Perhaps the most memorable line from the Academy Award-winning motion picture “All the President’s Men,” came from Jason Robards, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Ben Bradlee.

“Nothing’s riding on this execpt, uh, the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country.”

The “this” in question, of course, was his newspaper’s coverage of the Watergate break-in and President Richard Nixon’s role in the coverup.

That one line summed up the career of Ben Bradlee.

Bradlee, who led the newsroom of the Washington Post for more than a quarter century, transforming it to one of the world’s leading newspapers, died Monday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 93.

Broadway recognizes the passing of one if its own by dimming the marquee lights. In Hollywood, one is honored by having his or her name listed in a special segment of the Oscar broadcast called “In Memorium.”

In journalism we honor those giants in our industry by sparing a few inches on our editorial pages.

While Bradlee’s name will also be grouped with that of his ace reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, his contributions to journalism in general and newspapers in particular go far beyond Watergate.

Bradley transformed news coverage from the basic “Who, What, When, Where and Why,” into compelling stories based on agressive reporting. The kind of in-depth coverage that had been limited to magazines, was brought to daily papers, largely because of the vision of Ben Bradley.

For some of us, Bradley was the reason we became journailists. For all of us, Bradley was the reason we strived to be better.

Ben Bradlee is gone, but his impact on those who write, edit, publish and read newspapers will live forever.