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.
BEN BRADLEEAs a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
-
-
Our best today; better tomorrow.
BEN BRADLEE -
So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that’s a national security matter. Well, you’re supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government.
BEN BRADLEE -
In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
BEN BRADLEE -
The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.
BEN BRADLEE -
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.
BEN BRADLEE -
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.
BEN BRADLEE -
It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
BEN BRADLEE -
You never monkey with the truth.
BEN BRADLEE -
There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
BEN BRADLEE -
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
BEN BRADLEE -
Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That’s just a given. And good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is.
BEN BRADLEE -
The biggest difference between Kennedy and Nixon, as far as the press is concerned, is simply this: Jack Kennedy really liked newspaper people and he really enjoyed sparring with journalists.
BEN BRADLEE -
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.
BEN BRADLEE -
More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
BEN BRADLEE -
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
BEN BRADLEE