The free press is under fire and modern-day "heroes" who report the truth are unfairly labelled as fake news, Hollywood heavyweights Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Steven Spielberg say.
The trio are behind the new film The Post, which details how the media reported on the leaked Pentagon Papers into US tactics in the Vietnam War in the 1970s.
At the time, newspapers faced significant pressure from the Nixon administration to stop publishing articles, and Hanks said there were similar issues today.
"The free press is under fire right now, because it is a free press," he told News Breakfast.
"The [film] speaks to today's headlines."
US President Donald Trump often attacks major media organisations that report on his administration, and routinely labels articles "fake".
In October he suggested he had coined the term "fake news".
While none of the Hollywood trio mentioned Mr Trump by name, they all said current events made filming of The Post particularly timely.
"There was a sense that it was relevant to the things that were happening in the news," Streep said.
"The way the press was besieged and the idea of the truth as delivered by a credible press was under question [in the '70s].
"So there was that incentive to make it, and make it right."
'The modern-day heroes'
Spielberg is the director behind The Post and said he felt now was the right time to make a film "extolling the virtues of news and journalists that seek the truth".
"These are our heroes today, those who have devoted their entire lives to finding and publishing the truth against all odds," he said.
"We're in a situation right now where people are trying to tell the truth and yet they are labelled fakes.
"The words 'fake news' [are used] every time something that is truthful comes out that rattles and shakes the timbers of those who do not agree."
Spielberg said he hadn't set out to make a political statement, and instead believed his film to be a patriotic one.
"This isn't a partisan movie, despite our political leanings; this is an American film about American values," he said.
"And the values of a free press are core values because freedom of speech is what our Founding Fathers first gave us, first offered to us, and I see that slipping away more and more."
