Jeff Bezos had a vision for The Washington Post. More than a newspaper that arrived on a front step or a product people wanted to buy, the Post needed to be an idea people wanted to join, Bezos told legendary journalist and then-executive editor Martin Baron.

Before Bezos’ acquisition of the Post in 2013, the paper was in bad shape, expecting to lose money year after year under the decadeslong stewardship by the Graham family.

The Amazon founder, also one of the richest men in the world, didn’t interfere in coverage, suggest or suppress any reporting, Baron told a crowd at the 31st annual Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading on Saturday morning. Bezos’ interest was in the business strategy of the publication, focused on technology, product and marketing, which Baron credits to his genuine belief in the role of a free press in democracy.

A lot of the reason the Post succeeded in that same time frame, Baron said, was because people were concerned about who would hold then-President Donald Trump accountable.

“They were concerned that Congress wouldn’t be doing that, they were concerned that the courts wouldn’t be doing that,” he said. “They looked around, and they looked at the press and for the first time perhaps, in a long time, they weren’t taking a free independent press for granted.”

But despite Bezos’ investment in the Post and the lift of the Trump years, financial problems affecting much of the media industry in 2023 persist. Baron ascribed recently announced cuts at the Post as a reflection of business overspending but said he expects the paper to get through it.

“I think the Post has a very important role to play. I think that will continue to be the case and it will turn itself around,” he said.

Baron spoke about his new book chronicling his time as editor at the Post and reflected on the state of media and democracy today in conversation with Times executive editor Mark Katches. “Collision of Power,” released last month, tells the story of Baron’s eight years and three months as the executive editor at the Post, leading the newsroom through the Trump administration and navigating the paper’s 2013 purchase by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Baron, who is originally from Tampa, retired from the Post in 2021. Before that, he was the editor of The Boston Globe from 2001 to 2012, where he presided over the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and was previously also the executive editor of the Miami Herald.

“What kind of suggestions do I have for people running news organizations today?” Baron said, responding to a question from Katches. “Oh, I have a lot.”

Both Katches and an audience member asked Baron about disagreements on social media policy during his time at the Post, which more than 300 staffers criticized as inconsistent in a 2020 petition after then-Post reporter Felicia Sonmez posted a link to a Daily Beast story about a sexual assault charge against Kobe Bryant on Twitter in the hours after Bryant’s death.

When asked if he had any regrets on how he handled the situation, he said he didn’t.

“We would work on a sensitive story and take great care of the wording of that story, the writing of that story, with the headline, with the photograph we use, with the presentation, with all of that,” he said. “And then somebody on the staff would say something on Twitter, it would create an enormous Twitter storm, huge controversy, it was picked up by the right wing media as a representation of, ‘this is what The Washington Post is doing, and more attention was paid to that one impulsive tweet than was paid for all of the coverage that we had worked so hard on.”

Baron has been a defender of objectivity in recent years, including a Post op-ed adapted from a speech that sparked lengthy pieces on objectivity in response.

MORE FROM POYNTER: Stop arguing about objectivity and start serving your audience

His point is that the word “objectivity” has been mischaracterized as bothsidesism or false equivalence, when his conception of objectivity is in line with Walter Lippmann’s original usage and stance against propaganda. He urged reporters to move beyond individual perspectives and stay open-minded during the reporting process.

“To look at all the evidence, talk to all the appropriate people, do a thorough job, comprehensive, deep, rigorous, to be fair, and accurate,” he said of the approach to objectivity he thinks is appropriate for journalists. “And then to look at everything, figure out what’s going on, the facts and the truth, and then tell the public unflinchingly what we have found.”

Read more Poynter coverage of Baron’s new book:

• 5 notable moments from Marty Baron’s book tour
• Advice for journalists about to read Marty Baron’s new book: Start at the back

Correction (Nov. 14, 2023): An earlier version of this story misdated a petition from Washington Post staffers that criticized the organization’s social media policy as inconsistent.