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 BRADLEEThe 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.
More Ben Bradlee Quotes
-
-
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
BEN BRADLEE -
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 -
There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!
BEN BRADLEE -
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 -
You never monkey with the truth.
BEN BRADLEE -
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 -
It changes your life, the pursuit of truth, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It’s very, it’s very exciting.
BEN BRADLEE -
In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, “It’s not a perfect world.”
BEN BRADLEE -
It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.
BEN BRADLEE -
Our best today; better tomorrow.
BEN BRADLEE -
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 -
There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.
BEN BRADLEE -
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
BEN BRADLEE -
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 -
Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
BEN BRADLEE






