Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Ben Bradlee, 1921-2014

While there are famous writers, there are almost no famous editors. Yet any scribe worth his or her salt understands that the editor provides the reality check that is necessary on the creative process. The term comes from the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome, where the editor would decide whether a fallen combatant would live or die. Yesterday, Ben Bradlee died at 93, the greatest editor of his generation and perhaps in American history.

Mr. Bradlee is best known for being the man who backed reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they investigated the Watergate burglary and cover-up. In the movie based on "Woodstein's" book "All the President's Men," Jason Robards as Mr. Bradlee said, "We're under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing riding on this except the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country." That is not an exaggeration.

A year earlier, his Washington Post and the New York Times, which lagged badly on Watergate, fought it out with the Nixon White House over the publication of the Pentagon Papers, classified documents that showed that the war in Vietnam was not going as political leaders and the military brass portrayed it. The Supreme Court, on a 6-3 vote, held that the papers had the right to publish them despite their classified nature. This made the Post. "The Post was still looking for a seat at the big table," he recalled. "We weren't at the big table yet. We very much wanted to go there."

The whole purpose of being a reporter is to get the news right and first. In 1981, the Post won a Pulitzer with a piece Janet Cooke wrote called "Jimmy's World," about an 8-year-old drug addict. Not long after, it came out that Ms. Cooke never interviewed Jimmy and fabricated the story. The paper returned the award, and Ms. Cooke left the paper.

"It is tragedy that someone as talented and promising as Janet Cooke, with everything going for her, felt that she had to falsify the facts," Mr. Bradlee said at the time. "The credibility of a newspaper is its most precious asset, and it depends almost entirely on the integrity of its reporters. When that integrity is questioned and found wanting, the wounds are grievous, and there is nothing to do but come clean with our readers, apologize to the Advisory Board of the Pulitzer Prizes, and begin immediately on the uphill task of regaining our credibility."

One cannot expect a reporter, editor or publisher to be objective. Human beings aren't objective. They come to each story with a lifetime of experience and varieties of wisdom and knowledge in various proportions. However, each and every one of them can be credible. Indeed, each must be if the idea of self-government is not to devolve into jackboots breaking down bedroom doors at four in the morning.

Mr. Bradlee not only understood this, but also he worked every day to protect and enhance it at the WaPo. American journalism shines a little less brightly, and the road ahead is a little rockier with his passing. His example, though, may be enough to keep the profession from destroying itself.

© Copyright 2014 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



Kensington Review Home