black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.

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

Gone Past Real
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
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
I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
BEN BRADLEE

Passionate Saws Thinking
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
BEN BRADLEE

Always General Nervous Writing
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
BEN BRADLEE

Administration Pressure Running
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Country Guy Mad
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 BRADLEE

Editors Government National People Security
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
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

Journalism May Robbing
I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
BEN BRADLEE

Orbit Proof Resurrect Resurrection
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Changing Life Pursuit
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
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
Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
BEN BRADLEE

Encourage People Smarter
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

As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Bradlee Quotes