After weeks of speculation, Boston Globe editor Marty Baron has announced he will take on the position of executive editor at the Washington Post. Soon after making his announcement, Baron spoke to WGBH about whether he’ll have trouble leaving Boston, the city he’s called home for more than a decade.
“I did and do really like it here,” Baron said. “More recently I was approached by the leadership of the post about the possibility of taking on this job. It’s an intriguing opportunity, an extraordinary opportunity; it’s a news organization that has had a defining role in American journalism for decades. But I do love Boston, and I’ve loved my time at the Globe, and had this not come along, I expect that I would have continued here in Boston.”
Baron says that he has no “road map” for how he will lead the Post once in Washington. Instead he says he hopes to work with current staff to better understand the paper’s strengths and weaknesses and use this collaboration to develop a plan for the Post’s future.
But Baron does admit that he is headed to Washington at a time of transition for the Post, and for news organizations at large. “Well, our mission at the post will be like the mission of many news organizations these days, which is prepare ourselves for the digital future — which is actually the digital present — and still hold true to our core values and our core mission,” Baron explains. “That’s what we’re trying to do here at the Globe, and that’s what I expect we’ll be trying to do at the Washington Post as well.”
Baron has led The Boston Globe since July 2001. During his term at the Globe the paper won six Pulitzer Prizes. Baron began his career as a reporter at the Miami Herald in 1976 and was executive editor there before joining the Globe. He’s also held top editing positions at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Marty Baron will assume his position at the Washington Post on Jan. 2.
