Dean P. Baquet (pronounced bah-KAY; born September 21, 1956) is an American journalist. He has been the executive editor of The New York Times since May 14, 2014. Between 2011 and 2014 Baquet was managing editor under the previous executive editor Jill Abramson. He is the first black American to serve as executive editor.
In 1988, Baquet won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism leading a team of reporters that included Bill Gaines and Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune who exposed corruption on the Chicago City Council.
Early life and education
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Baquet was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 21, 1956. He is the son of well-known New Orleans restaurateur Edward Baquet and a member of a prominent New Orleans Creole family.
Baquet graduated from St. Augustine High School in 1974. Baquet studied English at Columbia University from 1974 to 1978; however, he dropped out to pursue a career in journalism.
Career
Baquet was a reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1984, he joined the Chicago Tribune, where he won the Pulitzer, before joining The New York Times in April 1990 as a Metropolitan Desk Reporter. In May 1992, he became the special projects editor for the Business Desk. In January 1994, he held the same title; however, he operated out of the executive editor's office. In 2000, he joined the Los Angeles Times as managing editor, and in 2005 became the editor for the newspaper. Baquet was fired in 2006 after he publicly opposed plans to cut newsroom jobs.
In 2007, Baquet rejoined The New York Times, where he held positions as the Washington Bureau Chief, national editor, assistant managing editor, and the managing editor. He was appointed to the Managing Editor position in September 2011, serving under executive editor Jill Abramson, and promoted to executive editor on May 14, 2014.
In 2017, Baquet defended the decision to publish confidential photos from the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing investigation shared by UK intelligence and law enforcement with their US counterparts. In response, the UK restricted intelligence sharing with the US.
Baquet joined the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists in 2003.
Notable stories
Baquet was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1988, in recognition of a six-month investigation that he conducted alongside Tribune reporters William C. Gaines and Ann Marie Lipinski documenting corruption and influence-peddling in the Chicago City Council in a seven-part series. Baquet was also a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize.
As managing editor at the Los Angeles Times, Baquet was involved in the newspaper's decision to publish, a few days before the 2003 California recall election, an article raising concerns about containing "a half-dozen credible allegations by women in the movie industry" that Arnold Schwarzenegger, a front-runner in the election, had sexually harassed them. The newspaper debated whether to withhold publication until after the election, ultimately deciding not to do so.
In 2006, Brian Ross and Vic Walter of ABC News reported that Baquet and Los Angeles Times managing editor Douglas Frantz had made the decision to kill a planned Los Angeles times story about NSA warrantless surveillance of Americans, acceding to a request made to him by the Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and Director of the NSA Michael Hayden. Baquet confirmed that he had spoken with Negroponte and Hayden, but said that "government pressure played no role in my decision not to run the story" and that he and Frantz had determined that "we did not have a story, that we could not figure out what was going on" based on highly technical documents submitted by a whistleblower. Baquet's decision was criticized by Glenn Greenwald, who said that Baquet had "a really disturbing history of practicing this form of journalism that is incredibly subservient to the American national security state."
In January 2015, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Baquet called Marc Cooper, a journalism professor and blogger at the University of Southern California, "an asshole" on Facebook. Cooper had criticized the New York Times for not publishing the cartoons of Muhammad, in the context of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Baquet explained to National Public Radio that some mainstream media outlets were too secular for their own good. "I think that the New York-based and Washington-based ... media powerhouses don't quite get religion. We have a fabulous religion writer, but she's all alone. We don’t get religion. We don’t get the role of religion in people’s lives. And I think we can do much, much better. And I think there are things that we can be more creative about to understand the country.†Baquet later characterized an article in which the New York Times public editor questioned the Times' prior coverage as a "bad column" that comes to a "fairly ridiculous conclusion."
Personal life
In September 1986, Baquet married writer Dylan Landis. Together they have one son, Ari.
According to Baquet's colleagues, he prefers to be known as "Creole", as opposed to African-American. His brother, Terry, has stated, "Creole in New Orleans is Black. We're descendants of Haitians. We're Black; Creole is not a race."
Awards
- Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1988 for a piece on corruption in the Chicago City Council.
- Peter Lisagor Award for investigative reporting, 1988
- William H. Jones Award (Chicago Tribune) for Investigative Reporting, 1987, 1988 and 1989
References
External links
- "Dean Baquet, Executive Editor". The New York Times Company. Retrieved June 22, 2016.Â
- Media related to Dean Baquet at Wikimedia Commons
