JIM LEHRER: Bradlee stepped down as executive editor of the Washington Post in 1991 and became a vice president of the Post Company. He speaks and writes often about journalism and ethics.

BEN BRADLEE: Well, I care a lot about ethics. I mean, I care about it existentially. I mean, I believe in ethical behavior.

JIM LEHRER: But let's go through some specifics. Should journalists participate as individuals in politics at all?

BEN BRADLEE: No.

JIM LEHRER: No?

BEN BRADLEE: They should vote.

JIM LEHRER: They should vote, but they should not give money for--

BEN BRADLEE: Well, I don't even know if they should vote. I'm not going to tell them to vote.

JIM LEHRER: Okay, but that's their option?

BEN BRADLEE: Yeah.

JIM LEHRER: Should they be allowed to contribute money to political candidates?

BEN BRADLEE: I don't think so. I don't think we have a rule against that.

JIM LEHRER: But you don't think they should?

BEN BRADLEE: I don't think they should.

JIM LEHRER: Should they--

BEN BRADLEE: The owner can.

JIM LEHRER: Sure, but a journalist in the newsroom--

BEN BRADLEE: Stay the hell out of it. Stay the hell out.

JIM LEHRER: Stay out of it; stay out of it. How about going, as an individual, to a political rally, attending a political event, not as a reporter, but as Billy Bob Citizen?

BEN BRADLEE: Billy Bob Citizen. No, I don't think he should.

JIM LEHRER: What about, what about walking in an either pro-war or anti-war march?

BEN BRADLEE: No, no way.

JIM LEHRER: No way?

BEN BRADLEE: Stay the hell out.

JIM LEHRER: Nobody works in the news department? What about a sports writer?

BEN BRADLEE: To go to a pro--

JIM LEHRER: A pro-war or an anti-war march.

BEN BRADLEE: No, stay out, stay out.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah, yeah.

BEN BRADLEE: Now, you've avoided the question. What about the wives?

JIM LEHRER: Okay, what about the wives or the husbands?

BEN BRADLEE: Or the husbands. My answer to that is, please, don't.

JIM LEHRER: Please don't.

BEN BRADLEE: But on the other hand, if you have a wife who has spent her entire career working for the betterment of teachers' pay and there's a big rally about teachers' pay, what are you going to do? You can't tell her you can't go. But the guy can't.

JIM LEHRER: Why not?

BEN BRADLEE: Because it gives the impression that he is under that influence especially in a way that is wrong.

JIM LEHRER: Sammy Sue Reporter writes a story about an event or about a cause that he has some interest in or his wife has some interest in or his kid has some interest in. Should the public know about that?

BEN BRADLEE: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: How do you tell them? How do you tell them?

BEN BRADLEE: Well, you don't assign the reporter.

JIM LEHRER: You don't assign the reporter?

BEN BRADLEE: Yeah.

JIM LEHRER: Even though that reporter may know more about that subject than anybody in the newsroom.

BEN BRADLEE: Well, I mean, I don't know what the subject is. If the subject is disarmament, that's probably okay. But if the subject is the war in Baghdad, I think probably, you know, that's either pro-war or anti-war. You shouldn't do that.

JIM LEHRER: What's your position about journalists making speeches for money?

BEN BRADLEE: I don't think they should make speeches before partisan committees who are trying to influence Washington in one form or another. I think if you could keep your speeches to institutions like colleges and, you know, non-profit organizations, that would be better.

JIM LEHRER: What about serving on boards of trustees at colleges?

BEN BRADLEE: I think it's out. I'm not a member of anything. I never joined a press club. I never joined the--

JIM LEHRER: What? Now, what's the problem with joining a press club?

BEN BRADLEE: Well, because I just didn't--

JIM LEHRER: Just didn't want to do it, okay.

BEN BRADLEE: It's a great excuse not to go to that.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah, but I mean--I mean, but that's not ethics.

BEN BRADLEE: When our office at Newsweek was right below it, I used to go.

JIM LEHRER: But it wasn't an ethical issue, I'm not going to belong to the press club.

BEN BRADLEE: Just don't belong to anything is the, is the best rule. Don't belong to anything. I don't belong to country clubs. I don't belong to anything.

JIM LEHRER: And that's for journalistic reasons?

BEN BRADLEE: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: For ethical reasons?

BEN BRADLEE: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Because you don't want people to think what?

BEN BRADLEE: I don't want to make any changes in my behavior because I'm a member of something. And I don't want to have the reputation of that.

JIM LEHRER: Is that a good thing, that journalists have become such public figures, not only just--

BEN BRADLEE: There's nothing you can do about it.

JIM LEHRER: But does it matter? Does it hurt anything?

BEN BRADLEE: I think it draws more of a spotlight on them and, and makes it advisable for the public to watch them.

JIM LEHRER: But the whole idea of the celebrity journal--the star journalist, Woodward and Bernstein journalists, Ben Bradlee, journalist, I mean and, I'm talking about print people as well, of course, obviously television people. Is there, is there a danger?

BEN BRADLEE: Sure, there's a danger. Sure, there's a danger.

JIM LEHRER: Explain the danger.

BEN BRADLEE: The danger is that, these guys begin to look more important than they are and that they think they're more important than they are and that it adds another dimension to interpreting them. It's hard to understand a person if--the more famous he becomes, the harder it is to say, what the hell is his motive. What's he up to?

JIM LEHRER: You said that lying has taken the joy out of Washington. What do you mean?

BEN BRADLEE: Well, I mean, I think a lot of people lie and I don't think that they pay any price for lying the way, it seems to me, that we did when we were young. Certainly, I did when I was a teenager. One of the interesting things about reading all the stories currently about bigshot businessmen who are going to jail, Enron types, one common denominator is that, they didn't tell the truth.

JIM LEHRER: And it's just accepted that they lied? I mean, it's just assumed that they lied.

BEN BRADLEE: Well, it isn't by me--

JIM LEHRER: I know, but I mean--

BEN BRADLEE: --but society doesn't seem to be as outraged by it as, as they should. And it's one of the great, the worst of the sins, it seems to me, because you, you, you deceive people and you deceive people originally on purpose and then if you don't correct it, you deceive them, you've deceived them by, by non-feasance.

JIM LEHRER: You've said also that all presidents lie. Do you really mean that literally?

BEN BRADLEE: Yeah, I think they do. I think they do. And they lie because they don't search out the truth. They get involved in incidents that do not have a clear answer and in the process of explaining those or trying to avoid those, they say things that aren't true. Now, we don't like to call those lies, maybe because it isn't quite bold enough. It isn't quite obvious enough.

JIM LEHRER: People ask people who interview people on television all the time why they don't ask them--when they ask a question, they hear an answer back that they know is wrong, they don't lean over and say, liar. It's not what we do.

BEN BRADLEE: You'd get a lot of listeners if you do.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah, yeah, right. A lot of people don't want journalism anymore.

BEN BRADLEE: I think the, I think the answer for newspapers is because the--we're losing that young audience. I don't think, I don't think people get hooked on newspapers, some never obviously, but until much later in their life. I don't know what I'd be--I go to certain colleges and, of course, I ask the question do you read newspapers and they all, you know, put up both hands as if they all read them. And I'm not sure they do. I don't think they do. Circulation figures don't show that.

The Future of Journalism
JIM LEHRER: But do you think that the newspapers, faced with this decline in circulation, should reexamine what they're doing?

BEN BRADLEE: They're examining, reexamining it. Boy, that's topic A. Every, every paper you go to, they've just had a meeting and they're discussing what to do about falling circulation. And there's one word is the answer.

JIM LEHRER: What is it?

BEN BRADLEE: Stories.

JIM LEHRER: Stories?

BEN BRADLEE: Good stories.

JIM LEHRER: So, when you say stories, what stories are they not doing, kinds of stories that they're not doing?

BEN BRADLEE: Well, I mean, they're just well written stories, some story that makes you, you know, say I'll be damned, that's a good story.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. I didn't know that kind of thing.

BEN BRADLEE: Yeah, I didn't know that or that's beautifully written or I feel really better for having read that. That really piqued my curiosity.

JIM LEHRER: One of the other cliches they say about folks like you and me, people who practice journalism is that, we pessimistic; that we're cynical. You don't buy that, do you?

BEN BRADLEE: No, in fact, we are the two worst people in the world to talk about that. You know, you wake up in the morning and your glass is half--is full and mine is, too. I just can't wait to face the world in that day and, you know, there are--I don't know a whole lot of sad sacks in this business.

JIM LEHRER: I don't either.

BEN BRADLEE: And I just thought of that the other day that, you know, in my 84th year and I still feel pretty hopeful about life; I really do. JIM LEHRER: But hopeful, hopeful is, is part and parcel of journalism, isn't it?

BEN BRADLEE: Yeah.

JIM LEHRER: Being hopeful?

BEN BRADLEE: Yeah. It changes your life, the pursuit of truth and it--at least, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It's very, it's very exciting, I find.

JIM LEHRER: Say, some young person is listening to this, listening to you now and is trying to--is wrestling with the decision maybe I want to go into journalism. Maybe I want to be a reporter. What would you tell them? Would you encourage them to do it?

BEN BRADLEE: Well, if I--

JIM LEHRER: Today's journalist.

BEN BRADLEE: --if I saw a fire in his eye, I sure would, yeah. I would have some very specific suggestions. I would, I would tell him to try--not about his education--

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

BEN BRADLEE: --because I don't, I don't necessarily believe in J school or anything like that. But I would tell him to get a job, not in his home town. Get out of town. Get from mom and dad. Get out from the family. Get out with the experiences that you think you know. And then I'd tell him to look for a paper with a good editor, somebody who looked as if he would pay attention to you, work with you. I had three of those people in my lifetime. Then I'd say keep moving. You know, two and a half years is about right for the first two or three jobs. I would say sooner or later that, you ought to go overseas. Go somewhere where you don't come from and see how other people live. Then start picking your spot. See if you can find a place that looks like home to you.

JIM LEHRER: Where would you tell them that the rewards are if they do it?

BEN BRADLEE: That you'd never be bored if you're as lucky as I've been. You really never will be bored. I mean, a day--that's why I have what I think is quite a high threshold of boredom. I mean, I get bored perfectly easily. But if, if you're doing something you want with a group of people you want that pays you a living wage an makes a difference to how the world lives, I don't think you can get much better than that.

JIM LEHRER: Ben, thank you.