The OLLI Distinguished Speakers Series presents:

Q&A with Marty Baron on Collision of Power

Online via Zoom

Join OLLI at BCC for a unique Q&A opportunity with Martin Baron.

Marty Baron took the helm of The Washington Post in January 2013, and in August 2013 Jeff Bezos shocked the media world by announcing he would buy the paper from its storied family owners. A few years later, Donald Trump entered the White House and began a relentless campaign against the press, branding journalists as “the enemy of the people.”

Dealing with a billionaire owner and a president targeting the press, Baron guided the Post through one of the most tumultuous chapters in modern journalism. His newsroom provided groundbreaking and award-winning coverage and delivered hard-hitting investigations into lapses at the Secret Service during President Obama's administration, Trump’s dubious charitable claims, and the troubling past of Senate candidate Roy Moore. At the same time, he managed his staff amid cultural reckonings around gender, race, and the changing role of the media itself.

In his talk, he will recount these years with the eye of a reporter and the steady hand of an editor, offering a behind-the-scenes look at journalism under fire—and a searching exploration of power in the 21st century. 

Martin “Marty” Baron retired as executive editor of the Washington Post in February 2021, after spending eight years overseeing the Post’s print and digital news operations and a staff that reached almost 1,000 journalists during his tenure. News staffs under Baron's leadership have won 18 Pulitzer Prizes, including 11 awarded to The Post for public service, national reporting, investigative reporting, explanatory reporting, and other categories.

Previously, Baron had been editor of the Boston Globe. During his more than 11 years with the publication, the Globe won a total of six Pulitzer Prizes for public service, explanatory journalism, national reporting, and criticism. The public service recognition was awarded to the Globe in 2003 for its inquiry into a pattern of concealing clergy sex abuse in the local Catholic Archdiocese. The story of the investigation was told in the gripping Academy Award–winning movie Spotlight (2015).

Baron began his journalism career at the Miami Herald in 1976. Three years later he moved to the Los Angeles Times, working his way up from business reporter to business editor and then to editor of the newspaper’s Orange County edition, which then had about 165 staffers. He landed at the New York Times in 1996, soon becoming the associate managing editor responsible for nighttime news operations. Baron was named executive editor of the Miami Herald in 2000. Under his leadership as its top editor, the Herald won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for breaking news coverage for its reporting on the raid to recover Elián González, a Cuban boy at the center of a fierce immigration and custody dispute.

Baron was born and raised in Tampa, Florida. He graduated from Lehigh University in 1976 with both a BA in journalism and an MBA, having completed a five-year program in four years. His career in journalism has been recognized with numerous honors and awards and he is the recipient of several honorary degrees.

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Ticket information:

Admission is $10 for OLLI at BCC members and $15 for the general public.

If you live in the vicinity of the Roecliff Jansen Community Library in Hillsdale, NY, we will be hosting an in-person social hour and screening of the program. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. 

Admission is free for students, staff and faculty from Berkshire Community College, MCLA, and Williams; youth 17 and under, and those holding WIC, EBT/SNAP, or ConnectorCare cards.