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 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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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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More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
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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.
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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 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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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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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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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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The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
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You never monkey with 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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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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As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
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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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Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
BEN BRADLEE