IN A very different age and time, back in 1973, Ben Bradlee—the Washington Post editor whose newspaper uncovered the Watergate scandal, toppled President Richard Nixon and went to the Supreme Court to defend its right to publish a secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam War—summed up his code of honour. “As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences,” declared Mr Bradlee, who died on October 21st, aged 93.

The words rang with the swagger of his blue-blooded, New England upbringing: he was the 52nd male Bradlee to study at Harvard since 1795, learned to swear saltily in the wartime Navy, and later became close friends with a Georgetown neighbour, a young senator named John F. Kennedy. But his code also reflected the self-confidence of a news industry that—for most of his career—was enjoying a golden age of power and profitability.

No American editor could pen such a declaration now without hearing every word challenged or mocked. Partisans of Right and Left scoff at claims of journalistic fairness. As for being guided by reporters’ consciences, an angry public distrusts news outlets almost as much as they disdain Congress.

Bradlee and his publisher at the Post, Katharine Graham, showed real courage when they defied government bullying to expose lying in high places. But wistful nostalgia also helps to explain an outpouring of press tributes to Mr Bradlee.

In a trade peopled with nerds and outsiders, Mr Bradlee’s alpha male charisma helped him—his craggy looks, gravelly voice, and obsession with whether male reporters had balls which “clanked when they walked” or were sadly silent. Women fancied him and men wanted to be him, one tribute noted.

The irony is that Mr Bradlee’s finest hour changed the country that he loved. Publishing the Watergate revelations was a patriotic act. But it also poisoned relations between the press and the powerful, and helped to convince conservatives that the mainstream media was out to get them. A new Watergate would never inspire the national consensus that drove Nixon from office; today’s partisan pundits would rubbish the other side’s witnesses. For all Mr Bradlee’s insouciance, truth-telling had consequences.