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 BRADLEEAs 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.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
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Our best today; better tomorrow.
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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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Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
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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.
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There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!
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Generals who can write always make me nervous.
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It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
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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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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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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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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 first rough draft of history.
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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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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.
BEN BRADLEE