black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

The first rough draft of history.
BEN BRADLEE

Drafts Firsts Journalism Rough
More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.
BEN BRADLEE

Guy Personal Something Telling
I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
BEN BRADLEE

Passionate Saws Thinking
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
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
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
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
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
BEN BRADLEE

Always General Nervous Writing
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
BEN BRADLEE

Administration Pressure Running
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
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Girl Numbers People
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
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.
BEN BRADLEE

Journalist National Problem Security Tremble
Our best today; better tomorrow.
BEN BRADLEE

Better Today Tomorrow
I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
BEN BRADLEE

Orbit Proof Resurrect Resurrection
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

Given Motive Newspapers

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Bradlee Quotes