BOSTON (MA)
Suffolk Journal
June 1, 2019
By Haley Clegg
One of America’s most distinguished journalists came to Suffolk University to be presented with the Ford Hall Forum’s 2019 First Amendment Award. Martin, or ‘Marty,’ Baron was the former editor of the Boston Globe from 2001 to 2012, and is the current executive editor of the Washington Post.
“The Forum honors you for your powerful, dogged, determined and fearless defense of the First Amendment, one of the greatest constitutional rights in our country,” said Susan Spurlock, the Executive Director of the Form Hall Forum, as she presented Baron with the award.
Following the presentation, Baron sat down for a discussion about journalism with NPR’s Meghna Chakrabarti.
Baron said his passion for journalism began in his childhood home in Tampa, Florida. His parents were both immigrants, which fueled an interest in what was happening both in this country and around the world. Their media habits included reading the local newspaper, receiving their weekly Time Magazine and watching network and local news channels every evening.
Newsrooms under Baron have won a plethora of awards, including 16 Pulitzer Prizes. Six of those were earned while he was the executive editor of the Boston Globe. The Globe was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003 for its investigation into clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
“The day before I was to start, on that Sunday there was a column by Eileen McNamara, a regular columnist at the Globe and she talked about the case of a particular priest John Geoghan who had been accused of abusing as many as 80 kids, and at the end of the column she pointed out that the lawyer for the plaintiffs had alleged that the Cardinal himself, Cardinal Law, was aware of this abuse and yet re-assigned this particular priest from parish to parish,” said Baron in an interview with The Suffolk Journal.
“At the end of the column she said, ‘the truth may never be known,’ which is like chum to journalists. If you say the truth may never be known, well the truth should be known and we should be going after it,” said Baron.
The story of the Globe’s Spotlight team investigation into the Catholic Church was later portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight.” Baron has seen the film and believes it gave great insight into how journalism is actually practiced.
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