Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20160111

In what was happening in the world am i parents were immigrants to the United States, interested in this country, what was happening in this country and around the world. We would read newspapers and watch Television News and local news. Way back when, i got interested in it. Host you grew up in tampa. Where did your parents come from . Why did they come to the united . Marty baron they came from israel and they came to the United States, believing in the american dream. In 1954, they came to the United States and my father worked in the Citrus Industry in florida. Host when did you understand what journalism was supposed to be . Marty baron in high school, i had a sense of always happening in the profession and i was pretty sure that i wanted to make it my career at an early age. So, i read about it, knew about it, absorbed it. I tried to be professional in high school. In college, i became more aware and majored in journalism, getting the mba. I try to be more and more professional as i learned more about journalism. A lot of what i learned at college i apply today. Host what did you combine . Marty baron there were two reasons. One, i knew the journalism was becoming more specialized and i wanted to have a specialty. The other was that i could not be sure that journalism would be the career for me. I thought it would be. I was not sure. I thought i should have a fallback and business would be one of them. There was probably other reasons, as well. Host what is your definition of journalism . Marty baron making the public aware of what is happening in their communities and holding powerful institutions and individuals accountable. It is one of our most important missions. Host a couple of years ago, Barton Gelman came to you. You got a Pulitzer Prize at the Washington Post and he stood up in the room at the old building and said the following. I want you to watch and explain. It was late at night and i asked him to arrange a meeting with marty baron. He said, it is private, im sorry, and i cannot say why. You might want to bring a lawyer. I had a preposterous pitch of a secret source. I do not actually know his name. When i find out, im not going to tell you away right away. There are scary stamps i have never seen before and there will be hard decisions to make about what to publish and not to publish, because the legal risks are obvious. The post will need all sorts of new security measures. How does that sound . Host what do you remember after that . What did you have to do . Marty baron i remember bart proposing the story of enormous consequence and i felt that weight on my shoulders and i thought it would be a weight on a shoulders on the shoulders of the entire institution. The first thing was to talk to him and find out what the story was. He laid out the story and we talked about it. We had to decide if we would proceed with the story, at least the first story. There were others that would come later. We had a very much in depth conversation about that and we got back to him promptly that we were willing to move ahead with the story. Marty baron he did not work with you. Host he had host he did not work with you. Marty baron he had worked with us. He was working with time and he thought that this was a story he should bring to the Washington Post. He knew the people at the Washington Post and he had heard good things about me. He could not be sure about me, either. So, he brought it to us and took some risk in doing so. I think it was account related calculated risk. Host how did it work from there . Marty baron we put him back on contract and we rode out a contract and we wanted to provide him legal protection, should he need it. It was important to him. We agree to provide that. We had to decide if we wanted to pursue the story and we decided that we did because the story raises all sorts of important privacy considerations for americans and we saw a dramatic increase in the level of surveillance by the u. S. Government with the norms of locations. Enormous implications. There was not a complete surveillance tape. It emerged in a powerful way with a debate among americans about whether or not this was what they wanted from the government. In my view and the view of my colleagues, this was a debate the public should have about what they want the balance to be between privacy and security. Related to security, the level of surveillance. It was important that the American Public participate in that debate. It had huge implications for the kind of society we have here. Host when did you find out that it was Edward Snowden . Marty baron later. It was a matter of weeks or months. I am not sure. Initially, bart did not know who it was. He, ultimately, learned who it was. Host when was the first time you went to the government and what was the reaction . Marty baron the story was ready to go and being written. Bart approached intelligent officials about it and they said they did not want him to write the story, that he should not write the story, that he should not publish the story. We felt that it was important to publish and we were going to publish it. We were going to invite comment. They did not, initially. Ultimately, they did. Host did others follow up with you to not get you to publish . Marty baron i did not hear directly from the government. We have many stories, as you know. We had many meetings with people in the government and i participated in one pretty consequential meeting with intelligence officials. And, many of our reporters had interactions with people in the federal government, as well, in the realm of intelligence. We do not just publish and let the consequences out there to see what happens. We have discussions with them. We are going into considerable detail and we will get the opportunity to make the argument about whether or not the information should be public or not public, down to the most minute detail. Typically, these discussions to get down to the most minute detail. We will have discussions and debates about whether these are relevant or whether they have a bearing on the intelligence networks. We do not want to publish information that reveals. Intelligence sources or individual intelligence methods without some overwhelming Public Interest at stake. Host was there ever a time that you would not publish . Marty baron we felt very comfortable publishing. We had substantial discussions among ourselves about which stories involved Public Interest. That really is the threshold. Is there a Public Interest at stake . Host how much you involve the publisher, the owner, and who was the owner . Marty baron the Washington Posts ceo of the company is donald graham. The publisher was his niece. We afford both that we intended to publish this initial story and subsequent stories, because it has implications for the institution. I could not publish a story like that without letting them know. They signed on. They were aware of what the story was generally about and they were aware that it could have implications for the institution. Host you have been at the Washington Post for 3 years. Marty baron yes. Host jeff bezos is now running. We have an interview talking about what has changed. You have 500,000 subscribers to the Washington Post and the 700,000 on sunday. Where are they . We have 19 million online. We have 19 million readers online. And a lot of people get the coupons. I know you would prefer to throw out. The advertisers did not hear that. A lot of people get tv week and coupons and they want to sit back and read it. Host the numbers have changed dramatically and you are down to 340,000. Marty baron not on sunday. Host the 19 million has gone up. Marty baron we now have 71. 6 million visitors every month. That was a record for us in november. We had a record in october. We passed the New York Times and we widened those leads. We have lots of people reading the Washington Post. Host it seems to me that, since you have come along, there has been a change of ownership with jeff bezos and digital communications. I want to show the new office facility. What does it feel like with the reputation . Here is the new office. So, do you feel a difference . Is this an important passage . Marty baron the old building was fantastic with what it represented and history was made there with watergate and other stories. We have entered an era with digital devices and smart phones. The business has undergone a fundamental change. We have to change along with the industry and the people the way that people are changing news and consumption habits. This is the opportunity to do that, working more collaboratively with Data Visualization experts, video teams, people who specialize in social media, and we are more integrated as a News Organization. The facility has allowed us to do this and it has the technological facilities we need for news information in the modern era. Host you say that the internet is its own medium what did you mean . Marty baron you tell a story on television and you do not read a newspaper story. When you tell it on radio, you do not read the newspaper story. Along comes the web, allowing us to do all sorts of things, telling stories that are materially different. There is a different way that ordinary people interact with desktop computers, their tablets, their smartphones, things like that, allowing us to tell stories different ways and deploy the tools we now have. What people are seeing and tweeting, we incorporate that into the story. If there is an original document that is relevant, we incorporate that. If it makes sense to annotate that, we can make sense of that. It is a story that is a format that is not replicated in print. So, these are stories that work extremely well on the web and we want to do that. On top of that, a lot of times, on the web, people can be more conversational and the stories to be more accessible. You get a better sense of the personality of the writer, rather then a more structured format in a newspaper. Host how many were on the Editorial Staff when you first got there and now . Baron there were650 when i first arrived and it is now at 700. It is rough numbers. Host you have the old journalism and the new camp. What would the oldtimers think of your quote . Host anybody swallow hard . Marty baron they probably swallowed hard. Maybe i swallowed hard when i said it. It is a reality. We need to know how people are reading the information, how many, how they are coming to us. If they are not coming directly to the website and they are coming to us through facebook, twitter, snap chat, reddit, we should know this. There is nothing terribly radical about this. Those of us in the newspaper industry and, i have been in it for 40 years we were taught in journalism that houses work when they read newspapers. More are reading on digital devices. We need to understand how they are reading and it is comparable to how they read newspapers. We need to know how they are reading us. Host what is the impact over the last years . People in the talkshow business have beat on the Mainstream Media every day. I want to run a clip of sean hannity, rush limbaugh, Michael Savage and ask you if it has done any damage to the business. The moral code, the moral compass of statecontrolled media is something to behold. The Mainstream Media is rendered powerless. Im going to play for you this. The Mainstream Media is out of control. You know this. It is beyond repair. We present a list of questions are media ought to be asking. The whorestream media. Marty baron are there any adjectives left . Host i think they got them all. Marty baron they use a term, Mainstream Media, many of them are Mainstream Media. Rush limbaugh is the most successful talkshow host in the country and that would make him Mainstream Media. They are the Mainstream Media, in many ways. That is the first point i would make. The other point i would make is that we should not let this affect us. The thing that we should do is stick to that purpose, that mission, and not be distracted. There is no doubt that this hurt the credibility of the press. It is down from where it should be and ought to be. Outlets like those, their credibility is low among the population who do not agree with them. The people who grew with them, the credibility as high. We have to do an honorable job and the namecalling is pointless. It is an attempt to gain commercial advantage by politicians and other media organizations. That sort of thing. Host alex jones comes out of texas. Michael savage comes out of san francisco. Sean hannity comes out of new york. Pharaoh sarah palin comes out of alaska. A lot of them say that you live in a bubble. Marty baron i think of washington as a bubble. I am not from washington. I grew up in florida. I worked in boston, new york, traveled around the country. Many places can be bubbles. Washington can be a bubble. I dont think that washington or boston necessarily represent the vast majority of americans. It is something we have to be aware of. We have to get out of washington and go to the rest of the country to hear what people have to say and give them a serious hearing. Absolutely. Host i wonder if you have got any creditor for this recently. Robert came from the National Review to the Washington Post. Did you hire him . Marty baron yes. Ginsburg and baron want indepth coverage. When you think about my hire and dave wiegel, this is an organization that prizes objectivity and wants to get more information. I do not consider us ideological in any way. Host why did you hire him . Marty baron he is an exceptionally good reporter and he has done an exceptionally good job covering the conservative movement in the United States. It is an important movements, we want to understand it well and impart that to our readers. That is why we hired him. On the editorial pages you have charles krauthammer, george will, michael gersen. Do people not recognize that or not want to . Marty baron you would have to ask them if they do not recognize it or do not want to. I dont know. Im not in charge of the editorial page, to be clear. We have a wide variety of voices on the farleft to the farright. That is the way it should be. I want the reporters to listen to a wide variety of voices. Dave wigle has done a tremendous job of listening to people and try to understand why they support what they support. Host lets go back and recall when i first mentioned, you leaving lehigh, going to Los Angeles Times. First, you want to the miami herald. What were you doing there . Marty baron i was a reporter in a small town of 12,000 people. Martin county only had 50,000. We were responsible for producing news and features six out of seven days of the week and sometimes we had to struggle to find a story in a place that did not have that much going on. When they made a movie theater, it was big news stop i worked there for nine months and i was reassigned to a bigger place it was big news. I worked there for nine months and i was reassigned to a bigger place. I did that for a while. Because of my mba, eye was invited to be a Business Reporter for the miami herald. It was a time when business reporting was taking off and it was the beginning of 1978. In 1979, the Federal Reserve deregulated Interest Rates and opened the door to investment vehicles, including money market and mutual funds. It starts to self direct investments and it opens the gates, creating a a lot of opportunities for expansions in the hiring of a lot of of Business Reporters. Host a small technique you might have used as a reporter back then, could you tell us about how you get people to talk . Marty baron i believe in listening. Sometimes, people do too much talking. You ask a question and let them go on. They like to talk, tell you what they are doing, tell you what they are up to. Host you have a reputation of not being much of a talker. Is it uncomfortable not to talk sometimes . Marty baron i do not find it uncomfortable at all. In a management role, i like to listen to other opinions. We have 700 in a newsroom. Listening to 700 people can be helpful. A form of crowdsourcing is listening to what a lot of people have to say. They know a lot more than i do. For me to sit there would be a great mistake. We can be a lot stronger and i will listen closely and tried to use the knowledge to the best advantage. Host Los Angeles Times for 14 years . Marty baron 17 years. I covered a lot. What did you remember most about that time . I covered the Michael Milken stuff the early stages of the Michael Milken story Michael Milken stuff. The early stage of the Michael Milken story. I was responsible for a lot of the coverage. Host why did you go to the New York Times . Marty baron it was the right moment in my career and there were things happening at the l. A. Times that i was not totally thrilled with and i had a good opportunity. Host what did you do at the New York Times . Marty baron i went there to be the editor for the newspaper at night and to be a proxy for a couple other senior editors to make sure that the paper met the standards that they set for it and that they made changes, as appropriate. I had a span of nine months where i went from department to department. And, the editor put me in a host what do you say to those who do not read the hard copy over the years . Marty it is hard to describe cultural differences. I think there are significant cultural differences tween the times and the post between the times and the post. One of the things that i find very attractive with the Washington Post is that they work together. You went back to the miami herald as the executive editor and then you went back in 2012 . Marty yes. Brian you are there for the Elian Gonzalez situation. You were also therefore the Martin County elections . Marty yes. Brian remind us of what the miami herald concluded about the florida elections. Marty yes, the u. S. Supreme court decided there would be no fullscale recount of florida and we decided that we should determine for historyss sake, what were the real results . So historys sake and we decided, what were the real results . So we looked across all of florida and we obtained all of the ballots. We went with an Accounting Firm and they did our account and we did they did their count and we did our account and the supervisor of elections held up the ballots and in some instances, the ballots were marked in a way where they could not possibly recounted. If you recall, there were different standards. How do you judge the socalled hanging chads . If they were punctured in some way or if the little piece of paper was holding on, and did you count that or did you not tell that . So we saw that there were votes under various standards and we saw that george bush actually won that election in florida. Brian how many times did you do this . Just once . Marty we did our count just once but the Accounting Firm to their count as well. Brian george bush won . Marty yes, and we both came to the same conclusion. It was the same under every reasonable scenario. Brian how hard was it to decide to do that . Marty idol think it was the hard because the florida election laws allowed us to do that. It was going to be expensive. We knew that. We had to get approval of our ceo of the parent company, which at the time was tony ritter. Tony earth felt that we should hire a big Accounting Firm tony ritter felt that we should hire a big Accounting Firm. We set out to try to get one of the biggest Accounting Firms to do this and none of the biggest would participate in this. It was radioactive. They wanted no part in it. So we went to the next level down. So one company agreed to do it and we were very grateful for that and we said, lets find the contract quickly for the decide that they dont want to do this. The ceo asked me how much i thought it would cost and i said i thought it would cost about a quarter of a million dollars, and election cost is about 850,000. To his credit, he was actually willing to pay the bill and was not holding me accountable for the miss estimate. Brian in 2001, you went to the boston globe where things got really interesting. You came to the post in 2012. Here is video of a woman who changed your life, eileen mcnamara, who was a columnist at the globe. I want folks to see what she looked like and to hear what she was talking about. Eileen the greatest gift that an editor ever gave me was a fellow who said you turned in a story and you know more about this topic than anybody. This is a good piece of journalism but run it through the typewriter one more time and this time, write it like you know it better than anybody else. Write it like you have lived in this world for three weeks. Brian now what role did she play in a very important story . Marty she was referring to the boston globe investigation of the Catholic Church and the coverup of the abuse that was done by the diocese. So the day before i was to start at the boston globe, she ran a column about a priest who had been accused of molesting at least 80 children. She ran a report of the survivors of the abuse that the cardinal, cardinal law, had repeatedly been reassigning a one guy to one position to the next ignoring the fact that he was a serial abuser. And then the archdiocese said that there were baseless allegations and that they were wholly responsible. And then she said at the bottom of the column that the truth may never be known because the documents, the internal documents that could tell us what the truth was were under seal and they may never be disclosed. And she ended that column. So when i went to my first meeting on the first day at the boston globe, we had my first meeting at 10 30 then and we went around the room and people talked about the stories that they were working on and nobody mentioned this particular story and i asked what we were doing to follow up on this particular story. Could we not get to the truth . We had one story coming from one side and could we find out what the actual truth was . So it became truth to me that many of the documents were under seal, and i said that i knew that, but had we discussed a possibility to file a motion to unseal those documents . In florida, i didnt know what those laws in massachusetts were, but in florida, we probably would have gone to court to unseal those documents. But these were not public records. These were private records that were put under seal by the court at the request of the archdiocese. Our instinct would have been to file a motion to unseal those documents. So i raised that at our first meeting and i was met with quite a bit of silence. So i suggested that we meet after the meeting to discuss it and we did and we decided that we would consult our outside attorney, whom i did not know because i had just arrived, and find out what the prospects were for actually succeeding in such a motion. Then we went ahead and ultimately filed a motion and the lawyer got back to us a couple of weeks later and gave us an assessment of the case and an assessment of all of the different circumstances. I asked him what the odds were that he thought we would prevail and in a very lawyer like fashion, he said 50 50. So i said, those are very good odds in journalism, so i said, why do we go ahead . Brian so you are an outsider, you were jewish in a catholic town and what impact did that have on you at the time and you are going up against the cardinal who is still alive and lives in rome now, i guess . Marty he is retired and he lives in rome and oddly enough, he got a very cushy job after this scandal broke. Look, i knew that boston was heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. I knew that the Catholic Church was the single most powerful institution in boston. But many people asked me, why did you decide to go up against the Catholic Church . I did not decide to go up against the Catholic Church, i decided that there was a story in front of us that we needed to pursue. It was a journalistic impulse. That is our job, to find out what the truth is. If somebody says, the truth may never be known, to me, that should be like chum to journalists. We should go out and find out what the truth is. So that is what we decided to do. Brian by now, everybody is paying attention to the story, and there is a movie out about this called spotlight. Here is your team. These are not actors. But the man who plays you, liev schreiber, looks exactly like you, but here you are sitting around and the fellow with the deep voice, robbie robertson, whom i am going to ask you about after this, but there is a person on the right, who is ben bradley, junior. Lets watch. It was just an incredible amount of labor. You need the support of an editor who knows that you are going to be out of the paper for months. We had one in marty. Newspapers are the only medium that have the resources to do indepth reporting, and not just deep investigative projects, but projects that hold people accountable. There were papers around the country and very few papers, particularly at the local level, are doing investigative reporting anymore. We have six reporters on the spotlight team where as we had four in 2001. So there are still papers doing longterm investigative reporting. Brian what impact did the movie have on you . Marty well, i lost some degree of anonymity that i had before. The other fact is that people are recognizing the kind of quality work we did 14 years ago. Brian how who owned the paper back then . Marty it was owned by the New York Times back then, but then it was sold to jeff bezos. We had a norm us had enormous impact and we have gone without that degree of attention for 14 years. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded in 2003, but the level of attention that comes from this movie is well beyond the level of attention that comes from winning a surprise winning a Pulitzer Prize. Brian and there was a harvard law professor and the ambassador to the United States of the vatican, or what they call the holy see, and so i just want to read some of this and get your reaction to it. Quote the press has created the press is created a climate of hysteria by describing the story as a pedophilia crisis, when in fact only a tiny minority of the reported cases involved the files. Abusers of preparest children were distinct from homosexual abusers of young boys. Marty it wasnt just boys by the way, in some cases it was young women or grown women as well and some of it was pedophilia and some of it were boys of an older age. Brian also, she wrote and she spoke and she said i think you could see why i thought it irrelevant to recall the awful disclosures of maria monk. The worse offender by far has been the boston globe which ran 250 stories in 100 days, many on its front page, creating a climate of hysteria the likes of which has not been seen in boston. Marty many of her other quotes were equally ridiculous. Look, the fact is, there was abuse by priests of hundreds and hundreds of young people, particularly boys, and what happened . What did the church do in these cases . It covered it up and not in just one case but in multiple cases. What did we do . We exposed that coverup and i feel very proud of that work. Brian did one of the perpetrators go to prison after the story . Marty he went after the story was released. Brian and he was murdered . Marty yes, he was murdered in prison and he was strangled and stopped on. How many boys did he assaults . About 50. Brian the last quote is from an attorney who teaches at harvard, i often hear that the boston globe will receive a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on this matter. All i can say is that if fairness and accuracy have anything to do with it, awarding the Pulitzer Prize to the boston globe would be like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to osama bin laden. Marty i wish that scene had been in the movie, i wish that quote from that scene would have been in the movie because it is so outrageous. To compare us to terrorists is just so abominable. This quote came from a woman who ultimately became the u. S. Ambassador to the vatican is ridiculous. Even the Catholic Church would not say that today and the vatican would not say that today. Brian here is a clip from the movie and see if anybody recognizes that youre not in it but you are played in it. That is why he had the reaction. I think that is the bigger story. The numbers indicate that there were senior officials involved. Thats all they do, indicate. But what youre trying to tell me is that there are 50 pedophile priest in boston . You make a bunch of noise but it changes things not one bit. We need to focus on the institution, not the individual priests. Practice and policy, show me the church manipulated the system so that these guys didnt have to face charges. Show me these same priests went back into the parishes time and time again and that it came from the top down. Brian is that you . Marty that is me or someone who looks like me. Of course, i was four inches taller in 2001. Brian when you watch the movie, how much is represented the exact way that you did it . Marty that movie was quite faithful as to how the investigation unfolded. I think it is important to keep in mind that it is a movie and not a documentary. You had to compress into two hours a seven plus year investigation and there were a lot of chapters and you had to introduce a lot of themes. So i am very pleased themes. So i am very pleased. Brian there was an article britain in the middle of december and this is the headline on it. You know what it is. Is martin baron the best news editor of alltime . What would you say . Marty well well brian does that make your job harder . Marty yes, it does. I have worked very hard but i dont think these comparisons serve any useful purposes. There are many good editors today and there have been married there have been very many good editors across time. In those comparisons, i am certainly happy to have people judge my work over a period of time, but i dont how you may comparisons from one editor to the next. Brian i want to run something from bill oreilly. A couple of weeks ago. I want to see what you have to say about this. Bill oreilly the attacks on my book, killing reagan. The smears come mainly from one place, the Washington Post editorial page, that is it. They have written three attack columns on my book, three. The publisher of the Washington Post is a man named fred ryan, and he only wants praise and get this, he is also the chairman of the Reagan Library foundation. That has not been disclosed by the Washington Post. Uhoh so there is a huge conflict of enters and post readers have no idea of the agenda that is really going on. Brian please break this down. [laughter] marty first of all, lets be clear, i have nothing to do with the editorial page of the Washington Post and these are run by george will, and if anybody knows him, and i dont know him personally, he is completely independent and he hatotal independence with this column. Brian he does not work there. Marty he does not work in the office and as far as i know he never comes there and he has never come in and he works at home or his own private office, i have no idea. He writes however he wants to write. He doesnt take instruction from the publisher of the post as to what to write, so it is preposterous. The publisher doesnt offer us advice in the newsroom as to what we should publish either. Brian if we look back 30 or 40 years ago, you had the family that owned the post and you had the post in the old building and the watergate experience and now there is a new building, fred ryan is still the chairman of the reagan foundation, and you are a new editor in this, you have had Pulitzer Prize is that you have already won i. Know there is a lot of nostalgia already won. I know that there is a lot of nostalgia. Marty things have changed because our industry has changed. The way that news is being consumed has changed dramatically. We have changed locations and in many ways that is symbolic. We are moving very fast into the digital age. We have become a Digital News Organization by evidence of the kind of trafficking that we have had, but there is something that we dont want to leave behind, values that we have and the principles that we have. And that is something that we absolutely have to hold onto. Brian jeff bezos, the new owner, paid 250 million for the post. Here he is december 15, 2014. Jeff bezos big changes at the post. While it had an international reputation, the product was always a local product, and that was by design. I think for the time, it was a very good strategy and it was super successful for decades. But that is what we are changing. We are in the process of making it supposed in that way so that it can also be we wont we wont we would continue to do local coverage and washington, d. C. , but we would be the newspaper of the capital city of the United States of america. That is a great starting point to be a national and even a global publication. Brian how has the post changed since it went from the former ownership to jeff bezos . Marty well, you heard some of that. We changed our strategy. The strategy in the previous era was more about the washington area. While there is very important things happening in washington since it is the capital of the country, we did not see ourselves as a national News Organization. Now under jeff bezos, our strategy is to become a True National News Organization and maybe Even International over time. So that is a significant change. How do we do that . We do that by a living in a digital era and we have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves and reach of many more people, millions of people, that we have not been able to reach before. We dont have to deliver a newspaper to their doorstep. They can read us on our website, they can read us through facebook, they can read us via twitter, however they want to do it. So we have really reinvented ourselves for a digital age and for a national audience. Brian the publication is now down to 320,000 and will it go up or will it just go to digital . Marty in my lifetime, i dont know, we will see. [laughter] marty in my real lifetime, maybe, but in my business lifetime, my guess is that they will continue to find profit. Our readers are tremendous readers and we really value them and we want to give them the best product possible. They are extremely loyal and we should be loyal to them as well. So i think that those readers will be there for a long time because they really love to read in print. Theyll they are very attached to it. But the trend is pretty clear. Readership is down and that is true across the United States and it is true of every newspaper in the developed world. On the internet, our audience is growing dramatically. We have far more readers of the Washington Post today than we ever have had in the history of the Washington Post. Brian there was an article that i was reading where before you were selected to be the editor at the miami herald, someone asked you about an ad on the front page and you said, basically never as long as i am there. Marty he wanted to plant ads on the front page and i at the time was adamantly opposed to ads on the front page of the miami herald. And i said let me know now if i need to do that and i need to know whether or not i decide to come. And i think he liked my combativeness on that issue and my strong point of view. He is a lawyer by background and he likes argument and we are good friends today. We did not have ads on the front page of the miami herald when i was there. Even though at one point there was a desire to start putting them there, even a year after i had been put there, and i said, i had made a promise when i came and my promise was not to put an ad on the front page. The decision to put as of the front page of the Washington Post or on the boston globe were made by the editor and i might have done that when i was there. Brian so when you leave the post, what will you have to have done to walk out and say that this was a success . Marty that we are truly a Digital News Organization. I would like to make sure that it is not just Second Nature but first nature for us on have to be a Digital News Organization. I want to continue to become a News Organization that creates ambitious work and that we take on ambitious new stories and that we hold people accountable. I want us to be journalistically ambitious and digitally innovative and to make progress in the digital world. Brian last question, if your is nominated, d expect to go do you expect to go to the oscars . Marty i am hopeful that they would invite us to be there. I have no idea how that works or who gets tickets or how many tickets are available and i will wait to hear it. If not, i am fine, and i will watch it with great interest. Brian give us one downside about the movie. Marty i dont see a downside. I lost some of my anonymity, i like my anonymity, and now i walk around and people recognize me. But i want the public to reflect upon our role in society and understand the importance of investigative journalism. Also, what it takes to do that kind of work correctly. I hope this focuses the publics attention on what is local and it became a national story, but it started as a local story just as watergate started as a local story. I hope this causes us in the press to not only rededicate ourselves to strong investigative journalism, but to listen to people on the margins our society, people who perhaps dont have a strong voice in society our society, people who perhaps dont have a strong voice in our society. Brian marty baron, thank you so much for joining us. Marty thank you so much for having me. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for free transcripts or to give us comments about this program, visit qanda. Org. They are also available on cspan podcasts. Announcer if you enjoyed this weeks q a interview with marty baron, you can tune in next week to watch the interview with walter pincus. Robert costa talks about Robert Donald trump, and Jill Abramson talks that her time as editor of the New York Times. You can watch these anytime or search as president obama prepares for his state of the Union Address on tuesday, he released this video on twitter. I am working on my state of the Union Address. My last one. The road weg about traveled together the last seven years. Is ourkes America Great capacity to change together, to come together as one American Family and pull ourselves closer to the america we believe in. It is hard to see sometimes in washington, but it is who we are and what i want to focus on in this address. Atcspans coverage starts harkin,tern with james looking back at the history and tradition of the president s annual message and what to expect this year. At 9 00, our live coverage of the president s speech followed by a response by nikki haley. Plus, your comments by tweet and email on cspan, cspan radio, and www. Cspan. Org. Coverageeair our starting at 11 00 p. M. Eastern, 8 00 p. M. Pacific, and live on cspan2 after the speech, you will hear from members of congress with their reaction to the president s address. Students around the country are working on cspans student documentary contest, telling us they want the issues they want president ial candidates to discuss. On social media, we are following students as they produce their videos. , eightharlane tweeted grade students were excited to hear ben carson address gun control. Crause tweeted, two students interviewed eric holder