Ben Bradlee: Don't give up on newspapers

I was lucky enough to spend some time with Ben Bradlee in his office at the Washington Post in 2009.

The sad news of his death this week reminded me of his unfailing enthusiasm for newspapers. As the legendary editor of the Washington Post put it in the interview he gave me (above), "I think the best newspapers have an energy to them. You can't keep a good newspaper out of doing what they're supposed to be doing."

And Bradlee wasn't one for the prevailing pessimism about the future of the industry: the best newspapers today are "really good compared to what they used to be... what's going to replace us?"