As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
BEN BRADLEEThe first rough draft of history.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
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Our best today; better tomorrow.
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It changes your life, the pursuit of truth, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It’s very, it’s very exciting.
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I do worry about how newspapers respond to falling circulation figures. I’m not sure that the answer is for newspapers to try to cater to whatever seems to be the fad of the day.
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Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they’re lazy, and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.
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Nothing’s riding on this, except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f-k up again, I’m gonna get mad.
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Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
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Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
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I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
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As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free.
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The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.
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It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
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There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
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It’s very hard to stand up to the government which is saying that publication will threaten national security. People don’t seem to realize that reporters and editors know something about national security and care deeply about it.
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In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
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To hell with news! I’m no longer interested in news. I’m interested in causes. We don’t print the truth. We don’t pretend to print the truth. We print what people tell us. It’s up to the public to decide what’s true.
BEN BRADLEE