We are pleased to continue our Distinguished Lecture Series with virtual talks this season. Our first speaker of the 2020-2021 season is Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post. His talk is entitled “The Biggest Stories: An Interview with the Executive Editor of The Washington Post (2013-present), Boston Globe (2001-12), and Miami Herald (2000-01).”
The lecture will take place via Zoom; join the meeting.
Martin “Marty” Baron became executive editor of The Washington Post on January 2, 2013. He oversees The Post’s print and digital news operations and a staff of more than 800 journalists.
Newsrooms under his leadership have won 17 Pulitzer Prizes, including 10 at The Post. The Post during his tenure has won four times for national reporting, twice for explanatory reporting and once each for investigative reporting, criticism, feature photography, and public service, the latter in recognition of revelations of secret surveillance by the National Security Agency.
Previously, Baron had been editor of the Boston Globe. During his 11½ years there, the Globe won six Pulitzer Prizes — for public service, explanatory journalism, national reporting, and criticism. The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was awarded to the Globe in 2003 for its investigation into a pattern of concealing clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church, coverage portrayed years later in the Academy Award-winning movie “Spotlight.”
Before the Globe, he held top editing positions at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Miami Herald. Under his leadership, the Miami Herald won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Coverage in 2001 for its reporting of the raid to recover Elián González, the Cuban boy at the center of a fierce immigration and custody dispute.
He began his journalism career at the Miami Herald in 1976, serving as a state reporter and later as a business writer. In 1979, he moved to the Los Angeles Times, where he became business editor in 1983; assistant managing editor for page-one special reports, public opinion polling and special projects in 1991; and, in 1993, editor of the newspaper’s Orange County Edition, which then had about 165 staffers.
In 1996, Baron moved to the New York Times; he became associate managing editor responsible for the nighttime news operations of the newspaper in 1997. He was named executive editor at the Miami Herald at the start of 2000.
He was born and raised in Tampa and received his BA and MBA from Lehigh University.