I can name a small handful of people who influenced my career directions in life, including a change of college majors from political science to journalism, as a columnist and writer of nonfiction, and on to efforts as a novelist. The people who influenced me certainly include a scattering of authors, from Homer to Mark Twain and from Ernest Hemingway to Ray Bradbury. More specific to the art of writing, the path as a writer began with an unknown author in my hometown of Altoona, who kindly sent me a complimentary copy of her book that I read when I was in the jungles of Southeast Asia, while trying to think about my future with a war going on around me. Then, with my G.I. Bill grants for college (I still ended up eating popcorn for meals the week before each check arrived) it was time to decide between my John F. Kennedy-inspired direction in politics, or consider the realities that I did not want to spend more years in college. I was too anxious to get out into the world and do something with my life. I always enjoyed writing--I supposed writing song lyrics, short stories, and love letters told me I was much better with my pen than with my mouth.
When I switched to the School of Journalism at the Pennsylvania State University, a college professor of media ethics, who through his fatherly lectures and whose voice sounded very much like Harry Reasoner, instilled in me the idea that journalism without ethics is like government without morality. Then there was the newspaper editor who faced down a government, the CIA, and judges who threatened to imprison him just because he wanted to tell the truth.
Today, we mourn the passing of Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee, known professionally as Ben Bradlee. As anyone remotely connected to the media prior to Bradlee's retirement or in upper eschelons of government know, he was the executive editor of The Washington Post. Bradlee represented the finest example of a free and unbiased press. His unflinching courage to face down the Central Intelligence Agency, the President of the United States, and a judicial system tasked to stop him from publishing the truth, inspired me to look at the world with a true curiosity, open mind, and a willingness to suspend my own biases (character traits much of the broadcast news media of today seem to lack).
It was under Bradlee's management that supported Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward ("Woodstein," as he often called them when he called them into his office) in their efforts to successfully expose one of the biggest scandals of politics in American history. Anyone alive in 1972 probably remembers the headlines when operatives broke into the Watergate Hotel offices of the National Democratic Party. The entire news media then followed Bradlee's and "Woodstein's" courageous reporting--soon followed by nearly every newspaper and broadcast news organization in the world--resulting in the near impeachment and resignation of President Richard Nixon, who was exposed attempting to cover up the break in.
It was also Bradlee's decision to publish, along with The New York Times, "The Pentagon Papers," given to the newspapers by Daniel Ellsberg, a former employee of the RAND Corporation, which was at the time a top secret Pentagon study that might have prevented the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The report told the truth about certain incidents that led up to American commitment to the war; predicted that U.S. casualties would be very high; and that, in fact, the war could not be won.
The details of these two events are available in many books and on the Web. If Bradlee believed in a reporter's work, then you can be confident that the truth was being presented objectively. The evidence for his integrity and being respected is supported by 17 Pulitzer Prizes being awarded to The Washington Post during Bradlee's tenure. My point here is to pay respect to a man who stood for the highest ideals of a free press and as a credible watch dog to expose wrong doing in government, business, and, in a responsible way, present a window to the world that allows the opportunity for a free people to view the world and make their own informed decisions.
