Newspaper Movie: Official Secrets
As a newspaper obsessive, I’ve been compiling a list of films set in newspapers, you can find the others here. If you have a newspaper-related movie to recommend, that I’ve missed, please let me know.
Official Secrets (2019)
Rating: 4.0 stars
Newsroom quotient: 3
Rolling presses vibe: 3
Newspaper featured: The Observer
Newsroom used for filming: a film set (I think)
Early in 2003, during the build-up to the Iraq war, the US and UK were desperate to get approval for the proposed invasion from the UN, but some of the non-permanent members of the Security Council were reluctant, to say the least. The NSA requested the assistance of GCHQ in getting information on diplomats representing those countries that could be used to ‘encourage’ them to tow the line.
An analyst at GCHQ, Katharine Gun, was angered that the UK was being drawn into the war on false pretences. The NSA memo confirmed that belief; she leaked the memo to a friend who passed it on to Martin Bright, a journalist at The Observer. The Observer had already taken a position in support of the war, but Editor Roger Alton, under pressure from Bright and foreign editor Peter Beaumont, finally agreed to run the story.
When GCHQ started investigating the leak to protect her colleagues, Katharine admitted to leaking the memo and was arrested. I won’t give away any more of the plot; it’s a gripping true story that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.
Katharine Gun outside the Old Bailey after charges had been dropped against her, 2004. Photograph: David Sillitoe/The Guardian
I feel Katharine Gun has never received the credit she deserved for revealing how the US and UK governments tried to manipulate the case for war. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers*, said: “So Katharine Gun is one of the very few, and the only one I think of really, whistleblowers who do not wait who was not dealing only with historical material but was acting in a timely fashion very quickly on her right judgement that what she was being asked to participate in was wrong. I salute her. She’s my hero. I think she’s a model for other whistleblowers. And for a long time, I’ve said to people in her position or my own position in the government, don’t do what I did. Don’t wait till the bombs are falling or thousands more have died.”
I’ve not always been a fan of Keira Knightley, but here she does a great job playing the role of Katharine Gun and carries the movie almost single-handedly. You really feel the incredible stress that she’s under waiting for the article to be printed and then again to know if she will be charged.
Matt Smith, solid as always, puts in a believable turn as the journalist Martin Bright. Some of the other performances feel more than a little overblown. Conleth Hill as editor Roger Alton and Rhys Ifans as Ed Vulliamy fall too far into caricature.
Having said all that, it’s certainly worth watching. If you have a Netflix subscription, it’s free. Otherwise, it’s available to rent on Amazon Prime. I’ve not been able to find out where the newsroom scenes were shot, but it seems unlikely it was at The Observer itself.
The Guardian website (weekday sister to The Observer), carries all the original reports as they were published.
Katharine Gun was interviewed in 2019 on The Guardian, Today in Focus, podcast.
* The Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, as detailed in The Post, was a top-secret Pentagon study of the US government's decision-making about the Vietnam War.
