Katharine Graham: The Woman Who Took Down a President [Outliers]  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Knowledge Project]] - Full Title: Katharine Graham: The Woman Who Took Down a President [Outliers] - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/46b3f46d-6408-42c6-b06b-c861272bbf50 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Publishing The Pentagon Papers** - Katharine Graham decided to publish the Pentagon Papers despite fearing company ruin and legal risks. - This moment transformed her from a shy wife to a major media power player. Transcript: Shane Parrish Catherine Graham was hosting a farewell party in her Georgetown home when she got a phone call that would change history. While the Capitol's elite filled her living room, her editors waited on the line with an impossible question. Should they publish the Pentagon Papers and risk destroying the company? Frightened and tense, she took a big gulp and said, go ahead, let's publish. ([Time 0:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cf1d5e9b-dd97-4fa1-a17e-e7264dbc5764)) - **Privilege Breeds Self-Doubt** - Katharine grew up wealthy but isolated, lacking confidence and emotional connection. - Her privileged upbringing didn’t instill belief but rather self-doubt. Transcript: Shane Parrish Imagine a little girl so isolated by wealth that she doesn't know clothes need to be washed until she goes away to college. At home, servants take them away dirty and return them clean. She grows up thinking, this is how the world works. This is Catherine Mayer in 1921 at the age of four, the daughter of one of America's most powerful financiers. She was known to her friends as Kay. Her father, Eugene Mayer, had already conquered Wall Street. J.P. Morgan himself warned to colleagues, watch out for this fellow mayor, because if you don't, he'll end up having all the money on Wall Street. By the time Catherine was born in 1917, Eugene was already making millions and thriving in a career that would later earn him the top job at the Federal Reserve. But here's a side of privilege most people don't see. It can create the exact opposite of confidence. The mayor household operated like an institution, not a family. A 40-room mansion in Washington, a sprawling estate in Mount Kisco. The children followed rigid schedules, French lessons, music, writing, dancing, but emotional connection? That was too expensive. Catherine's mother, Agnes, was brilliant and overwhelming, a pioneering journalist who collected friendships with Einstein and Thomas Mann like others collected stamps. Yet she viewed her children and Catherine's brutal assessment as burdens. Her father remained very shy and remote, capable of wit, but not intimacy. The result? Catherine felt like the peasant walking around the brilliant people. She had every material advantage, but no confidence in her own voice. ([Time 0:02:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0afcaa03-eca9-4597-8f3f-fa325ae7a6fe)) - **Earn Confidence Through Work** - Nobody is worth their salary at first; confidence comes from grinding through hard work. - Keep putting your head down and you will earn competence and belief. Transcript: Shane Parrish After one day on the job, Kay went to her father's hotel room in tears. I can't do this. I'm not worth the $21 a week. Eugene Mayer's response was perfect. Nobody is worth it at first, but you will be. ([Time 0:06:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cf5e412a-3525-4db9-9901-6bd190b3c114)) - **Philip Graham’s Complex Influence** - Phil Graham, Katharine's husband, was a charismatic Harvard-educated lawyer with presidential aspirations. - His manic depression and drinking created deep personal turmoil for Katharine during their marriage. Transcript: Shane Parrish Philip Graham came from the opposite end of privilege. Born in 1915 in the dirt poor Florida Everglades, he arrived at Harvard Law School in what a classmate described as a badly cut country suit, looking as though he had straw hanging out Of his rather large ears. But Phil had something money can't buy. He was magnetic, the kind of person who walked in a room and everyone turned to watch. Brilliant, witty, with what Catherine called that right mix of intellectual, physical, and social charm. He was the president of the Harvard Law Review, clerk to a Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. People who met him came away thinking the exact same thing. This man would one day be president of the United States. Catherine was smitten. They fell in love fast. On their second date, he suggested marriage. I agreed that it sounded quite a good idea, but perhaps a bit rash, she recalled. On the inside, she was incredulous. This brilliant golden boy wanted her, the tall, awkward girl who spent her childhood trying to please everyone. Her father approved after one dinner. The engagement was on. But there was a moment that should have been a warning. They went dancing before the wedding, and Phil drank way too much. He wasn't just drunk. He became something darker, something unpredictable. The evening worried me a lot, Catherine later wrote. A friend asked her if she had seen him like that before, and Catherine responded no, and he warned her in that moment, well, you better think about it right now. ([Time 0:08:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b2ad1a29-89c1-489a-b755-fa7181493dfc)) - **Let Others Believe In You** - Sometimes others’ belief in you can unlock your own confidence. - Allow yourself to grow by accepting support and new possibilities. Transcript: Shane Parrish And then two friends changed everything. Justice Frankfurter pulled her aside and said, Kay, you've got to fight for this paper. It does not belong to Phil Graham. Your father created this paper. There is not room in Washington for two Graham families. Then came the walk that changed her life. She told her friend Lovey about how she would try to hang on and fight for the paper until the kids were old enough to run it. And her friend's response, don't be silly, dear. You can do it. Me? That's impossible. I couldn't possibly do it. You don't know how hard and complicated it is. Of course you can do it. And Lovie's boys grew firm. You've got all those genes. It's ridiculous to think you can't do it. You've just been pushed down so far you don't recognize what you can do. Sometimes the best gift that you can give someone is believing in them, believing in someone else when they don't quite believe in themselves. ([Time 0:18:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/30f83953-4aa7-41a4-82b6-3c22d09d5b11)) - **Widow Becomes Publisher** - Katharine became Washington Post publisher after Phil's suicide with no prior leadership experience. - The newspaper company’s future depended on her despite her own self-doubt. Transcript: Shane Parrish A new generation was coming along. What she didn't say was that she herself would lead the company for the next three decades. She didn't say that she would publish the Pentagon Papers and bring down a president. That she would become the first woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That the stock performance during her tenure would be one of the best in history. That she would become a force that would change the course of history. No, on that day in August of 1963, she was simply a widow trying to hold things together, moving forward, as she would write blindly and mindlessly into a new and unknown ([Time 0:20:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/026b76e0-eb48-4e58-b6fd-d68211ee26ca)) - **Build Confidence Step-by-Step** - Start from the ground up and keep showing up despite fear or incompetence. - Confidence grows by immersion and engagement, not inherited or instant. Transcript: Shane Parrish Picture this, the president of the Washington Post sitting in her first editorial meeting, finally working up the courage to speak. Her voice comes out as a whisper. The men around the table have to lean in to hear her. This was Catherine Graham, one month after Phil's death, walking into a building as publisher of a major American newspaper. In 1963, there were zero female CEOs in the Fortune 500 companies. To put things in perspective, Harvard Business School had just started accepting women that very year. The idea was incomprehensible even to Catherine herself. She'd absorbed her generation's assumptions that women were intellectually inferior to men, that they were not capable of governing, leading, managing anything other than our Homes and our children. She had modest ambitions. She had planned to hold things together until her son Don could take over. She saw herself as a placeholder, not a publisher. But something interesting happened when she started showing up for work. She began at the ground level, answering phones in circulation, sitting on classified ad sales, attending meetings where she was too terrified to speak. She didn't know how to read a balance sheet. Terms like liquidity made her eyes glaze over. I stumbled around the post building, talking to people, not realizing that I shouldn't always start with the first person I encountered. The learning curve was brutal. When she gave a farewell dinner for the post-long telephone operator, a woman she'd known since she was a teenager, the business chief exploded. Didn't she see that this set a precedent? She disagreed, but was reduced to tears in front of him. An unacceptable response, she later wrote. But she kept showing up and slowly, something shifted. It crystallized when she attended IBM's executive computer course as the only woman among 10 male CEOs. When they gathered in dormitory rooms to share contraband alcohol, she stood among them drinking from paper cups. By the week's end, she learned something crucial. These confident men were just as overwhelmed by the new technology as she was. You were sort of formed by what you were engaged in, she would later explain. And so gradually you get some confidence. And with that, it means that you're not going to be something else, but it means you can forget yourself and become engaged in what you are doing. ([Time 0:22:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/439f83c3-89ce-40c5-ae3b-76c86e06be6e)) - **Hire Talent, Maximize Freedom** - Hire talented outsiders over insiders to challenge the status quo. - Maximize editorial freedom with accountability through the 'no surprise' rule. Transcript: Shane Parrish Ben Bradley had twice turned down promotions at Newsweek rather than moved to New York. He was committed to Washington, and now he was sitting across from Catherine Graham, and she was asking him what he would like to do. His answer was typical Bradley. I'd give my left one to be managing editor of The Post. Catherine was stunned. This wasn't the answer she expected. She barely knew Bradley personally and still associated him with Phil's troubled final years. But something about his directness intrigued her. His energy, his absolute confidence that the Post could be more than just good. His confidence that it could be great. The decision wasn't easy. When she floated the idea to the Post's top editors, they reacted negatively, suggesting he should come in as a reporter like anyone else and work his way up. But Catherine had made up her mind. In July 1965, she announced that Ben Bradley would join the Post as deputy managing editor. The newsroom was shocked. An outsider from Newsweek was leapfrogging over longtime Post people. Bradley arrived like a force of nature. He hit the ground running, working into the night and on Saturdays. Within months, he had learned more about the Post's operations than some people knew after years. Under Bradley, the Post experienced a surge in energy. He hired talent, He created new beats. He expanded coverage and he demanded the paper take risks. The editorial budget rose $2.25 million in just three years. Catherine established what she called the no surprise rule. She wouldn't dictate coverage or second guess decisions, but never wanted to be surprised by what she read each morning. This created accountability without micromanagement. ([Time 0:26:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e90f5faf-fe8c-4d37-8826-1a9c1c9f56cb)) - **Buffett Mentorship Transforms Graham** - Warren Buffett acquired 5% of Post shares secretly and became Katharine’s mentor. - This mentorship transformed her business acumen and company success. Transcript: Shane Parrish Warren Buffett had bought 5% of her company without telling her. He sent a letter to her. Dear Miss Graham, I just bought 5% of your company, and I mean you no harm. I think it's a great company, and I know it's Graham owned and Graham run, and that's fine with me. Her board panicked and told her to do the same. Instead of listening to them, she went to see what he was all about for herself. Sensing her anxiety, offered to stop buying if it worried her. Catherine saw an opportunity. After she got to know Warren better, she invited Buffett to join the Washington Post board. People thought he was manipulating me. Actually, I was just asking for advice because I realized how brilliant he was. What followed was the most intensive business education any CEO has ever received. Buffett literally took her to business school. He would arrive at board meetings carrying 20 annual reports, walking her through each one line by line. She took notes like a school girl at the feet of a great professor. Buffett didn't just teach her history, he demystified business entirely. He explained that while others collected antique cars, he collected antique financial statements. He taught her to take snapshots of businesses at different points in time and analyze what factors produce change. Warren, she said, is a great teacher and his lessons took. The mentorship went far beyond formal meetings. Warren sent constant memos, guidance on major decisions and alerts about problems. Someone who'd spent years feeling inadequate about business knowledge, having one of the world's greatest investors as her personal tutor was transformative. But the relationship worked both ways. Catherine helped Buffett with things money couldn't buy, social situations, connections, clothing choices, even tried to help him with basic nutrition. Before meeting her, his diet consisted largely of hamburgers, steaks, seized candy, and cherry Coke. She introduced him to dinner parties, taught him social graces, and helped him navigate the social scene in Washington. He never did give up the hamburgers. They became genuine friends who talked for hours about everything from politics to philosophy. As Warren once told her, you handled me at the dinner table like I handled you at the accounting books. ([Time 0:28:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cd38e4d4-ae7a-4fd6-a4a4-160f44671362)) - **Standing With The Free Press** - Graham chose to publish the Pentagon Papers despite risks of jail and financial ruin. - This decision affirmed the press’s mission and constitutional rights. Transcript: Shane Parrish Okay, picture this. Catherine Graham is hosting a dinner party in Georgetown. The Capitol's elite are in her living room, toasting a departing colleague, and she's playing the perfect hostess when someone taps her on the shoulder. You're wanted on the phone. Three miles away, American democracy is hanging by a thread. The Nixon administration had just done something unprecedented in U.S. History. They've silenced the press. The New York Times had started revealing the Pentagon Papers, 7,000 pages proving the government had lied about Vietnam for decades. The administration got a court injunction, and the Times went silent. History. Ben Bradley is caught between two wars. In one room, lawyers are in full panic mode. The legal team is saying this is suicide. The Post will face criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act. People will go to jail. This will be the end of the paper, the end of the company. In another room, the editors are threatening to resign unless they are published. At stake? Only everything. The Post had just gone public two days earlier. They desperately needed the IPO for expansion. Everything could be lost if they were to publish. But there's something larger at stake. The death of the free press. The role of press in a democracy. Never before had the U.S. Government stopped a newspaper from publishing. If the Post doesn't act, that precedent becomes permanent. The First Amendment becomes meaningless. Ben is running between rooms, updating each side, watching the deadline approach. Someone has to decide. Right now. The phone rings in Catherine's library. She steps away from her guests and closes the door. Ben gets on the line. Kay, I need to know. What do we do? Think about her position. Eight years ago, she could barely whisper in a board meeting, and now she's being asked to risk her entire company on a principle. A federal court had silenced the times. The first time in American history, the government had successfully stopped a newspaper from publishing. If the Post didn't challenge this, the precedent would stand. The First Amendment would be meaningless. In that moment, Catherine thought of her father's words. The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth. As nearly as the truth be ascertained. The deadline was approaching, Ben needed an answer. Frightened and tense, I took a big gulp and said, go ahead, go ahead, let's go, let's publish. And I really was convinced by the editors and the reporters that they were right, and that we really had to go ahead. And so I really gulped and I really was not what your heroic leader is. I just said, oh, go ahead. She hung up immediately, too terrified by what she'd done to say another word. Then she walked back to her party, smiled at her guests, made small talk, all while knowing she might have just risked everything her family had built. The next morning, the Post published. The government sued within hours, but they refused to stop publication. Two weeks later, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3. The government cannot engage in prior restraint of the press. The woman who eight years earlier could barely whisper in meetings had just told the President of the United States, no. ([Time 0:31:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/462a49bb-00dc-46ca-939e-5caf55b52370)) - **Watergate: Courage Against Power** - The Post alone investigated Watergate amid government attacks and isolation. - Their investigation led to Nixon’s resignation and Pulitzer Prize success. Transcript: Shane Parrish On June 17, 1972, five men in surgical gloves carrying burglary tools and sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment were caught inside the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate complex. The White House dismissed it as a third-rate burglary. What began as a bizarre police story evolved into one of the greatest political scandals in American history. And for nine months, nine long months, the Washington Post stood alone against the most powerful office in the world. The break in itself was bizarre. Something felt off. Why would anyone need electronic surveillance equipment to rob the Democratic Party? As Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigated, they discovered something far more sinister, a web of political espionage and dirty tricks leading directly to the White House. Nixon won re-election in November in a landslide, 49 states, 60% of the vote he should have been celebrating. He was plotting his revenge. On election night, the White House tapes captured Nixon's chilling words. We're going to fix the son of a bitch, believe me, we've got to. The son of a bitch he's referring to was the Washington Post. The plan was to destroy it. Between December 29, 1972 and January 2, 1973, during the holidays when nobody was paying attention, Nixon's allies struck with surgical precision. Four separate challenges were filed against the Post's Florida television licenses. This wasn't a coincidence, it was war. The television licenses were the profit center, They funded the paper. The post company stock plummeted from $38 to 21, representing a catastrophic 45% decline. For a company that was barely public, this represented a crisis. The television stations were the company's most profitable assets. Losing them would kill the company. But the financial pressure just the beginning. For nine months, from June 1972 to March of 1973, the Post stood virtually alone in the pursuit of the Watergate scandal. Other major newspapers ignored the story or actively undermined it. When CBS planned a two-part investigation, threats from the White House to the network president, William Paley, resulted in the second segment being significantly curtailed. Fellow editors warned Ben Bradley that the Post had gone nuts. The Chicago Tribune and Philadelphia Inquirer refused to publish the Post's revelations, but they eagerly printed the White House denials. Nixon's strategy was working. It was to isolate the Post and make it look like a vendetta by one liberal newspaper against the president. No one would pay attention as long as it was just the Post, or so he thought. But the attacks turned personal and vicious. On September 29, 1972, at 11.30 p.m., former Attorney General John Mitchell delivered his infamous threat to Carl Bernstein. Katie Graham's going to get her tit caught in a big fat ringer if that's published. The crudeness was deliberate. The use of Katie, a name nobody called her, added insult. This was about humiliating a woman who dared challenge presidential power. Mitchell's threat was just the beginning. Nixon ordered the IRS to go after his enemies, including her and the Post. The White House compiled lists targeting Post journalists. The reporters' lives were in danger. Catherine found herself socially isolated in Washington. Even close friends told her the Post was out on a limb. They were standing all by themselves. While Catherine took the institutional pressure, two relatively unknown reporters were methodically building an unshakable case. Woodward and Bernstein worked with legendary persistence, 400 stories over 33 months, often until 2 a.m., repeatedly interviewing sources until the truth emerged. Ben Bradley's two sources rule meant that every significant fact required independent confirmation. Multiple editors reviewed each story. When prosecutors demanded notes and files, Catherine personally took possession of them, making herself, not her reporters, the target. If anybody would go to jail, it would be her. The methodology was exhausting, but unbreakable. Each thread, pulled persistently, unraveled more and more of the conspiracy. Through it all, Catherine felt in her memorable phrase as if she were pregnant with a rock. The pressure was unlike anything in American journalism history. A sitting president of the United States was using every tool of the government at his disposal to destroy her and her company. Board members worried about financial ruin. Business colleagues warned the coverage could destroy the Post. Legal costs mounted into millions. Stock analysts downgraded the company. Advertisers grew nervous. But Catherine had learned something crucial from the Pentagon Papers. The only way to assert the right to publish is to publish. She told her newsroom she would go to jail before surrendering their notes. The Post's isolation finally ended in March 1973 when convicted burglar James McCord sent his explosive letter to the judge. There was political pressure applied to the defendants to plead guilty and remain silent. Perjury occurred during the trial. When the judge read the letter and opened court on March 23rd, everything changed. The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and television networks around the country suddenly discovered Watergate. The Senate voted 77 to 0 to investigate, largely due to the Post. By May 17th, when televised hearings began, Watergate had become a national obsession. Every major revelation confirmed what the Post had been reporting in isolation for nearly a year. On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign from office. The Post won a Pulitzer for public service. Its circulation nearly doubled, but more importantly, it had proved that in America, even presidents are not above the law. ([Time 0:35:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9928ae14-6b82-43f2-b1cd-f3cbc4dec3e1)) - **Winning The Violent Strike** - Faced with a violent strike, Graham prepared months ahead with replacements and alternative distribution. - She personally worked alongside employees and led the strike to a decisive victory. Transcript: Shane Parrish A few years later, Catherine Graham stared at the picket line outside of her building. Union workers were using her husband's suicide as a weapon against her. It's October 1st, 1975. The pressmen at the Post didn't just go on strike. They went to war. They systematically destroyed equipment, set fires in the press room, beat a foreman unconscious when he tried to keep the presses running. Then they walked out, expecting Catherine to cave within days. They clearly weren't paying attention. They didn't know her very well. Catherine had been secretly preparing for months. She had trained non-union employees to run the presses. She'd arranged for helicopters to distribute papers when picketers blocked trucks. She lined up printing facilities to keep publishing. The strike lasted 139 days. The personal attacks were brutal. They burned her in effigy. They carried signs that said Phil shot the wrong gram. Threats arrived regularly. The uncertainties, the difficulties, the violence were all overwhelming, she later admitted. I felt desperate and secretly wondered if I might have blown the whole thing and lost the paper. But outwardly, she projected steel. Catherine didn't hide in her office. She worked alongside replacement workers, taking classified ads, bundling papers in the mailroom, cleaning trash in the press room. Employees who had never spoken to the publisher suddenly found her next to them, sleeves rolled up, asking how she could assist. It created loyalty that lasted generations. The strike ended with complete victory. The pressman's union ceased to exist at the post. New technology was installed without interference. Production staffing was reduced from over 1,000 to just a few hundred, resulting in a dramatic improvement in efficiency. ([Time 0:42:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a9c6e668-b99a-4199-b9bf-4c530e052dc2)) - **Principled Leadership Drives Success** - Graham’s legacy blends journalistic integrity with exceptional business leadership. - Excellence and profitability reinforce each other, creating lasting value. Transcript: Shane Parrish When Catherine Graham took over in 1963, the Washington Post company had revenues of $84 million. By 1991, when she stepped down as CEO, revenues reached $1.4 billion, a 20-fold increase that beat the market by orders of magnitude. But numbers don't capture the full story of her true impact. She turned a struggling local newspaper into one of the world's great media companies. She published the Pentagon Papers when it could have destroyed her business. She stood virtually alone for nine months investigating Watergate, while the President of the United States tried to crush her and her company. She broke a violent union strike worked alongside replacement workers in the press room. And through it all, she never compromised the newsroom's independence. While Catherine's role as the first female Fortune 500 CEO is undeniable, focusing only on gender diminishes her broader legacy. She was simply one of the 20th century's great business leaders, period. ([Time 0:44:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/40167dac-d09d-476a-9adf-401c0cc08347)) - **Ten Leadership Lessons From Graham** - Lead with quiet competence and steel resolve rather than aggression. - Keep the mission and integrity the main focus amid pressure and threats. Transcript: Shane Parrish So number one, the velvet hammer. Catherine never raised her voice. She didn't pound tables. She didn't try to out-masculine the men. She stayed soft-smoking while becoming as hard as steel. The Nixon administration learned this too late. The quiet ones hit the hardest. Competence whispers. It doesn't shout. To values beat analysis. The Pentagon Papers arrived during Catherine's Georgetown dinner party. The Washington Post had just gone public two days earlier. Everything was at stake. Publishing classified documents meant likely criminal charges, which meant losing the television licenses and destroying not only the IPO that they had just had, but destroying The whole company. Everybody would be out of work. It meant that she might go to jail. Her lawyers said it was financial suicide. Her editor said not publishing was journalistic suicide. And she remembered her father's principle. Newspapers exist to tell the truth. Let's publish, she said, and then hung up. Three, don't care what they think. Nine months into Watergate, the Post stood alone. They were the only major paper digging. Everyone thought they were wrong. The Chicago Tribune and other major media outlets openly mocked them. The administration went after the Post, causing the stock to crash 45%. The president of the United States targeted their TV license. She was ostracized in Washington. Everyone thought they were crazy. The Post lawyers begged them to stop. But Catherine kept going because she thought she was right. The rest is history. Four, balance don't break. The pressmen destroyed equipment, beat a foreman unconscious and walked out. They expected Catherine to fold. After all, what choice did she have if she wanted to print papers? But Catherine had been preparing for months, training replacements and arranging backup presses. When picketers blocked trucks, she hired helicopters. When they marched outside, she worked the mailroom floor. It lasted 139 days before she won. 5. Find a teacher. Warren Buffett bought 5% of her company without asking. The board panicked. Catherine ignored them. She met Buffett herself, saw his genius, and made him her professor. He'd bring 20 annual reports to meetings, teaching her line by line. She was humble enough to know she didn't have all the answers and smart enough to know who to listen to. Six, freedom with transparency. Ben Bradley got total editorial freedom. The only rule was no surprises. He could fight presidents. He could spend millions and pursue any story that was in the public interest. And she never questioned his judgment. He never blindsided her. The result was the Pentagon papers, Watergate, 18 Pulitzers. Maximum freedom requires maximum transparency. Seven, step off the edge. This is one of my favorite quotes. She said, what I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes, and step off the edge. That's how Catherine described taking over the post. There was no grand strategy. There was no 90-day plan. There was just the next step. Eight years later, she was staring down presidents. You'll never feel qualified for what matters. Step anyway. Eight. Decades over quarters. Wall Street wanted quarterly earnings and exciting acquisitions. Catherine wanted to create a company that would last generations. She went against all of their wishes, buying back stock when it was cheap, and it was very uncommon to do so back then, and acquiring a boring education company, Kaplan, which would eventually Generate more revenue than the newspaper. She was a public company but operated it like it was a private one. 9. Keep the main thing the main thing. Catherine faced constant pressure to choose profits or principles, safety or stories, shareholders or journalism. The Pentagon Papers could have killed the IPO. Watergate bled millions in legal fees and threatened their television licenses. The Pressman's strike threatened the entire operations. Every crisis offered an excuse to compromise, but she never took it. The Post's mission to hold power to account stayed the main thing. She proved what others deny. When you keep the main thing the main thing, everything else follows. Principles aren't an expense. They're your compass. Ten, keep your word. When Nixon came after the Post with the full force of the executive branch challenging TV licenses, crashing their stock, and threatening prison, Catherine never wavered. She told her reporters to keep digging, and she meant it. When the prosecutors arrived with a subpoena and demanded their notes, she took them home herself. If anyone went to jail, it would be her, not them. For nine months, while other papers stayed silent and friends begged her to stop, she kept her word. The president of the United States couldn't make her break. Most leaders fold under pressure. She knew something they didn't. Your word is all you have. Once broken, it's worthless forever. ([Time 0:50:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/432ccedf-0ff3-48da-8360-736108ea731e))