Martin Baron: «Polarization is a business model» | The truth

– Would a Trump victory mean a defeat for journalism?

– I don't believe it. We cannot blame the press for the voters' thoughts. It is up to them to decide who should be president and they are thinking about several things: the inflation rate, their own economic interests, the situation on the southern border, crimes… Many times voters have a bad feeling. information and sometimes even misinformation.

– How can it be that this type of information is imposed compared to what the serious press publishes?

– The Internet has allowed the creation of a lot of media. There are almost no obstacles. Several new media outlets spread false information because polarization is a business model. One way to reach the public, to engage more readers, is to provoke fury, anger and create tensions among the audience. There is an opportunity in spreading disinformation or conspiracy theories… We are living in a completely different time than the one we knew 20 years ago. The situation has completely changed.

– Are you worried about the fact that a single person can generate such discredit towards journalism?

– Trump said that the press was the enemy of the people. Confidence in the press had already dropped before his arrival, but he has aggravated the situation. For him it is a political opportunity. He needs an enemy and can always blame the press. He also has media allies, such as Fox News and others, that consistently broadcast falsehoods and have helped undermine this credibility. It is a problem for traditional media because we are completely dependent on the public's trust. It is the foundation of our profession.

– He says that subscriptions increased with Trump. Would his return be good for business?

– The situation has changed a lot. It is true that during the presidential campaign and during his administration Trump generated a lot of interest. There were not enough institutions to supervise it and the readers gave us great support. But after his electoral defeat interest in politics decreased. Many readers are now fed up with reading news about Trump. It makes them anxious. Let's see what happens.

– Would it be a good sign if the 'Post' one day removed the slogan 'Democracy dies in darkness' from its masthead?

– After Trump's electoral defeat, some readers recommended that we eliminate it because, in their opinion, it was no longer necessary. But it's forever. He was a candidate when we started the process of creating the slogan. He obeys the role that a medium like 'The Washington Post' must play in the country's capital. It is a tradition of this newspaper to hold power to account, to supervise the powerful, as it did, for example, during Richard Nixon's government. It doesn't matter who is in the White House.

– One of the most complicated decisions of your career was to publish the secret information related to terrorism that Edward Snowden leaked. What reflection did he make?

– These were documents classified at the highest level of national security. They described a government system of surveillance, almost espionage, on the electronic conversations of thousands of people. Many were not involved in terrorism, but had contact with people suspected of having some connection. They were very weak connections and the system increasingly incorporated more surveillance. I was concerned about the risk to national security but I thought, and so did our team, that it was in the public interest. What would happen if we allowed that system to be hidden forever? That this system would grow and that the government would have the ability to obtain a lot of information about a large part of the American population. That is why we made the decision to publish a good part of the documents, although not all. The revelation came as a big surprise to technology companies, to the public and to many politicians, who would not have allowed such an aggressive system. As a result, the system was modified. It was a good result.

The memory of Watergate

– He explains in the book that Jeff Bezos, the owner of the newspaper, was a great ally and that he was key for the Post to go from being a local brand to a global one.

– He said we had several advantages. The name of the newspaper itself and having its headquarters in the capital of the United States could serve to make the leap. The newspapers he had previously run, The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald, did not have this opportunity. Furthermore, many citizens had never read the Post but its tradition of prestige could attract them. Bezos spoke of the gift that the Internet represented, since we could spread journalism through digital means without the obligation to deliver a printed newspaper. When I arrived at the newspaper at the beginning of 2013, everyone was thinking about a decline. There were 540 people in the newsroom. In recent years it has suffered losses and staff has been cut a little, yes, but there is a budget for 940 journalists.

– Bezos also told them that the death signal for any company is to glorify the past. Could the memory of the Watergate case become negative?

– I don't think so. That gave him great prestige and left that legacy of accountability and oversight of power. He became the newspaper's mission. Rather, he was referring to the fact that many journalists did not want to change the way they wrote or the way they told stories. They attached themselves to printed newspapers. There has been too much resistance against changes in our field over the years, unfortunately.

– His former colleagues at the Post say that he became a great digital expert in record time. How did you acquire all that knowledge?

– The explanation is that I wanted to be successful. I didn't want to lose. I am always thinking about competition and the survival of our environment. The world had changed and there was no future in mourning all the time. If we did not take advantage of the digital tools we had, we were going to become cannon fodder for our competitors. It would be a form of unilateral disarmament. We were going to lose if we didn't change.

– Don't you think that some journalistic companies, which are now going through a bad economic time, suffer from nostalgia?

– It is one of the diseases in our profession. I understand the nostalgia. I suffered from it but I discovered that we were going to lose if we clung to nostalgia.

– What other diseases do you see?

– Resistance to change and nostalgia, which I have already mentioned, and also defeatism about our future. There are too many people who think we are going to fail and I have never met anyone who succeeded thinking they were going to fail. Our strategies will have to change every six years or less and we must know how to adapt. Just two years ago none of us were talking about generative artificial intelligence and it is clear that it is going to fundamentally change our field.

– He is very critical of the role that platforms, such as Google or Facebook, have played in journalism. Is it a lost battle?

– It is important that there are new rules regarding technological platforms. They have had the advantage of making money with content without having any responsibility for it. Traditional media cannot publish anything without responsibility. We must think again about the laws that govern the behavior of these companies.

– Social networks generated continuous tensions with some journalists. How can this problem so common to so many media organizations be addressed?

– We must have guidelines on the behavior of our staff on social networks. If a person does not want to comply with them, they should not be employed by our company. He should accept them before being hired. Directors have the right to create and preserve an identity and reputation for our media. The behavior of some journalists, when expressing their opinions on social networks, undermines this credibility. We should not allow that behavior. I believe in codes of ethics and conduct.

– Movements such as 'Black Lives Matter' or 'MeToo' have also had an impact on some American newsrooms. How should diversity be faced?

– I value diversity in the newsroom because it helps us discover stories. It is a great advantage to have a diverse staff. But there are limits. We cannot become activists or advocates for a movement that we must cover. We cannot maintain our independence if we participate in the events we cover. I think there are limits.

– Your book is very different from the movie 'Spotlight'. It reflects very well the hardness, the sacrifice of this job.

– 'Spotlight' recounted a moment of success for journalism, when the Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of sexual abuse in the Church. The book also includes achievements, moments of celebration, but obviously there are very difficult moments in managing a newsroom.

– Do you miss journalism?

– I have written this book about my experience and it is a form of journalism. If you mean if I miss my job as a director, the truth is that I don't miss the obligation to work all the time. Because now we work 24 hours, almost every minute. I worked all hours, I lacked sleep and I suffered from an illness that fortunately has improved. I was 66 years old, I had worked for 45 years as a journalist and, specifically, for the last 20 I was an editor at three different newspapers. I was tired, worn out. I had thought a lot about my future, about my life. I concluded that the time had come to do something else.