News media should be willing to be offensive in pursuit of truth
Benjamin Bradlee at a Larry King party in Washington in 1999.
“Diogenes Searching for an Honest Man,’’ attributed to J. H. W. Tischbein (c. 1780)
“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.”
"Where lies the truth? That's the question that pulled us into this business, as it propelled Diogenes through the streets of Athens looking for an honest man.’’
"The more aggressive our search for truth, the more people are offended by the press. The more complicated are the issues and the more sophisticated are the ways to disguise the truth, the more aggressive our search for truth must be, and the more offensive we are sure to become to some."
— Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921-2014), longtime executive editor of The Washington Post, most famously during the Watergate scandal. He came from a Boston Brahmin nuclear family that lost most of its wealth as a result of the 1929 crash but other relatives chipped in to help send him to the elite St. Mark’s School, in Southboro, Mass., and then to Harvard. He worked for a few years as a reporter for The New Hampshire Sunday News, in Manchester.