Tag Archives: Ben Bradlee

media news, national news

‘The Post’ reminds one of how it used to be

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I saw “The Post.” This won’t be a review of the film, except that I simply want to say it was gripping to the maximum degree.

It reminds me of how it used to be in daily print journalism.

I had some trepidation about seeing it. Some of my fellow travelers in the journalism craft had expressed dismay at seeing the film and lamenting what has become of a proud profession. I had a glint of fear that I might share their gloom. I mean, look at what has happened to newspapers all across the nation. They’re shrinking and withering before our eyes as publishers grapple against forces that are overwhelming them: the Internet, the plethora of “news” sources, cable television.

That fear never hit me. Instead, I reveled in the story it told and rejoiced in the victory that The Washington Post scored in the effort to censor it, preventing the government from invoking a prior restraint on a free and unfettered press.

“The Post” tells the story of the paper’s effort to publish the Pentagon Papers, a report written during the Vietnam War. The Papers told of the deception perpetrated on the public by several presidential administrations: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Officials all told of supposed “progress” in the fight against the communists in Vietnam. They lied to the nation. The Pentagon Papers revealed the lie.

The New York Times obtained the papers from Daniel Ellsberg. It got the story out first, then the Nixon administration persuaded a judge to prohibit further publication of the Papers, citing national security concerns.

Post editor Ben Bradlee didn’t see it that way. He eventually guaranteed publisher Katherine Graham that no American fighting man would be harmed if the Post published the rest of the damning document.

The matter ended up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which then ruled 6-3 against the Nixon administration — and in favor of the First Amendment guarantee of a free press.

The film tells that story in gripping fashion.

In a larger sense, though, the film reminds us of the value of press freedom and the good that the freedom brings to a public that needs to know the truth about the government that works for us.

It also reminds us of journalism’s value to a nation that promotes liberty. Indeed, given the current climate and the fomenting of hatred against the press that’s coming from the current presidential administration, “The Post” comes across as profoundly topical and relevant.

I cheered during the film when Graham gave the go-ahead to publish the Pentagon Papers in The Washington Post. The sight of presses turning over brought a lump to my throat.

I worked proudly in that craft for nearly 37 years. I never had the opportunity to cover a story of the magnitude of the Pentagon Papers. I did, though, have my share of thrills about getting a story into print and feeling the impact of that story on the community our newspaper served. I would derive the same satisfaction as I gravitated to opinion journalism and wrote editorials or signed columns that challenged the sources of power in our community.

“The Post,” therefore, didn’t sadden me.

It made me proud to have taken the career path I chose.

media news, national news, political news

This scandal produced a suffix

Forty-four years ago today, some goofballs broke into the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, D.C.

They rifled through some files looking for dirt they could find on the party bigwigs. They left.

The cops arrived and discovered that the office had been burglarized. They launched their investigation at the Watergate Hotel and office complex.

Thus, a political suffix was born.

The Watergate scandal took flight eventually. The Washington Post assigned a couple of reporters from its metro desk — Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein — to cover it as a run-of-the-mill cop story. They buried their initial coverage of it.

Then the reporters’ phones start ringing. “There’s more to this story than meets the eye,” snitches told them. The reporters badgered their editor, Ben Bradlee, to allow them to look more deeply into it. Finally, Bradlee relented. He turned the fellows loose.

They uncovered a scandal that would turn into a monumental constitutional crisis. We would learn that President Nixon told the FBI to stop snooping around, that he had ordered the CIA to spy on his enemies. Nixon would quit the presidency, Woodward and Bernstein would win the Pulitzer Prize — and their names would become synonymous with investigative journalism.

Since then, every political scandal under sun — or so it seems — has had the “gate” suffix attached to it. Here’s what I found on Wikipedia. I know, take it with a grain of salt. Still, it’s rather interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix

There’s more of them than I ever imagined.

But for my money, the original “gate” scandal — and it’s listed in there — remains in a class by itself.

June 17, 1972 is a date many of us will always remember — in the words of the president who would succeed Richard Nixon — when our “long national nightmare” was just beginning.

 

national news, political news

R.I.P., Ben Bradlee

I came of age during a most interesting and turbulent time.

Being near the leading edge of the baby boom, I was born not long after World War II. I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s as the nation was being shaped into the greatest economic and military power in world history.

Then came the turbulent time of Vietnam, a war that divided Americans. I did my tiny part in that war, came home and re-enrolled in college. Dad asked me, “Do you have any idea what you want to major in?” I said no. He offered a suggestion: Why not journalism? “You wrote such descriptive letters when you were away,” he told me, “that I think you might want to try journalism as a career.”

So, I did take some entry-level journalism courses in college. I fell in love with the written word.

Then a burglary occurred on June 17, 1972. It was at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Some goofballs had been caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters. The Washington Post covered the event as a “cop shop” story initially. The paper buried it.

Then a couple of young reporters began sniffing around. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein smelled a rat. This is bigger than we think, they told their editor, Ben Bradlee, who died today.

The reporters had to talk their editor into letting them go hard after the story.

Bradlee eventually relented. He turned the young men loose. They uncovered the greatest constitutional crisis of the 20th century.

It was a good time to be a journalist.

I’ll make an admission. I was among the thousands of  young journalism aspirants who became star-struck by the notion of breaking the “big story” because of the work that Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein did in uncovering the Watergate story.

I trust others in their mid-20s, such as myself, were as smitten as I was at the intrepid nature of the reporting that was done in the field and the tough decisions the reporters’ editor had to make to ensure that they got it right.

Brother, did they ever get it right.

They can thank Ben Bradlee for guiding them, pushing them, perhaps even goading them into telling this story completely.

My own career, of course, didn’t produce that kind of notoriety. I am grateful, however, for the nudge my dear father gave me in late 1970 to seek an educational course that would enable me to enjoy the career I would have. I also am grateful that Ben Bradlee had the courage to seek the truth in a story known as Watergate and gave young reporters all across the land further incentive to pursue a noble craft.

Thank you, Ben.