Hasta La Ideas

In a wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, The New York Times’ executive editor Dean Baquet admitted that the paper failed the American public after 9/11.

Baquet was asked if he agreed with James Risen’s suggestion that the media as a whole failed to adequately report on the events surrouding the attacks.

“Yes, absolutely,” said Baquet. “The mainstream press was not aggressive enough after 9/11, was not aggressive enough in asking questions about a decision to go to war in Iraq, was not aggresive enough in asking the hard questions about the War on Terror. I accept that for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times (Baquet was previously editor of The LA Times).”

Other topics covered in the interview include Baquet’s thoughts on digital competitors (“I don’t want to be BuzzFeed”) and why the next Edward Snowden should come to the Times first (“We have the bodies, the brains, and, I would argue, the guts to publish it.”).