David Maraniss Interview: The Washington Post vs. The New York Times -

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Journalist David Maraniss recalls the influence of his parents on his career, and working at The Trenton Times before joining The Washington Post. Maraniss discusses Ben Bradlee’s managerial style, the pressure of the newsroom, and the levels of tension between The Washington Post and The New York Times.

David Maraniss is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author who currently serves as associate editor at the Washington Post, a publication he has written for since 1977. In 2008, the Post assigned Maraniss the job of biographer for their coverage of presidential candidate Barack Obama. Maraniss has won nearly every major prize in journalism and nonfiction writing, and has authored 12 books, including First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (1995) and Barack Obama: The Story (2012). In addition to winning two Pulitzer Prizes, one for National Reporting for his coverage of Bill Clinton in 1993, and another as part of a team that covered the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, he has also won the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, the Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Frankfurt eBook Award. Maraniss is a fellow in the Society of American Historians as well as a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University.

From the HBO / Kunhardt Film Foundation (KFF) Documentary “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee,” about one of America’s most influential and celebrated newspaper editors, who found himself at the center of many of the 20th Century’s most seismic storms, including: World War II, John F. Kennedy, Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon.

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David Maraniss, Associate Editor, The Washington Post
Interviewed By: John Maggio
Interview Date: February 7, 2017

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:09 Wanting to work at The Washington Post
01:14 All the President’s Men
02:12 Getting into journalism
02:30 The Post
03:36 First impressions of Ben Bradlee
04:23 Ben Bradlee’s ethos
04:52 Ben Bradlee trusted his gut
05:35 Working at the Post
07:03 Writing for Ben Bradlee
07:36 Working for Ben Bradlee
08:21 The rise of The Post
09:01 Ben Bradlee was not a cynical
09:47 Ben Bradlee at the office
11:28 Newspapers are built on trust
11:59 Ben Bradlee’s trust in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
12:33 Washington D.C.
13:18 Ben Bradlee cared more about national news
14:01 Janet Cooke and the story that never happened
17:27 Integrating the Post
17:58 The aftermath of the Janet Cooke incident
19:16 The Post protecting its stories
19:55 Janet Cooke winning the Pulitzer
20:45 Exposing Janet Cooke
24:03 Moving on after Janet Cooke
25:52 Ben Bradlee’s reaction to the Janet Cooke scandal
26:56 Janet Cooke and creative tension at the Post
29:42 Trusting your reporters
30:20 Janet Cooke brought shame to the Post
31:18 Janet Cooke wounded Ben Bradlee
32:30 Don Graham’s reaction to the Janet Cooke scandal
32:59 The Post and the African American community
34:10 Race and the Pugwash Conference
36:10 Ben Bradlee’s relationship with JFK
39:14 Publicizing politicians’ private lives
40:34 The public’s distrust of the government
41:38 David Remnick called Ben Bradlee a “dangerous editor”
42:37 Ben Bradlee was fearless
43:07 Ben Bradlee made his own luck
43:34 Ben Bradlee’s persona at the office
44:27 The style section
45:50 Sally Quinn and the style section
46:29 Ben Bradlee made journalism fun
47:38 The rivalry between the Post and the Times
49:10 All the President’s Men