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 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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More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
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Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
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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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Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
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As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
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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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The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
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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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