2019 Honoree

Dean Baquet

Dean Baquet is the executive editor at The New York Times. Baquet got his start at his hometown afternoon newspaper, The States-Item. The paper was later absorbed by the Times-Picayune. Six years later he joined the Chicago Tribune. Baquet led a team of reporters at the Tribune to a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism after exposing deep corruption within the Chicago city council. Baquet joined The New York Times as a metro reporter in 1990 and became national editor in 1995. Ten years later he became the managing editor at The Los Angeles Times. In 2005, he became the first African-American journalist to lead a top U.S. newspaper when the LA Times promoted him to editor. He re-joined The New York Times in 2007. He was promoted to executive editor in 2014 making him the first African-American to serve in the Times’ top newsroom position in the newspaper’s 163-year history.