Martin Baron examines The Washington Post during the Trump era in ‘Collision of Power’

Amna Nawaz:

Marty Baron has had a decades-long career in journalism, including leading some of the nation's most respected newspapers.

He sat down recently with Geoff Bennett to discuss his first book, "Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post."

Geoff Bennett:

Marty Baron, welcome to the "NewsHour."

Marty Baron, Author, "Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post": Thanks for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

You open this book with an at-the-time secret White House dinner the summer of 2017. Donald Trump was the host, and the guests were you, Jeff Bezos, the former Post publisher, and the editorial page editor.

What did that dinner reveal to you about the level of contempt and disdain that Donald Trump reserved for the press and how that would affect your work moving forward?

Marty Baron:

Well, that entire dinner was an attack on our coverage, and it was clear to me that he was using that as an opportunity to attack us and to try to put leverage on Jeff Bezos to lean on us.

He felt that the owner of The Post would submit to his pressure and that he would then pressure us, in turn, to modify our coverage. We weren't going to do that, and Jeff Bezos wasn't going to do that. And, of course, he talked about his supposedly unfair treatment by the press throughout his campaign and during the early months of his presidency.

There was total contempt for us, and he felt that we should do his bidding, and that was the role of the press, that we didn't play an independent role. We weren't there to hold him accountable. We were there to really be subservient to him.

Geoff Bennett:

You mentioned Jeff Bezos.

He purchased the paper from the Graham family less than a year into your tenure there. And you wrote that you were initially concerned that Bezos might try to interfere with The Post's coverage of Amazon.

You wrote:

"I expected to unearth some agenda that Bezos had been unwilling to own up to. A man of his riches and power deserves to be doubted."

Did he have an agenda?

Marty Baron:

I didn't see one in my entire time at The Post working for him, and that was over seven years.

I always worried about that. I certainly worried about it at the beginning, because, as I indicated in the book, he has enormous commercial interests, and they could be threatened by a president of the United States. He could also have used the newspaper to try to influence Congress or policy generally.

He didn't do that. I never saw him do that. He didn't interfere in our coverage. He gave us our full journalistic independence.

Geoff Bennett:

In the book, you take the reader inside the decision-making around stories such as Edward Snowden's revelations of government surveillance, Christine Blasey Ford's testimony against Brett Kavanaugh, and the coverage of the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements.

And you note that, while there were these cultural and racial reckonings happening, there was also internal pressure from some journalists about how to cover those stories and what they could say on social media.

You declared yourself weary of well-meaning, but moralistic young journalists. In what ways?

Marty Baron:

There is a bit of a generational divide between how journalists of my generation view our jobs and how a younger generation of journalists views what they should be permitted to do.

Social media didn't exist when I grew up in journalism. And our view was always that the journalism itself should speak for itself. And I still believe that. I believe that what we should be focusing on is the work, the journalism, and it should be powerful journalism. It should be rigorous. It should be thoroughly researched, totally fact-based.

And that should be the statement that we make to the public, that journalists should not be just going on to Twitter and other social media to express their feelings, their opinions, whatever impulsive thoughts they might have.

And so there was a conflict over that. But I stick by my position that. I think that journalism should speak for itself.

Geoff Bennett:

During your time at The Boston Globe, you were, of course, instrumental in the coverage of the Catholic Church child abuse scandal, which became the basis for the film "Spotlight."

When you think about the start of your career, what are the key challenges that journalism faces now versus then, in this era where the pursuit of truth is so often cast as a partisan enterprise, a partisan pursuit?

Marty Baron:

The problem now is that people can't agree on what's a fact, that we don't share a common set of facts. We can't even agree on how to establish that something is a fact.

So that is the biggest challenge that we face, among all of the other challenges that we face, the financial pressures that we face in this industry, the transformation to a digital media environment, all of which are enormous pressure, the speed at which we have to produce news these days.

But the fact that the public can't agree on a common set of facts and can't agree on how to even establish that something is a fact is clearly the biggest challenge that we face.

Geoff Bennett:

After nearly a decade now of covering Donald Trump as a candidate, then a president, and now a candidate again, have we as journalists gotten better at figuring out how to cover him accurately and responsibly?

Marty Baron:

I think we have gotten somewhat better, but I think we're still struggling with how to cover him.

The fact is that media in countries throughout the world are struggling with how to cover politicians who are like Donald Trump, who are so-called populists, but also people who have an authoritarian impulse, as he does. That's a huge challenge.

I think we're getting better at that. I think we're also being more direct about what he's saying that's simply not true. I think that's very important for us to do.

Geoff Bennett:

For all of your decades in journalism, your storied career, you hadn't written a book until now. Why was now the right moment?

Marty Baron:

Well, I hadn't really had the opportunity to write until now.

Geoff Bennett:

You have been a bit busy.

Marty Baron:

First of all, I was busy, yes, being the editor, top editor of three different news organizations, and I didn't have time to write a book, and it wouldn't have been an appropriate time to write a book either.

I think it was important to write this book now, because I was at The Post during an incredible moment in history, important moment in history for the United States, for the world, for the press. Look, we had this newspaper that was owned by the same family, the Graham family, for 80 years, and it was sold to one of the richest people in the world.

And this was a legendary newspaper, one that helped bring down a previous president of the United States. And then along comes a presidential candidate and ultimately a president who is unlike any we have ever seen before.

I think somebody needs to tell that story. I was really the only one who could or would tell that story. And, by the way, the motto that we have at The Post was "Democracy dies in darkness." And the press is an important part of democracy, and I think we needed to tell our story, and I needed to tell it.

Geoff Bennett:

Marty Baron.

The book is "Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post."

Thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

Marty Baron:

Thank you.