Ben Bradlee Quotes
The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.
Bradlee, Ben. A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Vladimir Lenin. Lenin was echoing criticisms that were made the world over and even by some in the United States. However, his solution to have the press controlled by the ruling party just changed the cast of characters who were propagandizing and distorting the truth. Lenin was not able to offer a better solution nor were others. However, with enough affluence the capitalist society produced enough different publishers all competing that one did not dominate public opinion. With technology of TV and the Internet, the bar to entry is so small that almost anyone can be a publisher and find an interested market. In a way technology has solved much of the problem for capitalistic and totalitarian societies alike. In the latter, even censorship is not easy or feasible on a large scale.
A German Lieutenant in occupied Alsace-Lorraine told new recruits that if a local insulted them and they stabbed him (with a sword) they would not only not be punished but would receive a bonus of 10 marks. The newspapers carried the story the world over and huge public pressure was brought upon the government and the army to punish the officer. The very concept of the press and the public being a factor was totally offensive to the General and many other right-wingers who saw that as the problem, not the Lieutenant’s behavior or the policy of the army.
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee was one of the most prominent journalists of post-World War II United States, serving first as managing editor, then as executive editor at The Washington Post, from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when he joined The New York Times in publishing the Pentagon Papers and gave the go-ahead for the paper's extensive coverage of the Watergate scandal. He was also criticized for editorial lapses when the Post had to return a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 after it discovered its award-winning story was false.
