What do you do when your new boss is the richest man in the world, and he has just purchased your place of employment?  This is the situation that Martin Baron, then the executive editor of the Washington Post found himself seven months into his new position in 2013.  His new boss was Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon which created an arrangement conducive to a great deal of pressure, and to exacerbate the situation further, Donald Trump announces for president in 2015 and by 2017 resides in the White House.  Trump heightens Baron’s angst as he wages a war of unprecedented vitriol and vengeance against Bezos personally and the media, especially the Washington Post.  The period 2013 to 2021 forms the time frame of Baron’s new memoir/history of the period, COLLISION OF POWER: TRUMP, BEZOS, AND THE WASHINGTON POST.

Baron’s book is much more than a rehashing of Trump’s war against Bezos and Amazon/Washington Post.  It is a well thought out and incisive examination of a career in newspaper publishing, particularly Baron’s role as executive editor at the newspaper.  Baron who had spent nearly twelve years leading the Boston Globe, recounts how he managed the Post’s newsroom and dealt with issues ranging from domestic surveillance, the #metoo movement, vetting Supreme Court candidates, to the myriad of scandals and crisis’ that surrounded Trump, the individual in addition to his administration, two impeachment trials, an insurrection, navigating internal issues at the newspaper, in addition to the comparisons between the Post and New York Times.

(Martin Baron, author)

It is clear from the outset that the Washington Post was a target of Trump’s.  The newspaper coverage of him personally and his campaign angered him, and he leaned on Jeff Bezos to get Baron’s newsroom to back off with their criticism which would continue after he was elected president.

Baron begins his memoir by explaining the background as to how Bezos came to buy the Washington Post.  As the narrative continues it is clear that Baron likes and respects Bezos as he believes in the essential role of journalism in a democracy as the reason he purchased the paper.  Further, Baron argues that Bezos never interfered with the paper’s coverage of Amazon, his affair and divorce, and never used his position to spread his influence.  Bezos relished the challenge of turning the paper around and moving it into the digital age.  Bezos’ greatest concern was whether his strategy of “shifting from relatively few subscribers paying a lot for a subscriptions to lots of subscribers paying fairly little for digital subscriptions – would actually work.”  Baron reviews Bezos’ approach to management and the numerous changes he implemented, i.e.; to create a nation/worldwide network of journalists who would be a free-lance force.  For Bezos it would expand the journalistic reach of the paper at “bargain basement prices.”

(Martin Baron, left, and Jeff Bezos in 2016. After Mr. Bezos bought The Post in 2013, Mr. Baron had more resources and sought a bigger digital audience).

As one reads on, Baron rehashes the nightmare of the Trump presidency, his refusal to accept the fact he lost the 2020 election, and the events surrounding January 6^th.  There is little that is new here though the emphasis is on Trump’s obsession with Amazon which he believed manipulated newspaper coverage of him personally.  Since he blamed the Washington Post for unfair criticism he went after the retail behemoth arguing it paid no taxes, it was ripping off the US Postal system, and it engaged in unfair trade practices.  To Baron’s credit when coverage of Trump did not meet the Post’s standards he refused to publish.  A good example is his handling of the Steele Dossier that accused Trump of election cooperation with Russian interference in 2016, sexual proclivities, the attempt to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and his relationship with Vladimir Putin.  In the end the document developed by a former British spy did not meet the standard the paper relied on for publication.  No matter what the coverage of Trump, Baron points out in his war against the media “any questions that put him on the spot was an offense.”

Baron’s chapter dealing with the death of Jamal Khashoggi is important as it highlights Trump and his allies’ war on journalists.  It is clear that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was culpable in his death, and it is interesting how Baron creates links between the Saudi leadership’s approach to critical journalism and that of Trump.  Both men sought to intimidate journalists and make them live in fear.  If one follows Trump’s reaction to the murder it is clear he did not care, and interestingly after his presidency his son-in-law received a $2 billion Saudi investment in his business fund.  Salman would even go after Amazon because of the Post’s coverage of his government and referred to Bezos as “that Jew.”

(Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan)

Baron should be praised for his honesty as he navigated his relationship with Bezos and allowed a focus on Amazon’s anti-union labor practices, its marketing strategies that hurt secondary vendors, and most importantly its surveillance policies – Alexa is in your home gathering intelligence against you and your family!  To Bezos’ credit he did not interfere with any of any story that involved his personal life or businesses.  Further, Baron delves into issues dealing with social media, racial practices at the paper, and objectivity that brought him into conflict with younger and black journalists.

In the end Baron grew skeptical with the reporter’s combative tweets and their airing of their social views.  A newspaper traditionalist Baron almost resigned amidst the covid crisis, and Black Lives Matter Movement as he felt reporters were putting their own opinions above those of the newspaper. In summation I agree with Sewell Chan’s conclusion presented in his New York Times review in which he states, “As Baron describes it, the job of an editor today revolves as much around spreadsheets, team building, labor negotiations and social media guidelines as it does around relationships with reporters and supervision of coverage. That Baron managed that high-wire act so successfully — The Post won 10 Pulitzers on his watch — in an era of wrenching changes in politics and journalism shows that newsroom leadership, however devoid of ease or glamour, remains essential.”*

*Sewell Chan, “At His Post,” New York Times, October 15, 2023.