In the summer of 1985, when I arrived in the capital of the United States, The Washington Post was one of the finest newspapers in the country. Ben Bradlee, its executive editor, who was best known for driving coverage of the Watergate scandal of just a decade earlier, dominated the newsroom with his gravelly voice and infectious smile. Even the lowliest copy boy called him "Ben". Everyone was committed to producing a great paper, around the clock, seven days a week.

I had joined the paper as the sixth Laurence Stern fellow, an annual prize bestowed to a young(ish) British journalist in honour of Larry Stern, a former Vietnam war correspondent and national editor who died, prematurely, while jogging on a beach in Cape Cod, in 1979. Bradlee, a close friend of the anglophile Stern, elected to create a fellowship in his name.