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More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

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

Given Motive Newspapers
Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
BEN BRADLEE

Encourage People Smarter
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

Causes News People
It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Campaign Claims Telling Truth
Maybe some of today’s papers have too many ‘feel-good’ features, but there is a lot of good news out there.
BEN BRADLEE

Feel Good News Paper
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Editors Lazy Thinking
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
BEN BRADLEE

Always General Nervous Writing
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

Body People Politics
More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
BEN BRADLEE

Guy Personal Something Telling
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

Fall Trying Worry
In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
BEN BRADLEE

Men Perfect World
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

Journalist National Problem Security Tremble
Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
BEN BRADLEE

Faces Graves Tape
National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail.
BEN BRADLEE

Government Jail Mean
There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!
BEN BRADLEE

Jobs Journalism World
Our best today; better tomorrow.
BEN BRADLEE

Better Today Tomorrow

More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

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More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

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