Former Washington Post editor offers candid take on state of the media

Not a single seat was empty Thursday night as students and faculty filled the Newhouse School’s Hergenhan Auditorium to hear former Washington Post editor Marty Baron.

The award-winning newspaper editor, perhaps best known for leading a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporting team at The Boston Globe and then eight years overseeing The Post, talked about a series of topics impacting newsrooms today, including ethics, politics, economics and leadership. 

Aileen Gallagher, Newhouse associate dean for academic affairs and the night’s moderator, went straight into questions, asking Baron how a second Donald Trump presidency would look like for the media.

Baron said newsrooms are facing challenges amid a divisive political landscape that could be even more difficult during a second Trump presidency.

“He was bad in his last campaign, and he’s only going to be worse [if reelected],” Baron said.

Baron said he would anticipate a rollback of an already weakened Freedom of Information Act if Trump was reelected and potentially criminalizing the jobs that reporters and editors do.

“He’s talked openly about wanting to see journalists in jail so that they can, as [Trump] put it, ‘meet their bride,’ ” Baron said.

The 18-time Pulitzer Prize award winner criticized the media’s initial coverage of the former President, specifically calling out CNN and NBC for their interviews with Trump before the first primaries for the 2016 presidential election. He labeled these interviews as “mistakes,” noting they were done “for reasons that had nothing to do with journalism, that only had to do with marketing.”

The conversation then shifted to newsroom ethics and leadership, with Baron pointing out that, while people tend to absorb media that they agree with, independent journalism is starting to become a major aspect of the media world. 

“I think there’s substantial evidence that people do want independent, rigorously reported, highly verified journalism,” Baron said. “They feel betrayed when they discover that people aren’t telling them the truth.”

Baron also spoke about his time at The Post, including the Post’s financial struggles and ownership under billionaire Jeff Bezos. On the brink of bankruptcy in 2013, Bezos picked up The Post and brought it back to life, Baron said, recalling how Bezos sat down with company executives to help plan out the next 20 years for the publication.

“The speed of decision-making was incredible,” Baron said.

Although his financial backbone was crucial to The Post’s operations, Baron was also critical of the Amazon founder.

“Bezos needs to be more engaged with the Post…the disengagement has not been beneficial,” Baron said.

Expanding on his comments, Baron said Bezos needs to “understand the culture” at The Post and do a better job communicating with his staff there. He made it clear that Bezos sees The Post as a financial investment.

When the conversation shifted to AI and its role in the newsroom, Baron explained how generative AI “can be used in a powerful way” for journalists, noting how it should be seen as an opportunity and not a threat.

Photo by Surya Vaidy

A capacity crowd was on hand for Thursday’s talk by former Boston Globe and Washington Post editor Marty Baron.

Conversely, he also touched on the potential dangers of AI for journalists and society, mentioning how fabricated videos, images, and pictures are now not only a reality but unfortunately believed by many people. He explained how people can use the excuse that an image is “fabricated” to cover themselves from damages. “

The risk is that the public will become unable to discern what is true and what is false, what is fact and what is fiction,” Baron said.

In his closing remarks, Baron left the audience with some great advice.

“Focus on having an open mind and be determined to find the proper information,” he said. “In a fast-changing world, pay attention, because you have to change with it.”

Baron added that the way to be an effective reporter is to focus on what you don’t know, not on what you do.

“If you know everything, what’s the point of being a reporter?”

Baron’s appearance at Newhouse was part of the Deanne Gebell Gitner Storytelling Symposium, named after the late mother of current Newhouse associate professor Seth Gitner, who gave emotional remarks at the beginning of the night’s discussion.

“After my mom passed in 2020, I knew my dad wanted to honor her at a university,” Gitner said.  “I urged him and my brother to do something at the Newhouse school because I know this place would do it right.”

Photo by Surya Vaidy

Marty Baron (left) takes a selfie with the Gitner family who endowed the Deanne Gebell Gitner Storytelling Fund that sponsored Thursday’s talk.