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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.

Ben Bradlee

Our best today; better tomorrow.
BEN BRADLEE

Better Today Tomorrow
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Changing Life Pursuit
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
It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
BEN BRADLEE

Campaign Claims Telling Truth
Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.
BEN BRADLEE

Faces Graves Tape
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
BEN BRADLEE

Always General Nervous Writing
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
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
As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
BEN BRADLEE

Adult Children Effectiveness
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
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Jobs Lying Running
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 BRADLEE

Government Jail Mean
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Causes News People
I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
BEN BRADLEE

Orbit Proof Resurrect Resurrection
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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