Martin Baron: "Someday, Trump's attacks on the press will have consequences"

Martin's (colloquially Marty) Baron's career for the independence of the press began in High School , when he was running his school newspaper. "We got into the typical problems of a school newspaper, and, in the rector's opinion, we weren't showing enough loyalty to the institution," explains the director of the Washington Post in his small office, in a corner of the newsroom the newspaper .

That already directed the newspaper is understandable. Baron had grown up in a family where his parents, who were Israeli immigrants, read the local newspaper daily, received Time magazine every week, and watched the news on television every night. What is more difficult to explain is the propensity to seek trouble in their journalistic activity . «The truth is that I don't know where it comes from. But of course I thought in the school that we were entitled to a certain independence in the newspaper, and the administration did not see it that way. Then, at the University, I also directed the local newspaper, and we made many research stories, ”he recalls.

Today Baron is 65 years old and has been the director of newspapers for 30 years (not counting the one at the school or the university). And many others in trouble for the independence of the media. In Miami Herald he directed the coverage of the terrible controversy that split that city in two in 2000 over the return to Cuba of Elián González , a child whose mother had died while on the island. Later, in the Boston Globe he directed the investigation that uncovered the sexual abuses of a part of the Catholic clergy of the diocese based in the city . The newspaper won the Pulitzer, and gave rise to one of the most famous films about journalism in history, Spotlight , which won the Oscar for Best Film in 2015. But also, generated a wave of attacks, such as when the University professor from Harvard Mary Ann Glendon said that giving the Pulitzer to the Globe was "like awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Osama bin Laden."

And so Baron arrived on January 2, 2013. That day he assumed the position of director of the Washington Post , a newspaper that was reducing its operations and trying to limit itself to being a local newspaper in the US capital. Seven months later, the richest businessman in the world, Jeff Bezos, bought the newspaper. Since then, the Washington Post has broken its decline and has entered a new age of glory , giving benefits and becoming one of the greatest references in the world press, which, again, has won insults, this time of its own US president, Donald Trump.

You have considerable experience in coverage of issues that have caused a very deep division in society. Did you find the coverage of Elián and the clergy abuses useful as training for the coverage of the presidency of Donald Trump? I would not know if it can be called training. But, of course, I have had to deal with people and institutions with power, and that is part of my professional experience. What happens is that the thing is different when it comes to covering the president of the United States. What has been harder? Elián, the sexual abuse, or Trump? Elián, because he totally divided the community and, when you are in a newspaper of that size, you notice the reaction of the readers. People feel a clear connection to the newspaper, and they have no problem calling you on the phone and telling you what they think. Cuban-Americans left messages accusing me of being against them, and the so-called Anglo-Americans left messages saying exactly the opposite. Have you ever been afraid? Yes, it is true that I am careful, but I have never been concerned about my own safety. What scares me the most are the possible attacks on our journalists. We had to substantially increase our security measures, because we received threats of all kinds against our people, and some of them were quite serious. I am concerned about the degree of exaltation that the president generates when he speaks of the press as "the enemy of the people," or when he refers to journalists as "traitors," "garbage," "scum," or "gentuza." All this shows a clear effort to demonize and dehumanize us. And that someday it will have serious consequences. On the other hand, hasn't Donald Trump been a blessing to some US newspapers, including the one you run? The answer to your question is two questions. One: has Trump helped us in the short term? Definitely. And two: will it help us in the long run that a good part of public opinion firmly believes that there are no objective facts? No. That is not only bad for the Washington Post or for the media. It is dangerous for the US as a country. Since Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post , he is no longer part of a listed company, so he does not publish his results. The newspaper makes money but the company's policy is not to spread economic data. Is it wrong to talk to the richest man in the world, who has also created his own fortune? Bezos is not usually set in the financial statements of the company. This is done by a small group of people who manage their personal investments and, while doing reasonably well, he is happy. What is fixed is in the strategy, in how to achieve more customers, in how to make subscribers visit the web, get involved in it and renew their subscriptions, and what does that mean in terms of marketing ... Does it intervene in the journalistic aspects? never. The most he does is say things like that the newspaper should be three things. One: exciting, so people want to read it. Two: truthful, fair, and honorable. And three: able to charge its readers. Returning to Bezos, what you describe about him reveals a very long-term vision. Until he arrived, I never had a manager or an owner to ask me: "Where will the newspaper be in 20 years?" Sometimes we had a plan for five years. Sometimes for three. Or for the quarter. And sometimes our strategy was for that week. Apart from the 250 million dollars he paid in 2013 for the Post, has Bezos put more money? Only in the first year after the acquisition, to launch a series of initiatives. Since then we have stood alone. Obviously, it helps not to have to give dividends, so we can reinvest the benefits. Everyone says that, more than money, the most important thing Bezos has given the newspaper is its technological vision in the style of Silicon Valley. It is true. Bezos brings four things. The first is obviously his personal wealth. The second, its commitment to give us journalistic independence. The third, his knowledge of technology and the internet. And the fourth, which is often set aside, his profound knowledge of consumer behavior. Keep in mind that he founded and runs Amazon, a consumer company with a high-tech component. Many times, technology is important. But consumer behavior is more. Has technology made engineers and data experts as important as journalists in newspapers? Are important. I think that in many ways we are becoming a technology company. How many engineers work in the 'Post'? Several hundreds. Some work at Arc [the web processing system developed by the 'Washington Post'], but half are in the newspaper, and we are hiring more. Why? Because the reader has expectations about how the newspaper should be, and we have to present things more visually, with video, animation, 3D, Augmented Reality ... And for that we need technology experts. You mentioned Arc. Which is more important from the point of view of business results, the newspaper or Arc? The newspaper, by far. It is very good that Arc is growing a lot, and we hope that it contributes significantly to the company, but the Post is much more important. In the 20 years that you have been a director, those narrative techniques that I talked about a moment ago have changed a lot. The way in which you explained Elián's controversy is very different from the way you have explained the 'Russian plot'. Have you encountered much resistance in the newsrooms in this process of change? When we started in the internet business, in the newsrooms we believed that it would be enough to take the news from the printed newspaper and put them on the Web. Then, we went for the "you have to do everything faster", and it didn't work, obviously. What we have come to understand over time is that the Internet is a completely different medium, just as radio is different from the written press, and television is from the radio. So you have to treat the internet as your own medium. And, certainly, one of the things that the internet brought is speed. People expect to get it where and when they want. We do not think about looking for information, but we hope that the information will look for us. That requires us to adapt, but it also gives us many tools that we previously lacked: audio, video, interactive graphics ... The problem is to integrate everything. It is not enough to use those tools. All of them must be integrated to make the journalistic story as effective as possible. This is what we have done in many cases: combine audio, graphics, cartography, text, etc., and also interrelate with each other, so that the audio refers, I don't know, to the graphics, these to the text, and so on. One thing that is clear is that newspapers are increasingly visual, so we have to understand the power of the image when it comes to transmitting the stories. And those changes, how have they been received in the newsrooms you have directed? The cultural barriers were initially very large. But I think that now the vast majority of journalists in the United States have recognized the importance of new technologies. It is not enough to accept this new world of internet; you have to hug him. In that regard, what do you think of the decision of the Bloomberg news agency not to investigate any Democratic candidate in these elections given that the owner of the company, Michael Bloomberg, is one of them? By running for election, Bloomberg has put his journalists in a very difficult situation. Whatever you do, it's almost impossible for them to get it right, but you know about economics. According to your former Boston Globe colleagues, you managed a 40% reduction in the workforce very well. Did it help you to have an MBA? I don't think the MBA was so important. What happens is that at the beginning of my career I devoted myself to economic journalism, so I understand the concepts and numbers, and I have never felt intimidated when I have spoken to the people in the newspaper management area that I have directed.

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