I have an unhealthy obsession with the movie “All the President’s Men.”

I’ve watched it a thousand times or more. I’m surprised my husband and child can’t quote the lines yet. I just watched it last night, and I’m sure I’ll watch it again soon.

How can you help but watch such a classic movie, especially as a journalist?

I suppose it comes with the job description, but I like nothing better than watching Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford cavorting around as Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward trying to get to the bottom of the Watergate scandal. Bernstein and Woodward were young reporters from The Washington Post, yet both played a significant role in breaking the story of the Watergate scandal, one of the biggest in U.S. history.

While other newspapers and media outlets were covering other stories, these two sleuthed out the real facts by meeting with secret sources in dark parking garages, interviewing hesitant campaign workers and more. Throughout the film they discover how deep the corruption goes, both Woodward and Bernstein grow as writers and more importantly, as people.

Sticking to their guns, they fight the good fight to reveal the depth of the depravity, despite all odds being against them.

Can you imagine being in your late 20s and breaking a story of that magnitude?

If you haven’t had the pleasure of visiting the newsroom here at the paper, I will tell you that in the film, the newsroom at The Washington Post is a pretty accurate picture. Only, The Post-Journal is a bit smaller.

Oh, and we all have computers instead of typewriters. Also, I highly doubt you’ll find any of us in bellbottom pants or smoking at our desks. (The company frowns upon such things, as it were. Maybe not the bellbottoms, but one can’t be too sure.)

One of my favorite lines from the film is delivered by Harry Rosenfeld, Washington Post editor played by Jack Warden.

In the scene, Rosenfeld fights for Woodward and Bernstein to be put on the Watergate story, despite their low-rung status at the paper.

“Howard, they’re hungry. Remember when you were hungry?” he asks his colleague.

I don’t know if that exchange ever happened in that newsroom, but that quote is one I will remember for the rest of time.

Whoever wrote that quote should get a trophy, in my book. (Or, a large chocolate cake. Sometimes, cake is better and it doesn’t collect dust.)

If a journalist can be described by anything, it’s by the word “hungry.” You can see it in our eyes as we mill around the newsroom, or as we describe the current stories we’re writing. It’s a little bit of crazy hiding behind our eyes – the desire for the next big thing.

While we might moan and groan about deadlines, tight schedules and more – secretly, we love it. Or, at least I do. I love the challenge of trying to get a story in under the wire. I love talking with people, asking the questions and then trying to figure out how it all fits together.

When I first started in the newspaper business, my husband reminded me “It’s not going to be like Woodward and Bernstein.”

I will admit – I’ve never met a secret source in a dark parking garage or broken a raging national news story.

Of course, there’s always tomorrow.