Benjamin Bradlee, former Executive Editor of the Washington Post, died yesterday at the age of 93.
To most people outside of Washington, DC, Bradlee will be best remembered as the guy in charge of the Post during the Watergate era, when Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein began investigating a "third rate burglary" and that investigation led to a near Constitutional crisis and the resignation of the President of the United States. All Bradlee told his reporters was the be sure to "get it right".
Bradlee was award the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, earlier this year.
I am a regular listener to the podcast of the Tony Kornheiser radio show, and I love it when Tony speaks of his days at the Post and the absolute reverence in which he held Ben Bradlee. Kornheiser always says that the movie based on the Woodward and Bernstein book, "All the President's Men" is perhaps the best movie about the newspaper business ever made, and that in portraying Ben Bradlee, actor Jason Robards absolutely nailed him.
Might be worth pulling "All the President's Men" out of your DVD library, and watching it in tribute to one of America's great newspapermen.
RIP Ben Bradlee.
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