who’s Lifehouse and The Beach Boys’ Smile by lying dormant for years?

Coxon casts his mind back to 2011 when he headed to The Pool studios in Bermondsey with Ben Hillier, co-producer of Blur’s 2003 album Think Tank (made without Graham except for one track) and engineer on The Golden D.

He says: “It was really odd because I recorded 20 songs and ten of them became A&E [released in 2012], which was based around improvised bass lines.

“The other ten were weirdly different — more trad indie, jingle-jangly, with a bit of Sixties influence.”

Those songs, you may have guessed, were earmarked for Castle Park.

Speaking of parks, Coxon had form thanks to Parklife, Blur’s immortal hit with lyrics by Damon Albarn and music by the whole band, not to mention a vocal masterclass from Phil Daniels.

Despite a widely held belief, the song wasn’t inspired by Castle Park but, as Albarn once explained, by London’s Hyde Park where he used “to watch people and pigeons”.

It seems as if the Britpop icons’ 2012 reunion, which included a momentous Hyde Park show to mark the end of the Olympics, is the chief reason why Coxon’s next album didn’t appear.

That rapturously received performance led to Blur’s run of festival shows in 2013 and a new album in 2015, The Magic Whip.

Then Coxon moved on to mastermind soundtracks for Channel Four comedy drama The End Of The F***ing World as well as embarking on a sci-fi music/graphic novel project in 2021 called Superstate.

He founded The Waeve with partner Rose and, of course, reunited with Blur for their 2023 album The Ballad Of Darren and a tour including two barnstorming nights at Wembley Stadium.

In other words, while Castle Park gathered dust, Coxon kept himself busy.

He says: “I’m really not sure what happened. Maybe it was lack of confidence. Maybe I thought these songs weren’t fashionable and who would give a s**t?”

Over the years, however, his theory didn’t stand up as fans would repeatedly ask him to release Castle Park. “They even knew the name of the album.”

The clamour heightened when Coxon broke out some of the songs during live shows.

These include opening track Billy Says, a spiky three-minute slice of mod-pop, which finds him channelling his heroes, The Kinks and The Jam.

He says: “Ray Davies is the best songwriter we ever had, followed closely by Paul McCartney, and The Jam was a huge band for me. I thought that being a Jam fan elevated me as a person.”

Other tracks to receive a live airing were Alright, with its pithy putdowns of a love rival, a playful duet with Lucy Parnell called There’s A Little House, and gorgeous acoustic guitar-led Easy.

Of all the Castle Park songs, there’s one which Coxon is most proud of, the poised, richly atmospheric Isn’t It Funny.

“It came to me in the dream,” he says. “I had the chords and half of the chorus, I heard some words — and then I woke up. I thought, ‘My gosh, I need to make a quick note of this.’”

Isn’t It Funny contains the lines: “The sun made black her hair and the river her eyes. She needs no man, no sea, nor heather. She’ll change your mind and slip away.”

By way of explanation, Coxon says: “I realise that there’s always been this elusive feminine spirit or a goddess of nature in my work.

“I don’t write songs about this entity for my own excitement. They just come out.”

Then there’s the sublime Mélodie Pour Christine, a lyric-free classical piece for harp and strings with Lucy Parnell’s vocals serving as another instrument.

“That piece was important to me,” he says. “I devoted it to a French friend of mine — a wonderful person who I loved very much and is no longer with us.”

Another song that hits the mark is bleak All The Rage, which, he says, “communicates one’s despondency around the creative life — and that has got even worse 15 years later!”

If most of Castle Park is filled with distinctly English sensibilities, American influences arrive with a cover of When You Find Out by short-lived Seventies punk-pop trio The Nerves.

“It’s a great song, even Blondie would go, ‘Hey, this is a good one’. I just made it slightly less than perfect,” laughs Coxon.

Then there’s “an attempt at soul” with Forget Today which finds him employing his considerable saxophone skills and Ben Hillier providing Hammond organ. (Worth noting that Coxon played sax on Parklife.)

Dripping Soul ventures into territory occupied by Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks, “so it’s not exclusively weird south-east of England s**t”.

“I love westerns, particularly Sergio Leone films. A Fistful Of Dollars and all that,” says Coxon.

In the song, he is peering “beyond the veil” at the “souls of those cowboys who came from a place where life is cheap and death is taken for granted”.

With its galloping guitars, Coxon realised he couldn’t turn Dripping Soul into “a hanging out in Camden sort of thing”.

But he does believe that the house he shares with Rose in London is populated by the souls of dead people.

“I don’t even believe in ghosts, but I’ve seen them,” he reports. “So that’s a bit of a quandary.”

Coxon says he still likes to talk to dear departed loved ones: His mum, Christine, drummer Graham Fox, the Irish journalist who first wrote about Blur, Leo Finlay, and the head of Food Records, Andy Ross.

“I don’t really see them as gone,” he says. “I can still talk to them — they may have disappeared but they’re still fully alive in my mind.”

With that said, we return to 1998 when all those people were still with us — to the making of Coxon’s debut solo album The Sky Is Too High.

It was an unvarnished, largely acoustic affair featuring his own artwork and, as he explains: “It was recorded through really good gear but approach was quite raw.”

Sandwiched between Blur’s self-titled fifth album and its follow-up, 13, “It was done in a bit of a hurry — I wasn’t f***ing about.”

The project had begun when a neighbour asked Coxon to write a couple of songs for a film about Victorian bare-knuckle fighter Tom Sayers — setting wheels in motion that are still spinning.

He says: “That request turned into an addiction to writing songs and releasing them.”

So, how did his solo endeavours affect his relationship with his Blur bandmates. “They didn’t talk about it,” replies Coxon, “Though I did once catch Damon singing R U Lonely? He said, ‘That’s quite a catchy little tune’.

“Attempting to develop as a songwriter when Damon Albarn is your best mate is hard work. I mean, he’d already written some bloody good songs by then.”

Released in 2000, Coxon’s second effort, The Golden D, is very different — heavier, more abrasive and driven by searing electric guitars.

The mood changes with the funky Oochy Woochy, which tapped into Coxon’s fascination with Nineties’ fusion of hip-hop and jazz — a style developed by American rapper Guru called Jazzmatazz.

He says: “I’ve always liked that skinny beat stuff with James Brown loops or similar. Stuff like Public Enemy and 3rd Bass. Oochy Woochy is not a mickey take but a go at that.”

With physical releases of Coxon’s other albums still to come this year, there’s plenty more scope to revisit his solo journey.

Then, in November, he’s hitting the road for a UK tour, bringing the songs back to life still further.

Looking back on his output, Coxon says: “I think it has had a lot to do with my development as a person.

“You know, that anxiety-ridden creative weirdo who puts all this stuff out there.

“I guess that’s why I like Castle Park coming out — because now there are no secrets. You’ve got it all.”

GRAHAM COXON

Castle Park

4.5 STARS

• Also released: The Sky Is Too High and The Golden D

PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner, the insurgent Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, will hold his first major campaign rally Friday night as reports continue emerging about his history with women.

Last weekend, his campaign wrestled with stories about sexually explicit messages that Platner sent to several women while he was married. Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported about his relationships with previous girlfriends. Some viewed him positively but others described him as volatile and insulting.

One woman said Platner twisted her arm during an argument and locked her in a room. Platner called that allegation untrue.

But with Maine’s primary around the corner Tuesday and Democrats desperate to rally behind a candidate who can defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November, there’s been little sign of voters or political allies backing away from Platner, who has pitched himself as an imperfect person who has redeemed himself.

Some dismissed news of the text messages as a private matter, one that should be addressed solely by the married couple. Others argue that the need for Democrats to take back control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans is too important to cast aside imperfect candidates.

Yet they’re also wrestling with the question of whether more controversial information surrounding Platner could come out ahead of the November election.

“I think a lot of people are afraid,” said Deb Dagnan, chair of Maine’s Piscataquis County Democrats. “They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop after he gets the nomination. Then what do we do?”

Key to the Senate

Platner is key to Democrats hopes’ to take back the U.S. Senate this year. Yet he’s been bedeviled by near-constant controversies involving his disclosure of a since-covered tattoo of a Nazi symbol, his history of inflammatory online comments and the texting revelations.

Nevertheless, Platner’s most prominent supporters have continued to back the candidate, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego. Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, as well as Democratic candidates for U.S. House and governor, as a part of a “get out the vote” rally in the coastal resort town.

The event is taking place just days ahead of the state’s June 9 primary election, where Platner is expected to secure the Democratic nomination. His top opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April.

He’ll do so under reignited scrutiny amid reports that he and his wife, Amy Gertner, have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren’t a liability to the campaign. Platner’s campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023.

Genevieve McDonald, a former campaign staffer for Platner, told The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”

Shortly after the news came out, Platner posted a five-minute video taken by Gertner, who avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts but dubbed the broader coverage as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”

Voters worry that more scandals lurk

Gertner’s emotional comments about working on her marriage have resonated with some women, who say they are shocked that a former campaign aide would betray someone’s trust and the issue should remain between the couple.

“It’s none of my business as far as I’m concerned,” said Joanne Mason, a local Democratic leader from south-central Maine. “And I would hope that people wouldn’t judge any one person on their own private marriage.”

Valerie Tate, a Democrat from Belfast, described Gertner’s honesty about trying to work on their mental health and marriage as admirable.

“That is not a scandal,” Tate wrote in an email. “That is integrity. Personal growth is not a disqualification from public life. For many of us, it is precisely what made us worthy of it.”

However, Tate conceded that her mind wasn’t fully at ease. With the public still learning about Platner’s past, there is a chance something could emerge as a dealbreaker for voters.

“Of course, there is that concern as there would be in any race with somebody we don’t know all the dramas and the journeys they’ve been on,” she wrote. “Something could come out that would be disqualifying.”

Past controversies simmer

This isn’t the first time Platner has faced questions about his past. He had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he had covered up after starting his campaign.

Platner has said he didn’t realize the meaning of the tattoo. However, a former girlfriend told the Times he joked about it being a Nazi symbol and called it “my Totenkopf.”

There’s also been much attention on Platner’s former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.

Platner has never held elected office and has fashioned a straight-talking, progressive, populist-style campaign focusing on issues such as income inequality, lack of health care accessibility and the rising cost of housing. In return, he’s attracted thousands at his rallies and campaign events and collected millions in campaign funds to further boost his messaging.

“People want somebody new,” said Paige Zeigler, a former Maine Democratic lawmaker and head of the Waldo County Democrats, on why Platner’s staying power has remained strong. “They want somebody that they feel that they can embrace. And Platner is riding that wave.”

Whittle and Kruesi write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I.

Goalkeepers: Pierce Charles (Sheffield Wednesday), Luke Southwood (Bristol Rovers), Josh Clarke (Partick Thistle – on loan from Celtic)

Defenders: Tom Atcheson (Blackburn Rovers), Ruairi McConville (Norwich City), Trai Hume (Sunderland), Ciaron Brown (Oxford United), Brodie Spencer (Oxford United), Justin Devenny (Crystal Palace).

Midfielders: Ali McCann (Preston North End), Shea Charles (Southampton), Jamie McDonnell (Oxford United), Paul Smyth (Queen’s Park Rangers), Isaac Price (West Brom), Patrick Kelly (Barnsley), Ethan Galbraith (Swansea), Kieran Morrison (Liverpool).

Forwards: Josh Magennis (Exeter City), Jamie Donley (Oxford United), Jamie Reid (Stevenage), Callum Marshall (West Ham), Ceadach O’Neill (Arsenal), Braiden Graham (Everton).

Irish activist Caitriona Graham, who was filmed being dragged by her hair and forced to the ground by Israeli forces, recounted the violent interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in an interview with Al Jazeera after being deported to Istanbul.

TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus’ authoritarian leader on Friday greeted U.S. Rev. Franklin Graham, who arrived in the tightly controlled country to hold the largest evangelical Christian gathering in its history.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko asked Graham to convey warm greetings to President Trump and tell him that he has “reliable friends and supporters in Belarus.”

Since Trump returned to the White House, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners as part of U.S.-brokered deals that lifted some U.S. sanctions, part of the isolated leader’s efforts to improve ties with the West.

“Without the U.S. president, it might have been more difficult for us to establish our relations,” Lukashenko told Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. Graham was accompanied by Greta Van Susteren, the anchor for Newsmax TV who is married to Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, John Coale.

Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Graham is set to hold the largest gathering of evangelicals ever in Belarus’ history, with thousands expected to attend what the organizers called the Festival of Hope at an indoor sports arena in Minsk, the capital.

Lukashenko’s rule was challenged after a 2020 presidential election, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest a vote they viewed as rigged. In an ensuing crackdown, tens of thousands were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures fled the country or were imprisoned.

Five years after the mass demonstrations, Lukashenko won a seventh term last year in an election that the opposition called a farce.

As part of a deal in March that Washington helped broker, Lukashenko ordered the release of 250 political prisoners, while the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions from two Belarusian state banks and the country’s Finance Ministry, and to remove the top Belarusian potash producers from a sanctions list.

Another deal in April released prominent journalist Andrzej Poczobut in a swap with Poland that saw a total of 10 people freed.

However, Belarus still has 845 political prisoners, including 22 journalists, according to the Viasna human rights center.

Belarus opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya voiced hope that Graham’s visit will help the release of all political prisoners. “We continue to push for a complete end to the harsh political repressions in Belarus,” Tsikhanouskaya told the Associated Press.

Belarusian authorities’ permission for the massive gathering of evangelicals marks a shift, following years of crackdown on clergy — Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant — which saw dozens jailed, silenced or forced into exile for protesting the 2020 election. In the country of 9.5 million, about 80% are Orthodox Christians; nearly 14% are Catholics, residing mostly in western, northern and central parts of the country; and about 2% belong to Protestant churches.

A 2024 law required all religious organizations to reregister with authorities or face being outlawed if their loyalty to the state is in doubt.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has listed Belarus among countries with religious freedom violations, particularly noting its restrictive legislation.

Natallia Vasilevich, coordinator of the Christian Vision monitoring group, noted that even as Graham’s visit to Belarus was a “mega-important event” for evangelicals in the country, they continue to face a repressive environment.

“Some believers view Graham’s visit as a miracle and a window of opportunity, while others see a risk that they will have to turn a blind eye to repression and take part in something that makes the regime look nice,” Vasilevich said.

Karmanau writes for the Associated Press.

US president lauds Islamabad, but his Republican ally says he does not trust Pakistan to facilitate Iran diplomacy.

Donald Trump has reasserted his support for Pakistan to serve as a mediator between Iran and the United States after Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of the US president, disparaged Islamabad’s diplomacy.

In remarks on Tuesday, the US president lauded Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and its army chief Asim Munir, who helped negotiate a fragile ceasefire in Iran that came into effect last month.

Trump added he is not reconsidering Pakistan as a mediator.

“They’re great. I think the Pakistanis have been great. The field marshal and the prime minister of Pakistan have been absolutely great,” Trump told reporters.

Hours earlier, Graham had pressed Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and top US general Dan Caine about a CBS News report claiming that Pakistan is allowing Iran to park military assets on its airfields, in order to shield them from potential US and Israeli attacks.

Both officials declined to comment on the veracity of the report, citing the sensitive nature of the talks between the US and Iran.

Asked by Graham whether it would be “consistent” for Pakistan to act as a fair mediator if the CBS report is confirmed, Hegseth said, “I wouldn’t want to get into the middle of these negotiations.”

The Republican senator quickly interrupted the defence secretary.

“I do. I want to get in the middle of those negotiations,” Graham said.

“I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them. If they actually have Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan bases to protect Iranian military assets, that tells me maybe we should be looking for somebody else to mediate. No wonder this damn thing is going nowhere.”

The senator — an outspoken foreign policy hawk who has been calling for regime change in Iran — is seen as one of the most influential figures in Trump’s circle.

Graham has also been one of the most vocal supporters of the war with Iran, repeatedly cautioning Trump against agreeing to a deal that would include concessions to Tehran.

Weeks before the war broke out on February 28, Graham met the US president in Florida, where he handed Trump a hat that says, “Make Iran Great Again.”

Pakistan has been pushing to revive the stalled diplomacy between Iran and the US, following the April 8 ceasefire agreement.

On Sunday, Trump said Tehran’s latest proposal to end the war was “unacceptable”.

In late April, the US president announced he was sending his envoys to Pakistan to meet Iranian officials, but he called off the trip after Iran pushed the US to lift the naval blockade against its ports as a condition for resuming the talks.

Graham Norton’s ITV series The Neighbourhood has been pulled from its primetime slot less than a fortnight since its launch and will be replaced by repeats

Graham Norton’s ITV series The Neighbourhood has been pulled from its primetime slot less than a fortnight since its launch. The presenter, 63, is front and centre on the broadcaster’s new gameshow format in which real-life households have gathered in a purpose-built neighbourhood to be in with a chance of winning a £250,000 cash prize.

There were clearly high hopes for the series as it premiered in between both segments of the explosive I’m A Celebrity…South Africa final on April 24, and has been airing at 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays ever since, where it has managed to pull in just half a million viewers.

But now, new schedules have revealed that, going forward, the programme will air at 10.45pm which takes it away from the coveted slot it was initially given, implying that it has not lived up to expectations in terms of viewing figures.

READ MORE: ITV’s bid to lure Graham Norton away from BBC ‘backfires’ after ‘shock’ new show ratingsREAD MORE: Graham Norton explains why he’s breaking Terry Wogan’s famous rule at Eurovision

This Thursday, viewers tuning in at 9pm will instead see a repeat of Davina McCall’s Long Lost Family, and an episode of Beat The Chasers: Celebrity Special, which was initially aired in 2021, will be shown instead. A spokesperson for ITV confirmed the schedule shift as they said said: “The full box set of The Neighbourhood is now available to stream on ITVX. Additionally, the show will continue to air in an evening slot on ITV.”

But sources have claimed that whilst the broadcaster pulled out all the stops to make the programme into a hit, it just hasn’t gone that way in the end. An insider told The Sun: “They threw everything at The Neighbourhood to make it a big success, but it’s ended up a bit of a damp squib.”

The six households competing are The Bradons, The Kandolas & Samra, The Lozman-Sturrocks, The Pescuds, The Scouse Haus and The Uni Boys. Challenges put every neighbour to the limit as they try and eliminate one another without becoming unpopular enough to get the axe themselves.

Opening up on his first reaction when he saw the entirety of the set, Graham said: “Arriving in Derbyshire and seeing the set, I’d seen pictures but I didn’t quite understand the scale of it. It really is like being on a movie set, except it’s 360 – everywhere you look, it’s real.

“The art department did an extraordinary job of building up that town square where we do the removals, the pub, the cafe, the interiors of the houses. It really took my breath away!

“It made it even more exciting. I thought – this is serious! We’re making a big show. Then add on top of that, what Derbyshire does when the drone goes up and we see the Neighbourhood and the nature and the rest of it, it’s so beautiful, those big driving shots. It’s just gorgeous.

BAFTA award-winning broadcaster Graham continued: “One of the loveliest things about the show is seeing households who would never meet in real life, not only meeting but forming proper bonds of friendship. There are a few moments in the show that really do bring a tear to my eye because it’s just so genuine, so lovely and properly heartwarming.

“It’s such an odd word to describe a show like this but it’s properly wholesome. There’s something about the bright colours, being out in the countryside and the genuine bonds that you see created.”

The Neighbourhood is available to watch on ITVX

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“All the President’s Men” was released 50 years ago this month, an anniversary that’s been greeted with equal parts rue and reverence by the journalists, political junkies and discerning cinephiles who have worshiped the film for five decades.

As a member of all three of those constituencies, I’ve done my share of genuflecting, most recently as chief film critic at the Washington Post, whose city room was as vivid and fully realized in the movie as Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein.

Like so many Posties of my generation, I’ll never forget the so-real-it’s-surreal experience of walking into the fifth-floor newsroom for the first time in 2002. By then, standard-issue electric typewriters and six-ply carbon paper had been replaced by far less visually interesting computers. But the office’s pervading atmosphere of hard work and quiet focus felt uncannily similar to its big-screen analog.

For the last two years, I have been researching a book about the making of “All the President’s Men,” whose production involved almost as many contingencies and unresolved questions as Watergate itself. Among the film’s many mysteries, one I’ve found particularly intriguing has to do with Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post and CEO of its parent company during the Watergate investigations. As the movie amply demonstrates, it took guts for Woodward and Bernstein to persevere with their reporting in the face of terrified sources and their own growing paranoia. But, unbeknownst to many observers at the time, Graham was enduring even more withering pressures, with determination that was all the more impressive for being almost entirely invisible.

I’m still in the process of discovering why she remained invisible in “All the President’s Men.” For now, it’s clear that the backstory is more nuanced than mere oversight or, as many are quick to assume, simple sexism.

In fact, William Goldman’s first script of the film featured a sequence with Graham and Woodward, a scene that appeared in every subsequent draft. Based on an actual meeting between the two, it’s a cagey game of cat-and-mouse, with the publisher taking the measure of a nervous, still-inexperienced journalist, looking for reassurance that his reporting will prove out.

Earlier this year, at a January staged reading of “All the President’s Men” at Harmony Gold Theater in Hollywood — a fundraiser for the Stella Adler Academy — it was possible for fans to conjure what might have been. Mark Ruffalo played Woodward and Ethan Hawke played Bernstein in a version of the movie assembled from different Goldman drafts.

A high point of the evening was when Ruffalo and actor Susan Traylor brought the Graham-Woodward scene to tentative, tense and teasingly playful life. After grilling Woodward about his sources and coyly asking him about Deep Throat’s identity, Traylor’s Graham asked him if the truth about Watergate would ever be revealed. “It may never come out,” Ruffalo’s Woodward replied. “Don’t tell me ‘never,’” Graham laments, before bringing the meeting to a close with a gently peremptory “Do better.”

In poring over director Alan J. Pakula and Goldman’s papers, I’ve probably read that scene dozens of times. But when I heard it play out in real time, I was ambushed by the emotions it stirred — a mixture of pride in Graham’s legacy and deep sadness at how that legacy has been so inexplicably ignored in recent years.

I was also sad that Redford, who died in September, wasn’t there. He often expressed regret that Graham wasn’t a featured character in “All the President’s Men.” Keenly aware of how her spine and steadfastness made Woodward and Bernstein’s work possible, he wanted to honor that crucial support. When I interviewed him for the first time in 2005, he insisted that fearless owners were every bit as important in preserving democracy as the reporters he and Hoffman helped glamorize.

Over the next two decades, every time I saw Redford, he bemoaned the “downward slide of this thing,” by which he meant the constellation of institutions “All the President’s Men” celebrates: not just journalism and a robust First Amendment but a Washington where investigators, prosecutors, judges, the Senate and Congress did their jobs regardless of partisan loyalties, and a Hollywood where a studio as mainstream as Warner Bros. would agree to finance a tough-minded film about a contentious and still-raw period in recent history.

Granted, that film was based on a bestselling book and anchored by two huge stars. But today, with political and corporate leaders — including media companies — falling over each other to curry favor with President Trump, “All the President’s Men” feels like an artifact from a vanished age.

Nowhere is this more distressingly true than at the Post itself, where the newsroom immortalized by the movie has been slashed by more than a third, and where Jeff Bezos, who bought the paper in 2013, seems intent on erasing Katharine Graham’s legacy until it vanishes completely. During the first Trump administration, Bezos stood up to threats against the Post and the press at large that would make Nixon blush, or at least pea-green with envy.

Now, Bezos has become a one-man meme of what author Timothy Snyder calls “obedience in advance,” quashing an endorsement of Kamala Harris, ostentatiously grinning his way through Trump’s second inauguration, vastly overpaying for a promotional film about First Lady Melania Trump and staying conspicuously mum (at least publicly) when a Post reporter’s home was raided by the FBI in January.

All of this has come at an enormous moral and material cost, with thousands of readers canceling their subscriptions and an alarming number of the Post’s finest reporters and writers leaving for other publications and platforms. As my former boss Marty Baron told my former colleague Ruth Marcus in the New Yorker in February, Bezos’ turnaround has been “sickening” to witness: “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

Of course, that brand was built, in no small part, by “All the President’s Men,” which taught a generation how to walk, talk, dress and act like real reporters. (Hint: A good corduroy jacket and a pen in your mouth can’t hurt.)

In 1976, Pakula was interviewed about his dealings with Graham, whom he admired tremendously and with whom he would become close friends. “I could do a film about the Katharine Graham story,” he enthused. “It’s a superb story.”

Thirty years later, Steven Spielberg would bring Pakula’s idea to fruition with “The Post,” about Graham’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, a dress rehearsal for the even higher stakes of Watergate a year later.

“The Post,” which starred Meryl Streep in a shrewdly judged performance of aristocratic assurance and creeping insecurity, premiered in Washington less than a year into Trump’s first administration. Bezos attended that screening, which many of us saw as tacit acknowledgment that he was taking her lessons in character, comportment and competence to heart.

That was clearly wishful thinking. Graham may have finally assumed her rightful place in the newspaper-movie canon, but we’re still left to ponder her absence from the most iconic journalism movie of the 20th century.

It’s no longer the shoe-leather reporters who need a big-screen tutorial in how to do their jobs. It’s their bosses. A simple place to start would be to memorize the best two-word speech to never appear in a major motion picture: Do better.

Ann Hornaday was a film critic at the Washington Post from 2002 to 2025, when she retired. “All the President’s Men” plays at TCM Classic Film Festival Saturday at 2:45 p.m.