On Tuesday, March 4, the Brandeis Journalism Department invited former New York Times Executive Editor and Pulitzer Prize recipient Dean Baquet to serve as keynote speaker for the 2025 Elaine Wong Distinguished Lecture Program. Baquet formerly served as the executive editor for the Los Angeles Times and made history as the first African American Executive Editor of the New York Times. He spoke about the interplay between the media and polarization in a discussion moderated by Associate Professor of the Practice of Journalism Ann Silvio (JOUR) and adjunct lecturer Adriana Lacy (JOUR), as well as Professor Paul Anskat (SOC). 

The event, which took place in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall, was packed with professors, students, alumni and prominent journalists from the Boston Globe, The New York Times, Boston University Radio and many more. Audience members who couldn’t grab a seat stood in the back or sat along the sides in order to witness the discussion.

The forum began with opening remarks from the University’s Interim President, Arthur Levine ’70. He shared that “journalism … is going to be one of the most powerful forces we have for helping us maintain our democratic society.” He drew upon the role of journalism in United States history to frame the discussion, mentioning Woodward and Bernstein, the reporters who exposed the Watergate scandal. 

The conversation began with a response to the recent news that Jeff Bezos, who bought The Washington Post in 2013, has decided that its editorial page will be advocating for personal liberties and free markets. The newspaper will not be publishing opposing viewpoints moving forward. Baquet stated that “We know that we’re going to need an avid debate about everything, from tariffs to, I suspect, the First Amendment. I don’t think this is the time for one of the major leading news organizations to narrow that discussion.” He further shared his concerns for The Washington Post’s journalistic integrity, “[Jeff Bezos] is a very unusual publisher, and he has wide interests, and it looks to me that he’s put the interests of those wider interests, from his space program to Amazon itself, ahead of the newspaper.” He elaborated, “I don’t think it’s great for democracy that the greatest American news organizations have very narrow slices in the audience, and that includes The New York Times and The Washington Post … It’s another attempt at a solution to a really powerful problem. It’s the fact that he did it just before the election.”

Baquet subsequently spoke on the difficulty of striking a balance between maintaining journalistic principles, financial responsibilities and the need to expand audiences. “One of the hardest things about leading institutional change is … to really try to figure out what’s our core and what are the things that really matter? If that list is too long, you’re not going to change.” He gave an example, “The way we wrote news stories in the print era … is not a natural way to write. We were all forced to write the pyramid style … we were forced to do it. And it became such a part of our [ that if you poll journalists, they actually said ‘this is who we are’. It actually isn’t who we are … so I think you gotta make sure that the things you’re fighting for are actually the things you’re about.” Baquet pointed out “of course, editorial integrity is among them.”

The discussion then shifted to cover journalism during President Donald Trump’s 2015 election campaign. Baquet discussed some methods employed by The New York Times to protect the integrity of the media, and elaborated on how Trump fundamentally altered the journalistic landscape. “One reason that news organizations are struggling with an issue of trust is that a guy who has … controlled anywhere from 30-45% of the American vote constantly, day in and day out, beats us up … we’re not very good at defending ourselves.” He recognized some shortcomings of The New York Times in protecting their media from delegitimization, “[Trump] would attack us and we would … stand with our stories. That’s not good enough anymore. If I had to do it over again, when he started attacking specific stories, I think I would have set up a way to defend them.” 

Baquet described the Times’ effort to become more transparent since then, “It used to be, we published a story and we didn’t tell you how we did the story … we didn’t tell you anything about the reporter’s background.” Baquet reflected on the changing nature of the field of journalism, “When I was in [Journalism] school, we were always taught not to be a part of the story and to kind of not really be visible. But now, we’re sort of doing quite the opposite, having them, you know, on Instagram … and very visible.”

When questioned about coverage of Trump and the election, Baquet remarked that “Frankly. I actually think the press, the mainstream press, did a really good job covering this election … I think it was tough, honest, fair.” He pointed out an interesting voting trend, “If you read the interviews with people who voted for Trump, they acknowledged all the things that had been reported. They acknowledged his issues with women. I mean, every voter we asked, they didn’t say we don’t believe that. They said ‘yes, we believe that, but we voted for him for this reason.”

The moderators proceeded to discuss how litigation affects the media, focusing on Trump’s legal battle against Columbia Broadcasting System. Baquet shared his concerns for smaller media outlets, raising the example of a local newsroom with which he often works in Mississippi, “I worry as much about those cases that get a lot less attention, because news organizations right now, unlike 30-40 years ago when we were all rolling in cash and felt really protected by the court systems, news organizations today are struggling financially … I worry about that a lot.” 

Baquet currently serves as Executive Editor of The New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship, which helps journalists from around the country in local newsrooms tackle high-impact investigative work in their communities. He pointed out the disadvantage that smaller newsrooms face adding “in a way, the fear of a lawsuit is as deadening as a lawsuit, right? I mean, when I was an investigative reporter, you sit down, you write a story, you really strive for fairness, you really strive for balance. ” He continued, “And these newsrooms that are smaller, that's hard to do anyway, because it takes a while … It's going to make you think a lot harder as you assign stories. It's going to make you say, Well, you know, if we investigate that guy, he might sue us. Let's talk about that. Once you say that, I'm worried, let's talk about it. That is not a journalistic discussion.”

As the discussion focused on the polarization of the media, Baquet asserted that “the job of a news organization like The New York Times is not to be the enemy of Donald Trump.” He stressed the importance of conducting extensive research and gaining a strong knowledge of the facts before reporting on a topic.

Baquet drew a comparison between Artificial Intelligence and the creation of the internet and its integration into the newsroom. He cautioned that AI should be emrbaced as a tool for the betterment of journalism rather than a dangerous force to counter. “It’s gonna be as revolutionary as the internet. We should dive right in, learn everything we can about it, and seize it, and not pretend that it’s some evil thing lurking because the last time we did that, we got screwed.”