>> marty baron was my colleague at the los angeles times for a number of years. also the executive editor of the miami herald and the boston globe as well. a pulitzer prize for its

coverage of the catholic church sex scandal there which also triggered a number of similar investigations across the country. most recently as the executive editor of the washington post from 2013 to 2021. the subject of this book which we are going to be discussing tonight, the collision of power and the washington post. one of the most eminent editors in america and we are so happy he made time to be here. it is great to see you again. >> great to see you. thanks for having me. >> it's been almost nine years since donald trump dissented that gold elevator. the question for journalists and non-journalists alike is, how trump has changed journalism. we've talked a lot about how he change the country. but how he changed journalism is a big part of that. >> i think that's true. obviously he was a candidate

unlike any we had ever seen before. and then became a president unlike any we'd ever seen before. now again a candidate unlike any we've ever seen before. and i think the press really struggled with how to cover him the first time around. struggled quite a bit with covering him as president. and i think is still learning lessons as it tries to cover him today. so i think he did changed journalism in a lot of ways. there were a lot of norms in our business that we set aside, some for the better and some for the worse. and you know, i think that people are trying to figure out, what's the best way to cover him? >> in the audience, if you have a question for marty, we will get to them later in the hour. put them in the q&a and we will get around to those. tell us your first name and

where you are from in your question area so to talk about how he's changed journalism, a lot of the argument both outside and within journalism is that covering this era of trump is a different job. different jobs require different tools. the argument is that it's true of journalism as well. do you think that's the case? >> i think we have the tools that we need. we are dealing with a candidate who is really difficult to cover. we have a lot of advice on how to cover him. a lot of people say, don't report what he says because you are normalizing him. if you don't report what he says, they say, how did you not report what he said? you get a lot of contradictory advice on that. my sense is that we ought to be focusing on what he intends to do if he were to get back into the white house. in the same way that we should report on what biden might do in a second term as well.

but a lot of the things that trump is talking about, he's talking about them openly. a lot of them are the kind of measures that have been implemented in other countries where you had aspiring authoritarians. those are the kind of measures they put into place. using the military to surpass protests. going after your political enemies by prosecuting them. bringing treason charges against people you deem to be unfavorable to you. including former installing loyalists in every level of government. these are the kinds of measures we've seen in other countries that have become authoritarian in nature. i think we should really be focusing on that in addition to what kinds of laws he intends to exploit in order to implement those measures or what kind of laws he intends to bend or break in order to implement those measures. and who he would put in charge

to carry out the kinds of measures he's talking about. just so the audience is aware we can't deliver closed captioning to you because of the technical issues you may be witnessing. but trump issued such a fire hose of these kinds of threats and outrageous comments for years that you wonder how those of us in journalism and then in our audience, our readers and viewers are able to process it, one we've heard so much of this kind of thing before and how much do people turn off what they're hearing and how hard is it within our business to make sure that people know that this is still what's going on and may even be escalating and he's not joking. >> it's true a lot of people have just decided they don't want to hear anymore, it troubles them so much and gives them anxiety. in fact, there are a number of

doctors out there that are recommending people not watch or read the news because it makes them more anxious. i would discourage that myself because i think we should be aware of what's actually happening. keep in mind, any one media outlet only reaches a small portion of the population. only 8% of the american publicist "the new york times" as its primary source of news. something like 3% for "the washington post." so no matter what you're doing, you're not necessarily reaching everybody in the population. even the cable networks, the total audience is relatively small. people are getting their information from all sorts of different sources. i use the word "information" broadly because a lot of it is misinformation and some of it disinformation, deliberate falsehoods being spread. >> let me ask you about the

point of where you get your information from. paul houston, a member of our bureau, covering a protest in the carter administration when interest rates went high and farmers having a hard time and converged on washington with their farm equipment to protest and paul was out there covering it when he saw a woman stuck trying to get out of washington that day, very angry, getting out of her car and shaking her fist and saying i don't need you farmers, i get my food at the grocery store. print journalists find themselves in the same position. they say i don't read "the washington post" or l.a. times but what they are reading comes from the newspapers when especially newspapers, the smaller ones, are very much under threat and journalists are losing their jobs faster than coal miners. we have the two threads, the idea that news is still coming still from these old media companies and the way that we can report on these is quickly disappearing.

>> that's certainly true. what "the new york times" publishes and "the washington post" publishes and the l.a. times posts can get amplified and gets on the television and cable networks and gets on the radio and it ends up spread through social media so it can have a greater impact. but the problem is right now is that we have, because of the internet, because people can turn to sources of information that affirm their pre-existing points of view, we have in many instances -- in too many instances, a society that doesn't share a common set of facts. and it's actually worse than that. we can't even agree on how to establish that something is a fact. so the kinds of things that we traditionally have used to establish something as a fact have been greatly devalued in our society. unfortunately. things like education,

expertise, experience, and worst of all, actual evidence, so that in many instances, such as what we saw january 6 of 2021, people are denying what they saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears and of course there's an enormous volume of evidence and yet people will call that normal civic discourse as the republican party did or as some members of that party have said sort of a typical tourist visit, although i've never actually received a brochure advertising that kind of tourism myself. >> to the extent that journalism has changed, one of the things that was noticeable was a debate in many news rooms that resulted in the fact that some of trump's comments were called racist, some of his comments were called lies and it took a long time to get there so journalism responded maybe not as some people wanted or as quickly.

now journalists do feel like they can characterize what they feel this man is saying. >> look, it's not a bad thing and certainly a tradition in our business to be careful with the words we use and i think we should be careful with the words we use because once we use a word, we can't take it back. and you have to be careful the language that you're using itself just doesn't become a target and the result is that the people pay less attention to the actual facts of the matter and the nature of the falsehood as opposed to the sort of incendiary language being used. but yes, it did become apparent in lots of instances trump was not just self-deluded and he was not just sort of -- he couldn't care less whether something was true or false and just making it up in whatever way served his own interest but that he actually knew things were false and he said them anyway. and that's become evermore clear over time, particularly with regard to the 2020 election.

and that he lost that election and to what happened, for example, january 6, 2021. so i ning those kinds of instances we're on very safe ground saying that he's lying. he knew -- he absolutely knows what he's saying is false and yet he's saying it anyway because it serves his own interests. >> your book deals with the period when jeff bezos bought his ownership of "the washington post" which parallels much of the trump administration. so let's talk something about that. first of all, why jeff bezos wanted to buy "the washington post." >> it's hard to get into his head but i can tell you what he said and what i believe. he talked about that he had to go through several gates, one was to assure himself that it was an important institution of which he said yes, of course.

he had to make sure that he could be optimistic about its future because if he didn't have hope for the future, he would feel sorry for us but he wouldn't want to join us. and then he said, you know, did he have something to contribute and he thought a lot about that and conclude that yes, he could give us obviously what he called runway, he could make investments and let them play out over a period of time and see if they worked. he did bring other things which was obviously an understanding of technology, a sophisticated understanding of technology and a fiction ticketed knowledge of consumer sales and our business in consumer sales. but i also think and it will sound naive because we're talking jeff bezos, on any one day, the richest person in the world. people say well, he can't have any noble motives but i actually do believe that he believes in the press and i think that's been borne out based on his

ownership of the post and believes a role in the press though he's become the target of it and that he believes in american democracy and he just feels the press plays an important role in that. and he also felt, i think, the post could be turned around. we were in a position that we were kind of sliding into on liveian and did not -- oblivion and did not have a successful model and our strategy was to be fundamentally regional and of course we covered national politics but the internal moto was for and about washington. other than national politics we focused on our region and bezos said that may have worked in the past and did and was profitable but it couldn't serve us in the future, that we could be national and international for a variety of reasons and that we had a unique ability to do that. and that we now had the capacity to deliver our journalism digitally as opposed to

delivering a newspaper which meant we could acquire additional readers and subscribers at effectively no incremental costs so he said we'll take the gift the internet is giving to you though the internet has damaged so much of your business, take the gift. you can be national because you're based in the nation's capital and you have a heritage going back to watergate in that there are people around the country and around the world who know "the washington post," have a great impression of "the washington post," holding power to account, particularly going back to watergate but never read a word of "the washington post" and build on it and the internet is giving us a gift and he saw a way to turn around the post which many did not see and i think he saw he could actually make a difference. so for a variety of those reasons, i think he bought it he

he's not used it to exercise influence though he's been accused of it by trump over and over again and there's no evidence of that. and the reason there's no evidence of that is because he never actually done it. >> your book was published after you left the paper but the review of your book said it was three books in one. the bargain hunters beware, three books in one, a insider's revealing examination of bezos' stewardship of the post, a sometimes thriller of a tale how the post navigated a perilous time in journalism and how trump tried to discredit the post. you had a seat at the table with bezos and trump. my sense is that trump probably expected hey, us rich guys are going to stick together. can you talk about some of the dealings bezos and trump had and some of the dealings you had with trump individually as well? sure.

it all came to a head five months after trump took office. our publisher wanted -- it's in the prolog to the book. our publisher felt it would be a good idea if we met with trump. bezos actually met with him previously as part of a group of technology executives but he also had a private meeting before that where trump talked how he liked amazon but didn't like "the post" a whole lot. we had a meeting at the white house for dinner and our publisher felt it would be good to meet him and i was there and the publisher was there and jerod kushner, melania and the president, and throughout the entire time, i was sitting next to his lap and throughout the dinner he was criticizing "the post" and called us the worst of all media outlets frequently and every time he would criticize

"the post" for something he would elbow me to his left and i was quite tempted to elbow him back but you just don't do that with the president of the united states. >> with the secret service there, certainly not. >> then he called bezos the next morning and said i don't know whether you get involved in news coverage or not but i'm sure you do to some extent is how he put it, contradicting himself. and he said isn't there something you can do to make "the post" more fair to me? and bezos told him he did not get involved in the news coverage and if he did, he would regret it the rest of his life. and then trump at the end of that conversation on the cell phone said basically invited bezos to ask for a favor and said if there's anything you ever need, just give me a call. bezos thankfully never did give him a call and never asked for a favor and was the subject of attack of raising postal rates

to hurt amsson in an intervention and a $10 billion cloud computer project where amazon was considered to be the leading bidder and trump wanted to make sure it did not go to amazon and initially it did not. and then trump called me afterwards. i think he called me a couple times afterwards to complain about stories. the last time he called -- in one instance he called and said he'd been portrayed like a little boy and then he said these words i never expected to hear from a president of the united states, he said, i am not a little boy. which i just could not believe i was hearing that from the president of the united states. and the second time he called to complain again and said that it was all because of the negative coverage because of me and bezos and amazon which i was irritated to hear from him and i said well, it's not and and you know it's not and he isn't used to

that confrontation and blurted out a bunch of profanities and said we were a hate machine and big fat lie and basically blamed bezos and amazon again and after that, he 4 no more contact with bezos and he had no more contact with me but he did make every effort to try to undermine the business of amazon. and to demonize of course the post, and of course the press in general. but to go beyond demonizing us and to dehumanize the press. and it's really that to me is hard to be shocked anymore but that to me is still shocking. >> and trump of course doesn't have any real sense of fairness. his idea of fairness is favorable coverage. >> that's what he views as fair. basically it has to be -- can you see it play out not only in his relationship with the press but in real estateship with the other politicians. you can never dissent or ever

break away from him on anything. it has to be 100% loyalty, 100% support, not 99%, 100%. that's what he considered to be fair. that's what he considered to be right and that's his expectation of the press as well. you can even see that with regard to the press, can you see it in the example with fox. if fox ever veers from him or even actually airs his opponent or critic, he starts attacking fox and saying that's inappropriate. just doesn't feet himself should have an opportunity to have a vice and that none of his critics should be able to say what they say and viewed all that criticism as being unfair. >> it's seven years now since the motto, democracy dies in darkness was unveiled just a couple weeks into the trump presidency and your sense of it

wasn't quite what you might have wanted it to be, your phrase is we're not at war with the administration we're at work and that certainly resonated with a lot of people because darkness seems to be the alternative. >> yeah, that phrase was not really a reaction to the motto. we had a hard time on that motto and wasn't a reaction to trump but happened to be introduced the time trump took office and was interpreted that way. that was a phrase that was meant to sort of signal the distinct role "the washington post" can play in washington and should play in washington which is holding power to account which is a historic role of "the washington post" and obviously did that in the case of richard nixon but has done that with presidents both republican and democratic. the phrase, we're not at war with the administration, we're at work came several weeks after trump was in office. trump on his first full day in

office went to the c.i.a. and with whom he already had a troubled relationship because of their investigation with russia's intervention and the election. and standing in front of a memorial to fallen c.i.a. agents, what did he talk about but the press? and he said, as you know, i'm in a running war with the media, shaming to want to enlist the intelligence agency in his own war with the media. several weeks after that i was asked for my reaction to that and i said we're not at war with the administration, we're at work. what i meant by that is we really have to look back to why we have a free and independent press in this country, and so you know, james madison who is a principal author of the first amendment talked about freely examining public characters and measures. so public characters, politicians, government officials, people in authority, measures, policies, of course, free, we should understand that word but examining is the key word here.

that means journalism is not sten ok if i and is dig -- sten ok if i but -- stenography but digging behind the curtain and who influenced it and to what purpose and what journalism does and exists to hold power to account, particularly individual power and why we have a free press and view that as an original assignment from the founders of the country to the press. we have an almost -- essentially a near sacred duty to fulfill that obligation and if we don't, we're not doing our jobs. >> i wonder what you think a second trump term might look like when it comes to the press. there is every indication the supreme court looks willing to revisit "new york times" versus sullivan which is one of the fundamental court decisions that underpins the free press in this country, the ability to criticize public figures.

>> yeah, my expectation is trump will not wait for the supreme court to rule and think he will try to go after the press immediately and in a very aggressive manner. i think he will -- any disclosure of national security information, i would expect he's going to bring up prosecution for that. that historically has not been prosecuted but i would imagine a trump justice department will do that at the drop of a, you know, of a hat. i aexpect he may -- he talked about challenging the broadcast license for nbc and because he accused nbc and comcast which owns nbc and msnbc for treason for coverage he deems to be unfavorable to him and he talked about that. i believe he will try to damage the finances of major media

organizations and possibly use it so his allies may acquire them which has happened in countries like venezuela and other authoritarian regimes where media organizations are being weakened and then political allies of the authoritarian leader come and take control of those media organizations for their own purposes. so i think that there -- i also think he will encourage his allies as i believe he has done in the past to bring these liable suits you mentioned and saddle whether they win or lose, to saddle press organizations with enormous costs of defending themselves and so i would expect to see that, too, and suspect he would want to try to test "the new york times" versus sullivan case. >> we have a lot of questions on this point, and i'll start going to your questions and if you who are watching have questions, go to the q&a part as you see on your zoom and enter your question there, your name and where you're from would be very

helpful. several have asked so many small news outlets are being bought out by large media companies or just closing down. how do you see this as detrimental to democracy given that the news source respect getting smaller and smaller though many americans have said local news is their news source? >> the crisis in local news is the single biggest crisis today and we face many challenges, political ones we talked about and national ones even at the national level but clearly local and regional news outlets have suffered the most. and i mean, there's there are certain signs of success of certain news organizations that are doing okay but many of them are suffering greatly. the types of major news organizations that are acquiring newspapers are

largely hedge funds and private equity firms. it is not traditional news organizations that are acquiring them and they are treating local news organizations like essentially annuities basically, extracting every penny they can get out of them through sale of real estate, through whatever means they can, significant cost cuts with no real care about their long-term sustainability and long-term survival as long as they achieve a good return on their investment. so that is a huge concern. countering that are a number of nonprofits around the country. that is a model that is still emerging, still needs to be tested. it would require significant support from within local communities. there's another philanthropic money for news, independent news coverage in this country to support a lot of nonprofits

but it is something that has been tried and tried today. >> host: when people ask what they can do to help newspaper journalism, isas subscribed to the paper where you live but wherever you come from, subscribed to the main paper in the capital of that state because coverage of what's going on in that state, the politics on the culture and everything else is vital to this system we have where the states matter so much. to support that level journalism, local journalism is vital. i hope something that has been of use for people looking for ways. >> guest: there are many major newspapers with only one person covering state government. state government is huge. a single reporter in the state capital is incapable of covering any portion of it really well and many of these

biggest newspapers in certain states have nobody in washington covering their representatives in congress. >> charlotte says trump thrives on publicity. is he getting too much free coverage now? how not to over boost him? in 2016 trump was free wallpaper for cnn. >> he's going to be the republican nominee, that is obvious that he will be, you have to cover him as the republican nominee. free publicity means we are not going to cover one of the leading candidates, the person who's leading in the polls regardless whether we care about the polls at this stage but the major party candidate. on the other hand i think there have been mistakes already. akin to what happened in 2016. as you mentioned in 2016 cnn

and fox carried his rallies from beginning to end without any intermediary, nobody is saying that what he was saying wasn't true, just carrying it. it was all furry, a free contribution to the trump campaign. more recently you had cnn to a long interview with donald trump, right at the beginning of the primaries. that was way too early and i don't think there was a journalistic justification for doing that. the reality was cnn was trying to demonstrate at that point that it welcomes republicans as much is a welcome to democrats so it was a pr motive for doing that. the same was true when there was a new host for meet the press, they had an interview with donald trump, the purpose of there was to promote the new host for meet the press. that to me is not a good justification for having an interview with him and he does,

because of his way he comports himself, just dominates these interviews and others enormous number of falsehoods. there will have to be interviews with him but there was no need for those interviews that time. >> how much has the click driven journalism influenced major newspapers? certainly online news sources are arguable news sources instead of writing a headline that says trump declares kick out the immigrant day, it would say guess what day or trump has declared and you have to click on it in order to read it whereas the headline for a legitimate newspaper, does that job for you. >> you don't see much of those headlines in major news organizations anymore.

the reality is the economic foundation of online operations has changed substantially it is built on subscribers, subscribers are not looking for that. they are acquiring a subscription because they expect you to live up to certain standards and they don't go for the click debate. they cover "in depth" stories, investigations, accountability, great narratives, journalism that actually is distinct and special in some way and is not commoditized in any way so that, those kinds of headline tricks are not how major news organizations are operating these days. >> roof in rochester speak from personal experience asking how do you approach a discussion with someone who has fallen for disinformation they have gotten from social media or such sources as fox or one america network?

>> tough question. i've been asked to that before. i think just showing them a story from the washington post and new york times is not going to help because they don't trust those outlets. we have highly polarized media consumption in this country. i think it might help and i say might if you can point them to original source documents, say we are talking about a court case, january 6th or the 2020 election, find the ruling and these are available for major news outlets, from trump appointed judges who have weighed in on the kind of case donald trump and his allies tried to make arguing that the election was stolen or how trump appointed judges have rejected those arguments, pointing out no evidence has been offered and you don't have to do that with one judge, you can do that with multiple trump appointed judges and show that it is not just one, trump would

call at a bad judge or a biased judge but you can show it is all the trump appointed judges. the extent you point to regional source documents that is what i would point to. >> host: kathy wants to know about viable models for financing independent journalism it if it isn't hedge fund billionaires? >> as i said, some people are trying nonprofits and trying to raise money locally and raise money from foundations. i think that that is yet to be tested although some have been reasonably successful. in texas you have the texas tribune and some at the national level, marshall project for criminal justice, and some that are actually succeeding at the national level and the local level. the reality is the boston globe

where i worked for 11.5 years is in a pretty sustainable place right now. in san francisco, they are doing reasonably well. doesn't have the resources are you stupid is doing reasonably well. that's true in minneapolis also, so i think there's actual traditional legacy news organizations doing okay. a variety are becoming more specialized, not so much geographic, for example a nonprofit that covers education also has a lot of local site so it's covering education in different cities so it specializing in that way. an outfit called platform becoming the. discovering big tech companies and it is doing pretty well. the information based in san francisco covers the intersection of media and check.

there are success stories out there and our business is being radically reinvented and we are not sure how it's going to shake out but as long as we have a democracy or think it will be a demand for journalism. democracy is the big question at the moment. but as long as we have one there will be demand for journalism. >> host: jack in santa barbara asks if npr, pbs models and local affiliates would help to increase public trust in news. we had jeanette which worked for a while and has rejected the associated press. you wonder how that's going. is that a good model? >> he's talking about a government-funded model, partially government funded model probably like pbs or npr. >> doesn't allude to that but we will put aside that question for the moment. the idea with a network with affiliates. >> you had that in the past.

a lot of national papers across the country. a chain that i worked for at the miami herald had papers in philadelphia, charlotte, san jose, detroit, a bunch of places. i don't think that is the answer to any of this. the way people are consuming news today is the big challenge so so much of the advertising is being sucked up by the big platforms and that would be google, facebook, apple, less and less twitter. >> what do you think of hiring and firing of ronna mcdaniel who was fired by the are in c but taken up by in bc and there was outrage among republicans that she was fired? >> there's good reason not to hire her, she lied about the

election and actively worked to undermine the election. i don't think somebody like that should be on a network offering analysis and i'm not sure she can offer any analysis that anybody else can't offer frankly. i am -- >> guest: we are having a little trouble with the internet. >> guest: between government and networks. there's a lot of us. that was just now. is that better? is that better? >> host: yes it is, go ahead. >> guest: i apologize, i'm sorry, we have a storm here. in any event, i am concerned about the revolving door between government and the networks. i would discourage that. i think the press really ought to be independent. to the extent that you are

hiring people who are spokespeople for a party or candidate that raises questions who they are working for when they are on the year. >> guest: whether editorial boards carry weight or if they are ineffective due to partisan politics. i know the los angeles times interviewed all the candidates for judgeships and that is not really races the people follow closely. i know many people who could use such recommendations for voting when they don't know the candidates but the overall question is the voice, whether that carries what it used to to this day. >> i'm not sure it ever carried as much clout as we think it didst frankly. i think there's a legitimate question. the new york times has cut back significantly on the number of editorials it publishes.

there is concern about people not being able to distant was between opinion and news and it looks so muddled online. i do think were editorials can make a difference is in the areas you are talking about, races people are not paying attention to, certain issues locally, smaller local newspapers where they can draw attention to issues and away the ordinary person is not focusing on. >> host: a career question from tina in portland who says our granddaughter is in college and wants to be a journalist, what would you tell her? >> host: tell people to ignore their parents and i will include grandparents, they always think you shouldn't going to journalism. my own parents thought i should go into the law and become a lawyer and while i was interested in law i wasn't interested in becoming a lawyer. i think if somebody has a

passion for the field they should go into the field they have a passion for. i went into a field i thought would be interesting and meaningful and i found one. a lot of young people are looking for that today. our field is going to change dramatically. i don't think people should judge the opportunity strictly by what's happening on the employment front at traditional news agassiz organizations, they will have to be entrepreneurial either within organization or on their own and they will have to learn a lot of new skills and if they do that, if they are willing to embrace the things they have to learn, if they're willing and able to do that they have the capacity to have an accelerated career and to jump over people at traditional organizations who are unwilling or unable to change the way they should.

>> the commentary being run by survey right now. lindo, who is retired at the associated press and is my friend, would you be willing to get back into the news business as a powerful voice to save the industry? we will get you your white horse. >> i think i know that. i retired. i don't want to manage people anymore. i did that for most of my career, 20 years as top editor of a news organization so i want to be involved in our profession but in a very different way. one way i did that was by writing this book and talking about it. the things i address in the book and i have to figure out what my next act is. i don't know what that is at the moment but i don't want to go back into running a news organization. >> host: what's your a question

about so-called neutral news source like all sides? i saw a billboard on beverly boulevard a couple days ago talking about number one american neutral news. >> i'm afraid it is not neutral by any stretch. it's part of essentially a group in china and it is closely aligned with trump trying to advance the interests of trump, there's nothing get neutral about it. people should be careful when somebody describes themselves as neutral, be careful of that kind of advertising. it might well be the last place i would look for neutral coverage. >> host: christiane ammann port said be truthful, not neutral. what do you make of that advice? >> i'm in favor of objectivity but i don't think that equates to a false equivalence or both

sides or on the one hand journalism or neutrality. that is a word i wouldn't use. i use objectivity which means, that the concept the goes back 100 years, walter libman popularized it, that means going into to are reporting with an open mind, being willing and wanting to talk to all people you need to talk to looking at all the evidence, doing so rigorously, thoroughly and fairly, being fair to everyone we talked to, being fair to the evidence but also being fair to the public which means you do that work to get at the truth, to get at the reality and the facts and you have, the reason you do that work is to tell people what you have actually found to be true and we have to reach out with the level of humility, we are seeing the world through a keyhole, we should recognize that. sometimes we can crack the door

open a little bit and see more, sometimes we can swing the door wide open if we are lucky and have a lot of skill but we don't always do that so we have to be, have humility about this but when we do get at the truth and the facts, we've done our job really well, we should tell people what we have found. that would be the only honest and honorable thing to do. >> host: amy in richmond has a question, what do you think about how the war in israel is being represented in the news media? >> that's hard to address, who can generalize about the media overall? if everybody acts the same way, there's a lot of different, like saying all politicians, lawyers call doctors, people tend not to say that but they will say the media as if everybody is doing this thing. it's a really complex story. i'm glad i'm not in the beloved. i have been attacked in the

past by all parties for that kind of coverage. there is no satisfying people. the region has been described in a book i just read, a history of violence, counter violence and counter counter violence. it is really complex story in the allegation of the press is to cover that story and all of its complexities with a lot of on the ground reporting. >> host: in albuquerque, talking about people knowing the fundamentals of journalism, how do journalists determine the important stories to cover, the war in gaza starts, coverage of ukraine ends. it's a substantive question we all grapple with every day. >> guest: these are hard decisions that it's based on how much we have in resources and by the way, when you're

covering conflicts like that there are only so may people on staff who have experience covering conflict zones, you don't want to just throw anybody into a story like that if you are in a danger zone, these are risky things and people don't go into these stories because they are trying to advance an agenda, they are trying to tell people what is happening on the ground. nobody risks his or her life to make an ideological point. these are tough. the reality is both these stories are important. i know the post has quite a few people there, new york times does. other organizations do as well. but obviously israel, gaza, is the harder story because it's an ongoing intense conflict with huge risks attached to it, ukraine has huge risks attached to it too. so you do the best you can.

>> host: there's the question of cost. we analyze the los angeles times sending $1 million a year to have a bureau in baghdad. shows are the high costs of covering especially foreign conflicts. douglas wants to know are you concerned by the print and tv influences of sinclair's recent purchase of the baltimore sun, was mandating editorials, conservative editorials that aaron every single market every single station, what are your thoughts about that? about sinclair in general and baltimore because -- >> guest: baltimore was acquired by the ceo of sinclair individually, not the company itself. 's comments from the start were quite worrying. he indicated he had an agenda, a political agenda, he didn't say so expressly he seemed to

signal that is what the newspaper out to be pursuing, stores that would advance his own political views. with regard to sinclair i think food they have certainly leaned to the right and leaned toward trump. at the washington post we were threatened several times with lawsuits by sinclair, seem to be not exactly regular but not irregular sort of thing to get a threatened lawsuit from sinclair. i think that's concerning if there's any organization that is really trying to advance and ideology in its coverage. that's not our job. our job is to be independent. i've always felt independent of any party, any politician. >> younger journalists want to use knows organizations to

advance their personal opinions. we had a letter from a number of journalists in los angeles who were calling for end to the killing of journalists in gaza which is perfectly legitimate journalist related thing to do but then they were talking about how their own papers were covering their said entering into discussions and debate that usually happen within the building on dialtone, substance, and that sort of thing. >> that letter said that news organizations should call israel on apartheid state engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide. it was a poorly written letter in various ways. talks about 200 as raley's being captured. they were not captured, they were taken hostage. i'm opposed to this expression of opinion on social media and elsewhere. i think that is inappropriate, directly violates the guidelines of most news

organizations by the way. i think it undermines the reputation of these institutions. i think a lot of the people expressing these opinions are not directly involved in these stories but are weighing in on them. they hurt the ability of their own colleagues to cover these stories in an objective way. a single post on twitter can draw more attention than an entire project that you've worked on very carefully and it distorts the reputation of these institutions. i think reporters and other journalists within news organizations should exercise care and restraint in what they do and too many of them are not exercising care and restraint. >> host: the guidelines include donating to campaigns. our generation can't put up blondes lines or exhibit any support for one issue or another and certainly can't cover something you might have a stake in so that seems to be a generational shift here.

time for another question before we wrap up with your final thoughts. joyce in los angeles wants to know where you go for your daily news? how do you stay informed? a lot of people will be taking notes on this one. >> i read the washington post, new york times, wall street journal, atlantic, new yorker, boston globe where i work, i've been reading the la times. i read my hometown newspaper, tampa bay times, i read my local paper, the berkshire eagle in berkshire county, massachusetts, let's see, there are a lot of other things i look at. i can't recall them all at the moment but that is pretty much it. >> host: that is a balanced diet. >> guest: may maybe too much.

>> host: jim from las is what would you like to say about the current health and future of the la times? >> guest: the paper has gone through too many years of turmoil. it's a paper where i work for 17 years longer than any newspaper i work that from 1979 to 1996. >> host: did you get a watch? >> guest: i never got a watch. i got a little swag but that's about it. it's a very important paper that plays an important role in covering its region and the kinds of issues that are important to its region. a whole range of things from the environment immigration to world affairs. all i can say is i don't want to inject myself into various controversies. it's gone through too many years of instability.

i think everybody there, same as the post, same as the new york times, same as the los angeles times, everybody needs to work together to make sure the place is successful journalistically and successful commercial or because one doesn't come without the other and that means it has to involve the owner, the editors, the top editors, the journalists, the union. absolutely everybody working together, rather than working at cross purposes because that is the only way you will find a route to success and people should figure out how to do that rather than being at each other's throats. >> here's marty's book. is it in paperback yet? paperback version october, you can share it among your friends. available now. we try to end on a hopeful note. can you give us some hope for the future as we move into this election cycle and beyond?

>> i'm a big reader of history. i read a lot of history. we've gone through rough times in the past in this country as we all know, maybe rougher than we are experiencing today and somehow we find our way through. it's not a straight line, we make progress. that still possible today in the press can play an important role in that. it's endeavoring to do so. we have our hopes, we are not perfect but because we are human beings, we are working hard at it and my view is i try to be optimistic about our profession and our country because i think we can't afford not to be. >> host: we also say democracy dies without subscriptions. italy let's say that. >> guest: it's a pleasure to have you here, your book is really gripping and thank you for writing it and thank you

for spending time with all of us today. >> thanks for having me. >> guest: the editor of the washington post in the bay so cera and his book is available now and in october in paperback. i want to thank everyone who sponsors this program, organizes this program and watches this program. >> friday nights, watch c-span's 2024 campaign trl. . a weekly roundup of c-span campaign coverage providing a 1-stop shop to what candidates across country are saying to voters along with first-hand accounts from political reporters, operated campaign ads. watch c-span's 2,024 campaign trail friday nights at 7:thirty p.m. eastern on c-span, online, c-span.org or download as a podcast on c-span now. our free mobile apps or