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 BRADLEEThe Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
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You never monkey with the truth.
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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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There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the 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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
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It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
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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 Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
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Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
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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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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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