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Martin Baron is one of the most respected journalists in the United States and around the world, known for the rigor, independence, and quality of his investigative journalism.
He began his career in 1976 at The Miami Herald, and in addition, he worked at The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, before to lead two of the most influential newspapers in the United States: The Boston Globe (2001-2012) and The Washington Post (2012-2021).
Under his editorial leadership, these newsrooms have won 17 Pulitzer Prizes, ten at The Washington Post; six at The Boston Globe, and one at The Miami Herald.
After retiring from the Post in 2021, he wrote a memoir titled “Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post,” in which he praised the support provided by the paper’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, for maintaining the newsroom’s independence during President Donald Trump’s attacks.
Four years later, at the Centroamérica Cuenta festival, held in Guatemala from May 19-24, 2025, — in a conversation with Carmen Aristegui, director of Aristegui Noticias, and Pepa Bueno, director of El País—Baron acknowledged that his book “needs a sequel” to analyze the consequences of the tech mogul’s capitulation during Trump’s second term.
In an interview on the program Esta Semana, which airs on CONFIDENCIAL’s YouTube channel, due to television censorship in Nicaragua, Martin “Marty” Baron analyzed the threats to press freedom and democracy in the United States under Donald Trump — whom he describes as “an aspiring autocrat who disdains the Constitution and wants to eliminate independent arbiters — the press, the judiciary, the entire U.S. legal system, academia, and law firms.”
Still, Baron notes that the U.S. is not yet a dictatorship: “There’s freedom of expression. I can express my views now and I hope I can return to my country after this interview. But we’ve discovered that the country’s democratic institutions are weaker than we thought, and Trump wants more power. His only tool is the threat of force.”
Trump, Bezos and The Washington Post
In 2023, you published a memoir about your time as executive editor of The Washington Post during Donald Trump’s first presidency. In it, you portray a brave newsroom, backed by its owner — billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — standing up to a president who branded the press as the “enemy of the people.” What was that collision between Trump, Bezos, and The Post like?
Bezos had bought the paper in 2013, seven months after I joined. He gave us full editorial independence and I’m very grateful. We were covering Trump extensively, digging deep into his personal and professional history, and he didn’t like what he saw. He began by attacking The Washington Post, but quickly turned on Jeff Bezos as well. He accused him of buying the Washington Post to dodge taxes, claimed we were lobbyists for his company, Amazon.
Trump also threatened to triple Amazon’s delivery rates and interfered in a $10 billion cloud services contract to ensure it wouldn’t go to Amazon. He kept interfering. But Bezos never meddled in our editorial decisions. It was a full-blown clash between Trump and The Post, and between Trump and Bezos — because Trump believed Bezos should have interfered in The Washington Post’s coverage.
You retired from the paper in 2021 and now in 2025, during Trump’s second term, Jeff Bezos has made a series of compromises and alliances with Donald Trump. What happened? Has the owner effectively surrendered the Washington Post to Trump’s power?
I believe he has given in to Trump’s pressure. The paper’s coverage hasn’t changed. There’s still solid investigative reporting on Trump, his cabinet, and his administration. Each day brings revealing stories. The columnists and editorials still criticize him. But Bezos’s behavior and decisions have seriously damaged the paper’s brand and done a disservice to the journalists working there.
Eleven days before the 2024 election, he decided not to publish a presidential endorsement editorial for Kamala Harris, written by the Opinion section.
He appeared onstage at Trump’s inauguration, like a trophy alongside other tech executives. Amazon also bought the rights to a so-called documentary on Melania Trump’s life, of which she’s the executive producer. Clearly, it’s not an independent documentary, yet Amazon paid $40 million for the rights, triple the next highest offer.
Amazon recently announced it would acquire the rights to the TV series The Apprentice, which ended years ago. The purchase amount wasn’t disclosed, but Trump still owns rights to the show, so that’s money straight into Trump’s pocket.
And also, Bezos made a decision to limit the range of opinions published in the Opinion section of the Washington Post. We haven’t seen the consequences of that decision yet, but he’s going to limit the range of views, and I think it’s undemocratic.
What effect has Bezos’s relationship with Trump had on journalists and The Washington Post’s subscribers?
Some journalists have left the paper. They don’t agree with Bezos’ policies, and have doubts about the paper’s future. There’s been a major talent exodus. But the journalists who remain continue to do good work.
As for readers, after the decision to block the Harris presidential endorsement editorial, 300,000 people canceled their subscriptions. It did a lot of damage to the paper’s sustainability. And after the decision to narrow the range of opinions, nearly 75,000 more subscriptions were canceled.
A Dangerous Time for the Press and Democracy
In these early months of Trump’s second term, there’s an open battle between the president and some media outlets, even lawsuits against TV networks. How much political and economic power does the presidency now wield over the U.S. media?
This is a very dangerous time for the press and for democracy as well. Trump has threatened the press in many ways. Even before taking office, he had filed lawsuits against the media. Just before his inauguration, for example, his lawyers reached a settlement with ABC, in which the network paid Trump $15 million and an additional $1 million to reimburse him for the cost of his lawyers. Now his lawyers are negotiating with CBS over complaints about how an interview with Kamala Harris was edited. It looks like they are close to settling for $40 or $50 million.
There’s also a federal agency that regulates TV networks — and it has launched several investigations into major networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC, with one exception: Fox. Fox has clearly become a propaganda arm of the Trump administration, and the government is doing nothing to scrutinize that network. And there are other measures that Trump has put in place: threatening the press, undermining public trust in independent journalism, and undermining the economic model of the press as well.
You are describing a phenomenon that bears some similarity to the economic pressures being exerted by the Trump presidency on public and private universities in the United States. Some, like Columbia, have capitulated. Others, like Harvard, are holding on despite the funding cuts.
Trump is trying to destroy all of the country’s institutions. He doesn’t want any independent arbiter of truth. He thinks like an aspiring autocrat: he wants to own the truth, and to do that, he needs to eliminate anyone who can challenge it, like the press, judges, the judiciary as a whole, academics, and law firms that have defended those he considers enemies, even though the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to legal representation. But Trump is a man who despises the Constitution, who shows no respect for the rule of law, for freedom of expression, or for freedom of the press. He is doing deep and lasting damage to all of the country’s democratic institutions.
An aspiring autocrat in the United States
Some political scientists I’ve spoken to say it’s no longer accurate to call the United States a full democracy and that it’s now a competitive authoritarian regime, where elections can apparently still take place. You say he’s an aspiring autocrat. What is he still missing to become a full autocrat?
It’s only been just under four months, he still has time. He has done a lot of damage in a short time, but the country is not a dictatorship. There is freedom of expression. I can express my own opinions now and I hope I can return to my country after this interview. But we’ve discovered that the country’s democratic institutions are weaker than we thought, and he wants to gain more power. He really only has one tool: the threat of force.
What are the tools of resistance to stop these authoritarian tendencies from Trump? Does it depend on civil society, the media, universities? Or does it hinge more on politics — Congress, the Democratic Party, and the opposition in the upcoming midterm elections?
Everything depends on the American people, on the citizens themselves. They have to exercise their own rights, they have to support the democratic institutions of the country. Unfortunately, in the United States we have seen a great decline in support for democracy, because many people think that it has not translated into an improvement in their daily lives. However, there is a lot of support for the constitution, for democratic institutions.
The judiciary has done a good job. Congress, on the other hand, is doing nothing. There’s no resistance there because Republicans control both the House of Representatives and the Senate. So, a lot will depend on the elections in two years.
What role does the mood of the population, especially those who voted for Trump, play in all of this? Polls after the first 100 days showed some disillusionment around specific issues. For example, how much does Trump’s consolidation or weakening depend on how the economy performs?
The economy might be the most important factor because it directly affects everyday people. If inflation rises, if there’s a recession, if people lose their jobs or have to pay more because of tariffs, we’ll likely see a drop in support for Trump. We’ve already seen some decline in his approval. But the Democratic Party doesn’t have a strong brand right now, it’s a weak one, and there’s also a lack of leadership in the party. So, much depends on the elections, and on the economy.
How do you assess the impact and projection of this type of leadership in the United States — which is no longer fully democratic and leans toward authoritarianism — in Latin America, in Europe, and in its relationships with China and Russia?
It will have many repercussions in other countries. Trump is following the example of some leaders in Latin America, the autocratic leaders, and he has put in place several measures that are authoritarian in nature. But there are also leaders in Latin America who are following Trump’s example.
In the past, the United States was the standard bearer of the rule of law, of the importance of a Constitution, of freedom of the press, freedom of expression. Now it has lost that role in the world. And in other countries there is much, much fear about the lack of a model for freedom of expression, because there are leaders who think they can do whatever they want to repress the press.
The new challenges of the press in the United States
The Washington Post developed a fact-checking tool to track Donald Trump’s statements and exposed Trump’s narrative of lies. He’s a president who lies repeatedly, yet remains immensely popular. Does that mean Trump has some other kind of connection with his audience, or is it a failure of the media?
I don’t think it is a failure of the media. It forces us to tell the truth, to dig deep into the facts. During his first administration, we discovered that he made over 30,000 false or misleading claims. But many citizens believe all politicians lie. So it becomes: “He lies for me. He’s part of my tribe. He speaks the way I speak. He understands my concerns, my struggles, my expectations.”
People are thinking about their day-to-day lives, about economic conditions. And a lot of people were fed up with political correctness. He won the election by a very narrow margin, but he got more votes than Kamala Harris and won in key swing states.
How do you do journalism when lies are normalized, media outlets are under huge financial pressure, and audiences are consuming disinformation on social media? What’s the biggest challenge for journalists in the U.S.?
The biggest challenge is that we can’t even agree on what the facts are, because all the elements we used to rely on to define facts have been devalued—education, expertise, knowledge, and most of all, evidence. All of that has been diminished, and it’s very dangerous for the press, for democracy, and for social progress. The challenge is how we should carry out our work.
There are several measures we should put in place. First, we should cover everyone in society honestly, accurately, and fairly. We must never look down on anyone, never talk down to anyone. Many people want to see themselves reflected fairly and accurately in our reporting.
Second, we have to have a radical transparency policy, demonstrate to the public how we do our work. When there is a judicial document, for example, we should publish the whole document so that the public can see that we have not taken the information out of context. The same goes for videos, audio clips, and data— we should provide the public the links to that data.
Third, the way we consume information is changing, particularly among young people, but among other people as well. This is a more visual age. Many young people prefer short videos, and audio. We have to change the way we communicate with the public. There are influencers and podcasters who transmit more authenticity. We, in the media, always focused on authority, deep factual research is important, it is the foundation of our profession and we must keep doing that. But we also need to think about how we communicate. Because if we don’t speak with authenticity, the public won’t credit us with authority either.
And this shift that Trump has introduced in American society, is it tied to him as a person, to a specific moment, or is it something that could become permanent in U.S. society?
I can’t predict that. It’s too early to tell. It depends on the resistance of citizens, on his impact, and on the economy, because if more people are suffering, he could lose support.
And if Trump’s economy is successful, that authoritarian model could also consolidate.
Yes, of course. But we journalists always have to fulfill our mission. We have an obligation to tell the public the truth, to investigate the facts, to exercise our profession with honesty and accuracy. There’s no other option. But we must also change the way we communicate with the public. The Trump Administration has taken advantage of new media—emerging platforms, podcasters, influencers. He was very successful and we need to reflect on his success and that of new media players.
Does the U.S. press have anything to learn from journalists in societies under authoritarianism?
Yes, journalists in Latin America are courageous — they’ve stayed true to their mission. And incredibly, they’ve managed to keep their sense of humor. It’s impressive. I always say that as journalists, we have to think about valor in both senses of the word: courage, and also value in the sense of usefulness. We always have to think about the usefulness of our reporting.
