Ben Bradlee famous quotes

04-17-2025

It changes your life, the pursuit of truth,
-- Ben Bradlee

#Changing Your Life #Pursuit
There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!
-- Ben Bradlee

#Jobs #World #Journalism
You never monkey with the truth.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Monkeys
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

#Running #Jobs #Lying
Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.
-- Ben Bradlee

#People
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.Â It's up to the public to decide what's true.
-- Ben Bradlee

#People #News #Causes
The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Culinary #Champagne #Flood
As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Children #Effectiveness #Adults
Our best today; better tomorrow,
-- Ben Bradlee

#Today #Tomorrow #Better Tomorrow
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Running #Pressure #Administration
I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Thinking #Saws #Passionate
The first rough draft of history.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Rough Drafts #Firsts #Journalism
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 #Mad #Guy
News is the first draft of history.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Firsts #News #Journalism
The 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.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Differences #People #Newspapers
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
I donâ€™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 #Interesting
Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because theyâ€™re lazy, and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Thinking #Editors #Lazy
Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face..
-- Ben Bradlee

#Tape #Faces #Graves
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

#May #Journalism #Robbing
I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Proof
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

#People #Body #Clout
Sometimes I am convinced there is nothing wrong with this country that couldn't be cured by the magical implantation of ethical standards on us all - leaders and followers. Until that becomes doable, the Center for Public Integrity is just about the best thing we have going for us.
-- Ben Bradlee

#Country #Integrity #Leader

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