February 16, 2024

 

Utah Valley University (UVU) is pleased to welcome Martin “Marty” Baron on March 26, 2024, to speak as part of UVU’s Presidential Lecture Series. ALL are welcome to attend at 11:30 am in the Vallejo Auditorium.

 

Baron retired as executive editor of The Washington Post in February 2021, having overseen for more than eight years The Post’s print and digital news operations and a staff that grew to 1,000 journalists.

 

In the course of his career, Baron has led newsrooms to 18 Pulitzer Prizes. For coverage during his tenure, The Post won 11 Pulitzers: two for public service, four for national reporting, two for explanatory reporting, and one each for investigative reporting, criticism and feature photography.

 

Previously, Baron had been editor of the Boston Globe. During 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 investigation into the cover-up of sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church. The story of the investigation was told in the 2015 movie Spotlight, which won the Academy Award for best picture.

 

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 five honorary degrees. He speaks fluent Spanish.