[3] In that role, he edited the Globe's reporting of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston's repeated cover-ups of sexual abuse of children by priests, a painstaking investigation that began in 2001 and continued for two years.

Bradlee made a cameo appearance as a journalist with a notepad during and after the scene depicting the Archbishop Bernard Law's response on television to the 9/11 attacks.

He left the Globe in 2004 to work on a biography of Boston Red Sox icon Ted Williams,[6] which ultimately took ten years of in-depth research to finish.

[12] Bradlee's first book The Ambush Murders, an account of the brutal killings of two California policemen, was the basis for a television movie which aired on CBS in 1982.

[14] Bradlee has been married three times: to broadcast journalist Martha Raddatz, to Janice Saragoni for 25 years, ending in 2015, and to Cynthia Hickman since February 2018.