Dean Baquet, executive editor New York Times HARDtalk

as a purveyor of lies. Well, my guest today is the executive editor

of the Times, Dean Baquet. Is what is printed in here fake news off

there? -- or fair. Dean Baquet, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you. I think we have to start

with the relationship between President Trump

and the established, This is something you said,

even before he was elected, the month before he won the White

House. You said, "Trump says things that

are demonstrably false, I think he is challenging our language -

he will have changed How do you feel after more than 100

days of the Trump Presidency? And I think what I said

then still holds. We're used to politicians

obfuscating, exaggerating, etc. But this President sometimes says

things on Monday that goes against what his advisers said

on Sunday and then he But that's not the most

profound way he has changed. He does things, he makes

decisions that defy the logic of American politics,

firing James Comey, If you had asked me why

the President fired the FBI director who was investigating him,

I would say that it is He did it and, so far,

no major political repercussions. I mean, a lot of stories,

a lot of questions. I think he just sort of challenges

the way we look at the world, Not only because of the way

he stretches the truth but because he does things other

American politicians just One of the challenges he presents

is a very direct challenge to you because he calls

you and your newspaper liars. He says that you are

fundamentally bad people. He has called the press

and particularly the New York Times Which is an even more

profound statement to make. So what I am getting

at is it seems to me, There is a sense of metaphorical

warfare between you and him. I think he may have dug a trench

but I'm not going to dig one. My job is to take the things

that he says like that, make them part of the coverage,

but my job is not to I actually think it is his tactic

to try to coax us into war, I think it is a tactic

of his to try to discredit us. The biggest mistake I can make

and we can make is to fall for it. Well, you tell me, then,

about something that your media commentator and columnist

Jim Rutenburg said not so long ago. "If you view a Trump Presidency

as something that is potentially dangerous, then your reporting

is bound to reflect that." "You would move closer than you ever

have before to being - and this is an important

word - oppositional." And I would put it to

you that the New York Times has But you said, with all respect,

you said that after Rutenberg's column, you were quoted as saying,

"he has nailed it". Yeah, but I don't think he nailed

the fact that we have become oppositional,

that column was written I don't think, and I'm working

really hard not to do this, I don't Here is the problem

with being the opposition party to Donald Trump,

in the end. It's not just about

covering Donald Trump. If you are the opposition party

to Donald Trump, what happens? Whether it is three or four years

from now, or eight years from now, Maybe a President who you

were not in opposition to. And then you are just nothing

but a lapdog for the next person. So we can be tough but we don't

want to be oppositional. I do not want to be seen

as the leader of the opposition But do you, as Jim Rutenberg

obviously does, see I will let Jim have his

opinion about that one. He has expressed his opinion,

that is what he is paid to do. You are the editor of the New York

Times and I want to pursue this idea that the paper appears

to have a world view which says The world view I have

is that we are tough on Presidents. We are especially tough

on Presidents who sometimes say one thing Monday and do something else

Tuesday. He is also the subject,

or his campaign is the subject, He is also the wealthiest man ever

to be in the White House, We don't know enough

about his income. If you add up all of my coverage

of all of those things, I can see that where he sits,

that looks like we're I see it as covering all those

things aggressively. But you are sounding so Zen-like

in your approach to Donald Trump. I am mindful of very specific things

which have happened in the last few months which seem to me

to be quite important. For example, I think back

in February there was an important White House briefing

where your reporter was disinvited, effectively barred,

from being present. We have also had other

straws in the wind. Donald Trump at one point musing

aloud, I think on Twitter, that he might do away

with White House briefings altogether because he could not see

the use for them and he might just pronounce now and again

himself to reporters. There are all sorts of different

ways in which he is challenging the way that the mainstream media

has in the past had a relationship with power, particularly

with White House power. This is a President who does not

like the press he gets, no President ever likes

the press he gets. This is a man who made his name

in the real estate industry He manipulated them

about his love life. He manipulated them

about the size of his buildings. He manipulated them

about his success and his wealth and his values

and their importance to society. He becomes President and I think

he was expecting the same thing. What lessons do you take

from the campaign itself? From the whole Trump phenomenon,

going back to the early days when few people took him seriously,

all the way through the campaign, the convention and actually

winning the White House. I think it is fair to say,

for a long time, as a paper, you did not appear to take

Trump that seriously. I don't think it is that we did

not take him seriously because we covered the heck

out of him. I think we did not quite

have our minds wrapped around the anger in America that

led to him. I guess the way I would flip it,

it wasn't that we didn't take him seriously, we didn't take

the Trump phenomenon seriously. I don't think that's the wrong

phrase, I will accept that. By the way, I'm not

sure anybody did. I think there was an anger

in the country, not unlike the anger There was anger in the country

and anger at elites. I don't think we had our finger

on the pulse of that anger. We wrote about the anger

in the country but I don't think we quite understood the scope of it

and how much people wanted change. You are talking past tense but I'm

talking present tense. I was listening yesterday

to one of this country's well-known media commentators,

Howard Kurtz. "Millions are still disgusted with

an out of touch press", he said. There are all sorts

of polls I could quote you. I would say Howie is a very

nice guy but he writes But he has worked for

the Washington Post. Howie is a very nice guy,

but that is a completely unscientific estimate that

millions of people... Well, here's something that at least

has stats behind it. PBS, I'm sure you couldn't argue

was in any way having an agenda which was against the mainstream

media, but their poll suggested 32% of Americans

have trust in the media, First, there is less

trust in the media. But I also think the definition

of what is the media is different. When I grew up, when I started,

the media was your local paper, the New York Times,

the Washington Post, the Journal and three

television stations. Do I think I would like for people

to have more trust in the New York Times and do I think

that is an issue for me? I am just not completely convinced

that the numbers reflect just the New York Times or the Washington

Post. I think they reflect a wide

definition of media. A Gallup poll in April that showed

that two thirds of those Americans who believe there is media bias

think it is a liberal media bias I do think and I have said

that the big media institutions in America happen to be

in liberal cities. Washington, mainly Washington,

New York and Los Angeles. I do think that skews

our view of the world. I think it is something

that we need to work on. It is unfortunate that that the most

powerful media organisations left You are saying to me that you don't

believe your newspaper right now I am going to make it a little more

complicated than that. And not because I am

obfuscating on the issue. I think there are some things

about Middle America that we don't My parents went to church

every Sunday, I went I am not particularly

religious any more. I think that in New York

and Washington and Los Angeles, I don't think we understood

in New York and Washington or Los Angeles just how much

the trade imbalance was affecting the lives

of people in Middle America. I do think that we could

do a much better job. You talked about the importance

of trust and you suggested that the New York Times still has

to do work to make sure that that bond of trust between newspaper

and reader is strong. So let's talk a little bit

about the mechanics of reporting, particularly in the era of the Trump

Presidency. You, and I have been looking closely

at the way you have reported, particularly the unfolding story

of the allegations of connections, both pre-election and post-election,

between the Trump team and Russia. Your reporting has been out

front in many locations but it is heavily reliant

on anonymous, unnamed sources. Do you worry about that?

No. I worry in principle

about newspapers relying on too many anonymous sources

for unimportant stories. I think we are in an era

when anonymous sources are important We would not know about the American

drone campaign in Yemen, Pakistan, we would know nothing

about the surveillance programme. I think anonymous sources

are important and I don't think we would have got the stories

about them and I think So let's just dig into

one particular story. Can you explain to me

what the readership On May 17th there was

a New York Times story. "Trump appealed to Comey to halt

the inquiry of Flynn". Well, good, because you were

the boss that put it in the paper. Now, in your paper,

the documentation of Mr Trump's request is the clearest evidence,

it was said, that the President has tried to directly influence

the Justice Department and the FBI investigation into links between

Mr Trump's associates in Russia. This is the clearest

evidence, you say. Had your reporter on that

story seen the memo that was the foundation

of the story? As the story describes,

he had it read to him But did he know 100% that

what he was quoted over the phone Certainly enough of the memo

for us to be confident So he didn't know that

what he was receiving on the phone At a certain point you have

to rely on your sources, if they're sources you have done

business with before. And the readership could have no

idea who that source was? Having a story from anonymous

sources or not knowing that the President of

the United States did something that everybody thinks

is worth investigating? You're going to pick having

the story because you want to believe that you can

persuade your readers that you are 100% sure

of your unnamed mystery source. I'm going to pick having the story

because if I don't have the story, But what seems to be important to me

is that the same reporter who wrote that story,

based on the unnamed source about Michael Flynn and the Trump

administration's connections to Russia, he is the same

reporter who, back in 2015, broke a story for you in your paper

about the aftermath He had an unnamed source

telling him important things about the background of the two

perpetrators, which turned I guess what I would say

is the story that we were talking about before the Trump story,

I know the sources, I know I know the name, I know

everything about the story. And I am absolutely certain it

will be borne out to be true. Let's talk about a slightly

different ethical challenge which has faced you in the last

couple of days and I have brought with me a copy of

the New York Times from yesterday. It is entirely relevant

because here, inside this edition, you divulged confidential secret

information which the British police had sent to US intelligence

agencies about the terrible It included confidential photographs

which gave a real idea of the making of the suicide bomb device,

it gave the most graphic account Actually, it was not

at the highest level of secrecy. It was at a level of secrecy that

made it much more widely dispersed It was not a top

confidential secret. As far as the British

police concerned, it was But there are literal

classifications of confidentiality The reason it is important,

at the very top means This was much more

widely distributed. The reason I am saying

that is not unimportant, we're not talking about something

known to two or three people. It infuriated the British

authorities, starting This is what the UK

National Police Chiefs Council said. Let's start with the police,

it is kind of important. 48 hours after 22 young people,

including children, had been murdered, you chose to put

on your front page pictures which the British police regarded

as highly sensitive operational And right after that,

the BBC and the Guardian put it I'm not saying it is,

I am just pointing it out. This is what the UK

National Police Chiefs Council said. The revelations, they said,

undermined our investigation. And not only that, they also

undermined the confidence of victims, witnesses

and their families. They have given no evidence that

illustrates how this This is a kind of standard

information that has been made public after terror attacks

since September the 11th. If you go back and look

at everything from the Boston bombing to the September

the 11th attacks. Nobody has ever offered any evidence

that that got in the way But it was actually a picture

of a timing device that They do not want the terrorists,

the enemies, to know what they know about a very active ongoing

operation because the terrorist not knowing is a very important part

of destabilising them and allowing Boy, we live in

different press worlds. When our police say that,

we say "prove it". I don't buy that this

hurt their investigation. We very thoughtfully and carefully

published information that we publish after every terror

attack in the world. While the operation is still

ongoing, after 48 hours? The Boston bombing, we put

stuff up within hours. Some people watching this will think

that is deeply arrogant. You say, I don't buy it,

as though the police and the anti-terror,

counter-terror personnel When they say this could

damage the operation, The British press and the American

press have different attitudes here. You guys tend to believe

what the authorities say right away. And in this case, I erred

on the side of publishing. It is just as important for people

in the world to know about the mundane details

of terrorist attacks, it is really important

and that is what this is. I have seen no evidence, none,

except for the broad statements of police,

that it affected And that is probably not quite

enough for the American press. And what about the argument made

by the Prime Minister, made by the Mayor of Manchester

and made by the police also that not only did it

undermine the investigation, it also fundamentally disrespected

the people at the heart of this, the families of the victims,

who did not want all of this information coming out just 48 hours

after their own relatives That is a much more sympathetic

argument and it is one I would ask you to look

at the totality of our coverage. We wrote about the victims,

we wrote about their lives, I don't think any news

organisation that is respectful, that is respectable and that

understands its worth in society will hold back all information

for fear of upsetting the family. Would you have done the same thing

if these victims had been in New York City and not

in Manchester, England? We did it after September the 11th,

we did it after the Boston bombings. You mean you published

stories which you knew could upset the victims right

after the attack itself? I think that is a very skewed

way of looking at it. We have never heard an outcry

from victims over publishing I came in this morning

and I have been answering Before we end, let's just

talk about the future Your business model has been

under enormous pressure. Not least because your paper

sales are in decline, your ad revenues from the newspaper

sales are in decline and, of course, you have upped your online

subscriptions and your But overall, you're

in a very difficult place. Look, all news organisations

are in a difficult place somewhat. Because our financial models have

just been completely blown up I think the best news organisations

have something that can be And I think it is already proven,

we have gained over half a million That is astonishing, we could never

have done that in print. But do I think I can see around

the corner a bright future? A very different future

but I would argue a bright future. Dean Baquet, we have to end

there but thanks very much Thank you so much, it has been

a pleasure, it really has been.