A Good Life

Newspapering and Other Adventures

By: Ben Bradlee

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 20 hrs

Publisher's summary

This is the witty, candid story of a daring young man who made his own way to the heights of American journalism and public life, of the great adventure that took him at only 20 years old straight from Harvard to almost four years in the shooting war in the South Pacific and back, from a maverick New Hampshire weekly to an apprenticeship for Newsweek in postwar Paris, then to the Washington Bureau chief's desk, and finally to the apex of his career at The Washington Post.

Bradlee took the helm of The Washington Post in 1965. He and his reporters transformed it into one of the most influential and respected news publications in the world, reinvented modern investigative journalism, and redefined the way news is reported, published, and read. Under his direction, the paper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes. His leadership and investigative drive following the break-in at the Democratic National Committee led to the downfall of a president and kept every president afterward on his toes. Bradlee, backed every step of the way by the Graham family, challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers - and won. His ingenuity, and the spirited reporting of Sally Quinn, now his wife, led to the creation of the Style Section, a revolutionary newspaper feature in its time, now copied by just about every paper in the country.

©2017 Ben Bradlee (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

A Good Life

Excellent, I will read it again soon i may have missed something! Very good read.

Very interesting and enjoyable

I found Bradlee's book highly enjoyable and very informative. There are many many lines of information that I had not previously known, or been aware of, which led me to do more digging on my own.

For anyone interested in Washington D.C and the goings-on therein, I would recommend this book.

Bawdy journalism at its' best

Any additional comments?

Anybody who has ever had contact with a newroom/newsperson would enjoy this. Narrator Morey captures Ben's adventure and mischief perfectly. If Bradley's autobiography at times seems too heavy on long-forgotten names or bystanders, it's small price to pay for the doggone spirit of his life. (Tina Brown's Vanity Fair diaries also suffers from a number of who-the-hell-was-that nonentities a savvy editor should have struck out.) Bob Woodward's foreword sets Bradley's life in context, especially in the current age of journalist bravery.
Every Congressman should encounter this book, perhaps to grow a spine.