Every day I get phone calls from irate readers who challenge some of the material that appears in the newspaper or our website.
They insist we've been unfair, that we have an ax to grind or hold some other bias against them, or that we just flat-out got our facts wrong.
I almost almost reply the same way: We stand by our story.
Those who feel victimized by our reporting vow to sue, inevitably adding their opinion of the newspaper. "Rag" is usually their word of choice. One aggrieved reader once told me the only reason he still got the newspaper was for hygiene facilities after he went to the bathroom, if you get my drift.
The people who work for me need to know that I stand behind their work.
The truth is I'm a pretty small fish in this business.
Ben Bradlee was not.
Bradlee was the iconic editor of the Washington Post who led their investigation of the Watergate break-in, which eventually brought down a president, and raised journalism to a new level.
A lot of people didn't believe the Post's reporting on the "third-rate burglary" that led to the office of President Richard Nixon.
Even people in this business had their doubts. It didn't really make any sense. Nixon was pretty much assured re-election. Why would he do it?
But Bradlee and the Post persevered.
Ben Bradlee died yesterday at the age of 93. He was suffering from dementia.
Anyone who works in this business, or appreciates the role of a free press, is in his debt.
It is said that the Watergate story, in particular the way the Post covered it, spurred a lot of people to go into journalism.
I was one of them.
I've never had the kind of pressure applied here that Bradlee faced as the powers that be put the squeeze on the Post to back off their Watergate coverage.
Bradlee never flinched.
Every time I get a nasty phone call, I think of Bradlee and the turmoil he faced in chasing that story. I know how easy it would have been for him - and the paper - to cave and pull the plug on Watergate.
This likely would not be the same country if they had.
And journalism - as troubled as it is these days - would have been forever diminished.
Thanks, Ben Bradlee.
You can put a -30- on that story now.
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