Benjamin Bradlee remains one of the most important and influential newspaper editors of modern times. And no one knows why better than one of his famous reporters: Bob Woodward.
Woodward, who co-wrote the Washington Post's Watergate break-in stories that altered history under Bradlee's watch, told Investor's Business Daily that Bradlee (1921-2014) pushed reporters to not just get the story, but to get it right.
And the results still set the standard for the Fourth Estate's responsibility. Bradlee famously oversaw the Washington Post's publication of the Pentagon Papers and coverage of the Watergate scandal.
In the process, Bradlee transformed the paper from a sleepy, local journal to a major national and international powerhouse.
Drive Others To Excel Like Benjamin Bradlee
Woodward says one of Bradlee's great skills was pushing people to do their best work. He describes Bradlee using an anecdote about the making of the film "All the President's Men."
"Do you know the story about how they got Jason Robards to play him (Bradlee)?" Woodward asked.
Woodward recounted the story. Several people involved in the production knew Robards from his work on Broadway. They sent him the script for the movie. And even though Robards was going through some hard times, he initially turned the role down.
Robards "told director Alan Pakula no, he didn't want the part," Woodward recalled. "I read the script, and all (Bradlee) does is run around and say 'Where's the f---ing story?'" said Woodward retelling Robards' reaction to the role.
Pakula, in response, told Robards that driving reporters is what a good executive editor does. And all he (Robards) had to do was find 15 different ways to shout expletives. Robards took the challenge and went on to win an Academy Award in 1976.
"But that's what Bradlee did. He pushed us to get the story," Woodward told IBD.
Tap Your Roots
Bradlee grew up with money. But still faced his fair share of hardships.
He was born to a patrician Boston family with roots in America going back 10 generations on his father's side. But his life of plenty came crashing down with the stock market when he was just 8 years old. Fortunately, wealthy relatives chipped in and paid for his private school education at the venerable St. Mark's School in Massachusetts.
But money couldn't shield him from the most fearful disease of the day. Polio struck both him and a friend on the same day. The friend died; young Bradlee was paralyzed from the waist down.
But rather than wallowing, Bradlee took it as an opportunity. The polio, he said, changed him. The disease gave him "a light inside to be fearless," Bradlee said. Showing determination to overcome any obstacle, Bradlee worked hard at physical therapy.
Slowly but surely, with daily exercise, he regained the use of his legs and two years later played for the St. Mark's baseball team.
Bradlee: Learn Lessons From Difficult Times
When Bradlee was 16, he got a part-time job as a copy boy for a local newspaper. He also reported on the lives of area residents. "I learned a vital lesson (there)," he wrote in his memoir, "A Good Life." "People will talk if they feel comfortable."
At Harvard University, he signed up for Naval ROTC. And shortly after graduation, with the World War II raging, he went off to battle.
During his time of service, he saw action in some of the most horrific battles of the Pacific campaign. That included the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval engagements in history. Bradlee's experience in the war made a lasting impact on him. He developed a style of leadership that, he wrote in his memoir, combined easy authority with tolerance for the enthusiasm of those under his command.
He made friends with important people — Sen. John F. Kennedy was a neighbor and friend — but was also pals with the printers at the Post. He respected talent and hard work wherever he found it.
Follow Your Opportunities
After the war, Bradlee returned briefly to journalism. That included a short stint at the Washington Post. But then, an old friend helped him land a job as press attache at the American Embassy in Paris. Then he became Newsweek's European correspondent. Ultimately, he returned to the U.S. to report from D.C. for the magazine.
Newsweek was a distant second to Time among news weeklies. And Bradlee knew it was likely to be sold. So with typical Bradlee chutzpah, he cold-called the Washington Post owner Philip L. Graham and suggest the paper buy it. It eventually did, changing Bradlee's life in two ways. He got a finder's fee on the transaction worth millions. Also, it provided a career boost.
Graham named him the magazine's Washington bureau chief, bringing him into the company's inner circle.
But Bradlee's position would shift again.
In 1963, Philip Graham committed suicide. And his wife Katherine Graham took over the family business. Katherine grew increasingly unhappy with the paper's direction. She spoke to Bradlee and consulted with friends on how to fix the paper. Finally, she named Bradlee the paper's managing editor. That was in 1965. And three years later, Bradlee took over the newly created position of executive editor.
Build A Great Business
The paper Bradlee took over was a far cry from the Washington Post of today. It had a small staff, only a half dozen foreign correspondents and no reporters based outside of D.C.
So he went on a hiring spree. His strategy was simple. "Hire people smarter than you are," Bradlee said.
But, based on Bradlee's experiences at Newsweek, his view of daily journalism was unorthodox. "There was no reason you couldn't do daily what the news magazines were doing weekly," he said. "On main news events, tell (readers) what it meant as well as what happened, and put it in some kind of historical and social perspective."
In short, he decided to apply magazines' so-called "new journalism" to the Post.
He also expanded cultural and entertainment coverage. He said: "We wanted profiles ... that went way beyond the bare bones of biography," Woodward said. "And we wanted it to be interesting, exciting, different."
In short, he created the Styles section that now has become commonplace in newspapers.
Make The Tough Calls Like Bradlee
But the Post's turning point was the decision in 1971 to publish a portion of the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, a former government official, leaked them to the New York Times, which for three days published revealing stories about America's involvement in Vietnam.
That ended when the Nixon Administration obtained a court injunction preventing the Times from publishing additional stories. So Ellsberg leaked the papers to the Post.
Publishing the Papers, though, was not an easy decision. The Post was about to go public in an initial public offering. And the notoriously revengeful Nixon government controlled licenses to the paper's TV stations.
The moment Katherine Graham gave Bradlee the OK to publish the papers, "crystallized for editors and reporters everywhere how independent and determined and confident of its new purpose the Washington Post had become," he wrote in his memoir.
Inspire Others To Do Great Work
That sense of bold independence inspired reporters Woodward and Carl Bernstein. They then pursued the connections between what initially appeared as an unrelated burglary and the Committee for the Re-Election of the President.
Woodward said for Bradlee, publishing the story was never in question. But he insisted the reporting was rock solid. "He'd always say, 'Get the story. Be aggressive,' " Woodward recalled. "But especially when a story was sensitive, he'd always say we need more information, we need more backup."
"Sometimes you can find an editor who is fearless, but not smart, or smart but afraid of things. Ben was fearless and smart," Woodward said.
Own Up To Your Mistakes
But at least once, that aggressiveness came back to bite Bradlee. He fell victim to a hoax by a young reporter named Janet Cooke, who invented and wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning series about an 8-year-old, supposedly heroin-addicted boy.
The moment the fabrication was discovered (she'd also falsified her credentials when she was hired) Bradlee owned up to the mistake. He immediately apologized and ordered full disclosure.
He ordered the paper's ombudsman to do a full investigation. That made the Post the first major paper to report how the incident happened. The report was detailed and embarrassing, but Bradlee insisted the truth be published.
Benjamin Bradlee's Keys:
- Led the Washington Post newsroom for 26 years, during which the paper's circulation doubled and it won 17 Pulitzer Prizes.
- Overcame: Desire to make improvements all at once.
- Lesson: "I was simplistic. If you made the paper (a little) better every day, and you got better people working for you, and you reached higher, the paper would get better."
