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Bet On It: Investigative Story Was a Winner for Young Ben Bradlee

Ben Bradlee speaks at the IRE conference in Washington, D.C. Photo by Rana Culotta 2003.

Ben Bradlee wrote his first investigative story at The Washington Post within his first few months at the paper -- and made a name for himself as a reporter in half an hour.

The editors at the Post wanted to write a story on bookies and gambling in Washington. The editors, according to Bradlee, said, “Why don’t we give this guy Bradlee a shot? Nobody knows him. Why don’t we turn him loose on it?”

Bradlee ran down the hall to talk with one of his friends in the Sports Section, and asked him “Where are the bookies in this town?”

At the end of this conversation, Bradlee got a list of several bookies with their addresses and phone numbers. “I thought,” he said, “maybe this a little too soon.”

Bradlee held on to this information for a while and then turned it in to his editors, who said, “We’ve got a good guy here.”

Bradlee returned to the newspaper in 1968 as managing editor and later as executive editor. During his tenure, Bradlee had both good times and bad times, as the paper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes and returned one. His reference to the current turmoil at the New York Times was oblique.

“I know what you want me to talk about,” Bradlee said. “But, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Though Bradlee did mention the Times and attribution when he talked about publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971. “They’ve got something,” he said. “They’ve got something really big. They were going to drop it on us and we were going to die.’ The day the Pentagon Papers came out in the New York Times, Bradlee said the Washington Post led with a story about Trisha Nixon’s wedding.

“We had to write a story every day,” Bradlee said as he hung his head low. “Which started off with an interesting lead and then comma, ‘the New York Times reported today.’”

When the Post’s chance to run the Pentagon Papers came up, Bradlee described a stressful conference call among him, a lawyer, a business manager, and Katharine Graham, whose connection had an accordion and the clanking of cocktail glasses in the background. For Bradlee, the best thing for a reporter or for a newspaper is a good owner – like Mrs. Graham -- and he told how she stuck by him no matter what stories the Post ran.

When asked about the SEC’s ruling to lift cross-ownership rules in the media, he said that it wasn’t really a good idea, but regardless of who owns a paper, Bradlee said, “The idea is to find the balance, and find someone who is dedicated to excellence in journalism.”