A few years after The Washington Post uncovered the Watergate scandal that led to Richard Nixon's resignation, the movie "All the President's Men" told the newspaper's story with a tone that offered high praise to the journalists and their ethics.
Today, particularly in light of the Clinton scandal and the recent shootings in Littleton, Colo., the media have been targets of harsh criticism.
But Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991 and the main decision-maker when it came to what The Post would print regarding the Watergate scandal, has as much faith in the press - that is, the "good" press - as he did back then.
Good coverage
In an interview with The Dartmouth at the Hanover Inn yesterday, this term's Montgomery Fellow said the top seven or so newspapers in the country, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, have never had more educated, thoughtful and careful reporters, and they have never attracted better young reporters, particularly women.
That is not to say other newspapers that engage in tabloid journalism - what Bradlee calls "kerosene papers" - are responsible. He said "media" is "such a big goddamn word," and he does not find it fair to lump all newspapers or television news programs into one category for criticism.
Many members of the public have criticized the media for interfering with the president's private life regarding the recent Monica Lewinsky scandal, but Bradlee praised what he sees as the high-quality newspapers for their treatment of the issue.
"What would the critics have had the press do?" Bradlee said. "A, it happened. B, the president lied. And C, if it does not interfere with the performance of a public official's job, it's private" - and he said since Clinton was having sexual relations in his White House office while performing his job, then "certainly you can't argue that that's not part of his public duties."
Watergate
Bradlee said the controversies about what information should be presented to the public have always been difficult ones, and The Washington Post had to be particularly careful when it came to the Watergate scandal.
He said the biggest standard for deciding what to print is a simple one: whether or not the information is true. But with many news stories, that question is "so hard to answer."
"We got our heads over the wall so much then, that we had to be doubly careful," he said, adding The Post was often criticized when it was running its approximately 400 Watergate stories in a two-year and two-month period for being a liberal paper that was attacking Nixon on something that was nothing more than a "wild tangent."
Bradlee said even he found the story hard to believe when reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein first started to unravel it.
Men in masks, rubber gloves and walkie-talkies working for a man who was destined to win a runaway presidential race - "I mean, sure, tell me some more," Bradlee said.
But in the end, he was confident about printing the stories because "we were right," he said, smiling and stressing the word "right."
When "All the President's Men" was first screened for Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee and others, Bradlee said dead silence filled the room once the movie concluded.
He said actor Robert Redford, who portrayed Woodward in the film, broke the silence: "For God sakes, say something," he recalled Redford saying.
Bradlee said the film was a mostly accurate portrayal of The Post's investigation into the scandal, although he said actor Jason Robards, who portrayed Bradlee in the film, used more foul language than Bradlee used in the newsroom.
"I never used the bad language that Jason Robards used," Bradlee said, referring to the actor's "swaggering and swearing" in the film.
But when asked a few minutes later if he did indeed swagger and swear in The Post offices, Bradlee, who used the word "damn" a few times during the interview, smiled and said, "It's not for me to say."
Baby walking with Kennedy
While Bradlee is most recognized for his association with Richard Nixon, he had more intimate contact with a former next door neighbor of his named John F. Kennedy.
Bradlee became friends with Kennedy before he became president, and the two often walked together with their babies, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Marina Bradlee.
Bradlee, who worked for Newsweek magazine at the time, enjoyed reporting on the intricate details of people's personalities, and Kennedy gave him permission to do that, with the conditions that Bradlee would not write a book about him until he was out of office for five years, and that he would not print any details that Kennedy did not want him to print - a condition that Kennedy sometimes felt Bradlee did not follow.
In light of the recent Clinton scandal, Bradlee said a "remarkable difference" between Kennedy's sexual affairs and Clinton's affairs was that "nobody was suing [Kennedy] and he didn't abuse anybody."
Despite his extensive contact with Kennedy, Bradlee said he did not know about the affairs, explaining that such a subject was not likely to surface during dinners and weekend get-togethers of the two couples.
Bradlee will be the concluding speaker in the College's "Power and the Presidency" series. He will speak on Nixon at 4:30 p.m. in Cook Auditorium today.
