Ben Bradlee to the PR Flack

“Get lost,” is basically what he said. Here’s a letter from the famous editor of the Washington Post to a pr flack who’d complained to him that the newspaper hadn’t run an article on his client. Bradlee says (third and fourth paragraphs):

May I also tell you that you stress my credulity out of shape when you say that your motivation “is to secure a rightful place in the annals of journalism for a historic personality.”

Whom are we talking about here? General Eisenhower? Jonas Salk?

It was a circus performer. In theory, public relations could be an honorable profession but very often in practice . . . eeeuww. What charity requires of Christians when faced with people who are lying to you and trying to manipulate you for money is not to me clear. It’s a form of assault. You can ignore them, as you’d duck a badly thrown punch, but is that good for the pr flack himself, whose work is quickly twisting his soul?