NEW ORLEANS, LA—Two prominent veteran journalists headlined the Native American Journalists Association annual convention in New Orleans.
Charlie Rose, co-host of “CBS This Morning” and PBS’s “Charlie Rose” and Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post.
Baron served as editor of The Miami Herald and held top editing positions at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He joined the Boston Globe in 2001.
Baron was at the editorial helm when the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team published hundreds of stories about Catholic priests who abused children in Boston and the church hierarchy’s cover-up.
The series, which consisted of 900 stories published in 2002 and 2003, earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003; Baron was named Editor-of-the-Year in 2001 by Editor & Publisher magazine and in 2004 by the National Press Foundation. A movie was made also called “Spotlight” which retells the story of the reporters’ efforts to get the story and earned the 2016 Best Picture and Best Screenplay.
“When someone says the truth may never be known, that should be like chum (bait) for a journalist,” Baron said. “Investigative journalism is the core of our mission.”
“We weren’t the first to discover priests were abusing boys, but we were the first to produce documentation and proof they weren’t isolated cases,” he said. “They were serial abusers and it was church policy to protect them. It was institutional failure and wrongdoing.”
Baron believes investigative reporters “should be persistent, skeptical of quick answers, have a good meter for the truth and be incredibly inquisitive.”
“The Excellence in Journalism” combined the annual conferences of NAJA, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association.
RTDNA presented Rose with the Paul White Award, the organization’s highest honor, which recognizes an individual’s lifetime contributions to electronic journalism.
“It’s a marvelous way to spend a life,” Rose stated during his acceptance speech in which he shared his 40 years in journalism.
“…to pursue the truth, to find the stories that demand our attention and to make a difference,” he said. “People want to know what’s real and what’s not real.”
“The engagement of your curiosity is what will serve you better than anything,” he said.
