“It’s the job of journalism, it’s the job of reporters and editors and broadcasters to cut down facts, find truth, and tell these stories to a broader audience so they can rely on something, so they know what is real and what is not,” Peter Baker said.
Baker is a New York Times journalist, Chief White House Correspondent, bestselling author to numerous publications, and a Hayfield Alumnus, class of 1984. Baker came to Hayfield in May to speak to students grades 7-12 enrolled in media courses, such as journalism, yearbook, and broadcast. This conference was in the format of an interview, with Baker encouraging every student to participate in the discussion.
“Let’s have some questions and see what I can answer for you guys,” Baker said. “Let’s start in the front row. If you’re a student journalist, I know you’ll have good, tough questions. Don’t spare me.”
Baker was a student journalist at Hayfield when the school’s paper had been called “The Farm News” and had also been on the yearbook staff. Out of college, Baker wrote for the Washington Times and The Washington Post’s Metro Section, covering local news and politics in Virginia. Baker joined the NYT in 2008 to cover news in the White House.
“‘Most nerve-wracking interview of the president,’” Baker said. “That’s a really good question. In some ways, Trump. Let’s just get it out on the surface here. Trump is not like any other president, right? So, every other president I ever interviewed, the goal was to try to get them to say something that was news, right? With Trump, he’s just making news left and right all over the place. And you may start down this road asking a question about healthcare, but then suddenly he says something completely bonkers about something totally different.”
Being a journalist in the White House is becoming unprecedentedly complicated. In February, 2025, Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the White House press team would be in charge of deciding who got to interview the president in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office. This is significant considering that, previously, The White House Correspondents Associations, an independent entity, would decide who would have those seats.
“That’s an anathema to our idea of what coverage should be,” Baker said. “And what’s happened is that a lot of the traditional mainstream media, sometimes we’re in there and sometimes we’re not. And in our place when we’re not there are these alternative media, let’s call them, that are really political propaganda sheets. You know, these alt-right publications or internet sites that just love him. So the question to him isn’t, ‘Mr. President, what’s going on with the war?’ The question is, ‘Mr. President, why are you the greatest person ever?’”
The termination of this safeguard to preserve independent media violates what Baker inherently stands for.
“I try to stay neutral,” Baker said. “I try to, you know, you’ll ask my wife, she’ll tell you, my son, you know, they get very frustrated when they don’t take positions on issues. You know, I don’t sit there at the dinner table and say ‘I think we should have this kind of health care’ or ‘taxes should be this level’ or ‘abortion should be this’ or ‘gun control should be that.’ It’s just not how I think. I’m more interested in the story. I’m more interested in what these guys are doing and why they’re doing it and whether they’re successful at doing it.”
Baker maintains a nonpartisan, independent approach inside and outside of the newsroom. He emphasizes the facts and trends of the data over political ideology. The White House’s position on their regulation of the press creates a power imbalance between the media and the president.
“They’re trying to intimidate not just the one that they’re after but everybody else as well,” Baker said. “We’re not his opposition. We’re the press. He [Trump] uses phrases like enemies of the people because then it discredits us when we report things. So it’s our job to still be aggressive, to still be independent-minded, to evaluate things based on facts, but at the same time to be fair to him and make sure that we’re not letting his attacks on us cloud our judgment.”
Baker’s stance on the increasingly pressurizing journalism environment traces back to his time as a student journalist at Hayfield.
“I asked my high school journalism teacher that on my first day at Hayfield, and I came here and I said, it was Mr. Hill, I said, ‘Mr. Hill, what advice do you have for me as a young journalist?’” Baker said. “And what he said was, ‘be aggressive. Be aggressive.’ And I’ve always remembered that, you know, that’s, that was 45 years ago. Be aggressive. But when he says be aggressive, he doesn’t mean be obnoxious. What he means is, don’t take no for an answer. If you can’t get some information here, find another way to get it. You know, nobody ever says ‘yes’ if you don’t ask.”
Being a journalist in today’s polarized political climate is challenging. It requires perseverance, determination, and a willingness to cross the boundary that most people aren’t willing to even acknowledge.
“I think that the one big message I would want to leave with you today is that we’re in an era where truth is challenged, I think, more than ever before,” Baker said. “That everybody wants to live in their own little part of the internet where people tell them that what they already think is true, and facts don’t always come into the equation.”
