Why Marty Baron Is Stepping Down From The Washington Post

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I want to ask you why, with such an illustrious position, being at the top of what’s been a complete news environment, certainly for the last four years, why do you want to step down from this position now?

MARTY BARON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, I’m beyond the normal retirement age. I have been at this for a very long time. I have been the top editor of a news organization for 20 years, and I have been working in the business for 45. And it’s an exhausting job. It’s 24/7, 365, and essentially every minute of every day in the Internet era. And so — and “The Post” is in a great position right now. And so I feel like it’s an appropriate time to step away and enjoy some more personal time and personal liberty.

AMANPOUR: How difficult was it to be a newspaper editor in the time of Trump? Famously, in the year after he was inaugurated, you instituted “The Post”‘s first ever slogan or first ever headline, in which you wrote, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That was the rallying cry for your newspaper. Tell me about what — the thought that went into actually doing that, first time in 240 years at “The Washington Post”?

BARON: Well, it wasn’t connected to Trump. It was — when Jeff Bezos acquired us in 2013, he wanted to have a motto that captured the essence of our mission at “The Post.” And, of course, “The Post” has had a long history and a heritage of shining light in dark corners, of holding power to account. And we were trying to come up with a motto that would encapsulate that. And “Democracy dies in darkness” is an adaptation of a phrase that was used by a judge at the time of Watergate. And Bob Woodward, the famous “Post” journalist, had been using that phrase a lot in his own speech, speaking engagements around the country, and it seemed appropriate. That is our mission, is to shine a light in dark corners. Democracy depends on that. And that’s a motto that, while we created it during the Trump administration, it was not targeted at the Trump administration, and it’s one that we will maintain during the Biden administration.