Daily Inspiration Quote by Ben Bradlee

A newsroom commandment disguised as streetwise advice, "You never monkey with the truth" lands because it sounds less like ethics class and more like a warning whispered over a deadline. Ben Bradlee isn’t asking journalists to be saints; he’s telling them to be dangerous in the right direction. The verb choice matters: "monkey" suggests casual tampering, fidgeting, the small, almost playful edits that can quietly turn reporting into propaganda. It’s not "never lie" (too grand, too easy to condemn). It’s never treat truth as putty.

Coming from the executive editor who helped steer The Washington Post through Watergate, the line carries the lived knowledge that credibility is not an abstract virtue but the only currency that survives when power pushes back. The subtext is combative: publish hard truths, provoke consequences, but keep the underlying facts clean enough to withstand subpoenas, smear campaigns, and your own paper’s second-guessing. Bradlee’s era was one where journalists were accused of bias simply for insisting on verifiable reality; his phrasing anticipates that fight by narrowing the mission to something defensible in any court of public opinion.

There’s also an internal critique aimed at reporters themselves. Ego, narrative hunger, and institutional pressure all tempt you to "improve" a story: smooth an ambiguity, overstate a lead, shave a caveat. Bradlee’s maxim rejects that seduction. You can be bold, skeptical, even relentless. Just don’t get cute with the facts.