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 BRADLEEThere is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
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As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
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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.
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I don’t want to disappoint too many people, but the number of interesting political, historical conversations we had, you could stick in your ear, it wasn’t that many. We talked about friends, family and of course girls.
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The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
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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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There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
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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 never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
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You never monkey with the truth.
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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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In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
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Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
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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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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.
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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.
BEN BRADLEE