In address on media ethics, former Washington Post editor worries about fading moral compass

NEW YORK (AP) — In a speech about the importance of ethics in the news media, veteran editor and retired Washington Post leader Marty Baron is singling out for criticism CBS News leaders, advocacy journalists and mainstream reporters who failed to aggressively cover former President Joe Biden’s fitness for office.

The renowned Baron, also a former editor of The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald, gave a keynote address Wednesday as New York University handed out journalism awards. The Associated Press was praised for its “unyielding defense of ethical standards and principles” for not changing its style guidance after President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico. The AP’s lawsuit against the White House for reducing some of its access is currently under consideration by an appeals court.

NYU also honored The Atlantic for how it wrote about its editor inadvertently being included in a text chain with Trump administration and military figures, and student journalists at NYU, Stanford and the University of Texas at Dallas.

Worries that ‘to each his own’ is replacing an ethical compass

While conceding he risked sounding sanctimonious, Baron dove right in. He said he worried that journalists can’t agree on an ethical compass — seeking the truth with humility is his suggestion — and that “to each his own” is becoming the evolving ethos for many who cover and talk about the news.

“We will be doing ourselves no favors if that turns out to be the case,” he said. “All of us will likely be tainted by the worst practices of any one of us.”

Baron praised some work he considered exemplary, including Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown’s reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein case and Knight Ridder stories in the run-up to the Iraq War more than two decades ago. But he spent more time on his concerns.

Among them: How Paramount Global mogul David Ellison and his choice for CBS News editor-in-chief, Free Press founder Bari Weiss, are positioning that network. Paramount is also seeking Trump administration approval for its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which would also give the company control over CNN. Ellison has said CBS News — and CNN if it comes to that — will maintain editorial independence.

Ellison has said he wants CBS News to prioritize talking to Americans who identify as center-left or center-right politically, a group that he considers the majority of the country. Baron said that was “a political goal. It is not a journalistic one.”

He said that a news organization using that as a guiding principle “is fated to compromise ethics when a rock-solid story moving toward publication is deemed to fall outside the designated political comfort zone.” A CBS News representative had no immediate comment.

Ellison’s perceived closeness with the Trump administration has become a prism through which much of CBS News’ coverage is now viewed.

For example, the network was criticized in February for different framing of statistics on who ICE was arresting in immigration crackdowns. The network initially reported that 40% of those arrested had no criminal history and that 14% were charged or convicted of violent crimes — the so-called “worst of the worst” the administration had talked about deporting. But later on “CBS Evening News,” the focus had shifted to the statistic that 60% of those arrested had a criminal history.

CBS News has also received attention for inviting Trump administration officials to sit at its table later this month at the White House Correspondent Association dinner. Those dinner invites are common for news outlets at that event — not just CBS — but are being watched more closely due to the administration’s attacks on the media.

Cable networks that operate as a bullhorn for the administration

In his NYU speech, Baron also criticized “cable networks that function as mouthpieces and bullhorns for the administration, who routinely funnel on-air personalities into its top positions and who supply them with lucrative landing spots when they exit. These outlets render themselves largely indistinguishable from the governments they are supposed to cover.”

His remarks came less than 24 hours before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News Channel host, used his Pentagon podium to criticize journalists he said were “only looking for the negative” in their coverage of the Iran war. He said it reminded him of a biblical story of Pharisees who cast doubt on a miracle performed by Christ.

“Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” Hegseth said Thursday.

Baron denounced media figures from both political sides who see everything through a partisan lens, consult only people who say what they want to hear and seize on an isolated fact to make sweeping judgments. “This is an outrage and advocacy industry,” he said, “not a fact-finding profession.”

He also said many journalists failed to live up to the mission of seeking the truth about Biden’s cognitive and physical struggled during his term as president. Baron announced his retirement from the Post in January 2021, days after Biden took office.

“Did some among us shy from aggressively exploring his intellectual and physical health for fear of aiding Donald Trump’s campaign and alienating loyal readers, viewers and listeners?” Baron asked. “My guess is yes. If so, would that be an ethical breakdown in our profession? Again, I’d say yes.”

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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.