Ben Bradlee
Ben Bradlee
Benjamin Crowninshield "Ben" Bradleewas executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991. He became a national figure during the presidency of Richard Nixon, when he challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers and oversaw the publication of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's stories documenting the Watergate scandal. At his death he held the title of vice president at-large of the Post...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth26 August 1921
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
We were right about the slush fund. But Sloan did not testify about it to the Grand Jury.
I give Cronkite a whole lot of credit.
They cut about seven minutes from that broadcast, but it was still vital to the story's momentum.
It took us about a day and a half to find out what had gone wrong.
We made only one real mistake. And even then we were right.
I must be out of it, but I don't know any good journalists who have excused Clinton's problems.
The really tough thing would have been to decide to take Woodward and Bernstein off the story. They were carrying the coal for us - in that their stories were right.
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.
There have been as many investigative reporters on this newspaper working on Clinton's many problems as I can remember there were working on Watergate.
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.
Generals who can write always make me nervous.
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.
In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, "It's not a perfect world."
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.