Dean Baquet

Dean Baquet
Born	(1956-09-21) September 21, 1956 New Orleans, Louisiana
Occupation	executive editor, The New York Times
Notable credit(s)	The New York Times, Los Angeles Times

Dean P. Baquet (born September 21, 1956) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.^[1][2]

Baquet has been the executive editor of The New York Times since May 14, 2014, reporting directly to Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., the chairman and publisher.^[3] Between 2011 and 2014 he served as managing editor under the previous executive editor Jill Abramson.^[4] Baquet is the first black American to serve as executive editor, the highest-ranking position in The New York Times newsroom.

In 1988, Baquet won the Pulitzer Prize for leading a team of reporters which included Bill Gaines and Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune who exposed corruption on the Chicago City Council.

Early life and education

Baquet was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of well-known New Orleans restaurateur Edward Baquet. He is a member of a prominent New Orleans Creole family.^[5][6]

Baquet graduated from St. Augustine High School in 1974.^[7] Baquet studied English at Columbia University from 1974 to 1978; however, he dropped out to pursue a career in journalism.^[8]

Career

Baquet was a reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1984, Baquet 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, Baquet became the special projects editor for the Business Desk. In January 1994, Baquet held the same title; however, he operated out of the executive editor's office. In 2000, Baquet joined the Los Angeles Times as managing editor, and in 2005, Baquet became the editor for the newspaper.^[9] Baquet was fired after he publicly opposed plans to cut newsroom jobs.^[10]

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.^[11] Baquet was appointed to the Managing Editor position in September 2011,^[12] and promoted to executive editor on May 14, 2014.^[13]

Baquet is a member of the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Notable stories

Baquet was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in March 1988, after he led a team of three Chicago Tribune reporters documenting corruption in the Chicago City Council. Baquet was a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in the same category. At the Los Angeles Times, Baquet edited a story published a few days before the 2003 California recall election that initiated the Gropegate controversy, raising concerns about gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger's conduct.

In 2006, ABC News reported that Baquet had killed a story about NSA wiretaps of Americans.^[14] Commenting on Baquet's role in suppressing the NSA story, constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald said of Baquet "...Dean Baquet does have a really disturbing history of practicing this form of journalism that is incredibly subservient to the American national security state, and if his past record and his past actions and statements are anything to go by, I think it signals that the New York Times is going to continue to descend downward into this sort of journalism that is very neutered and far too close to the very political factions that it's supposed to exercise oversight over."^[15]

In September 2013, Baquet refused to cover a massive race discrimination lawsuit against the Washington Post, telling freelance writer Evan Gahr, who broke the story, that "no news organization in America would report on every discrimination lawsuit filed in every court in every medium-sized city."

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 criticised the New York Times for not publishing the cartoons of Muhammad, in the context of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.^[16][17]

Personal life

According to Baquet's colleagues, he prefers to be known as a 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."^[18][19]

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

Notes