You never monkey with the truth.
BEN BRADLEEIt is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
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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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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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The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
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As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
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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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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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Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
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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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There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
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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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The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
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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.
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Maybe some of today’s papers have too many ‘feel-good’ features, but there is a lot of good news out there.
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If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be ‘gotcha’ journalism, but it’s also good journalism.
BEN BRADLEE