Lizzie O’Leary: So, “Trump Urges Unity Vs. Racism.” How did it happen?

Dean Baquet: It is a headline we didn’t like, obviously, and we changed it when we saw it. I think what happened was the print newspaper is a mechanical thing. Sometimes people forget that. And in addition to being a beloved thing, I think we created a design for the front page that gave the copy desk too few words to play with on a story, and in an area of coverage that was incredibly subtle. I mean, yesterday’s coverage had to do with whether a president who had himself said many divisive things could get away with saying “Let’s all come together.” Whether that same president and whether the country was willing to confront gun violence. And meanwhile, the dramatic turn of attention to white supremacy. A lot of stuff going on in the story. And I think we designed a page that gave the copy editor about five words to capture the news of the day. The copy desk came up with a headline that was too simple and didn’t have enough skepticism or questioning about Trump and his motives, and whether or not he was qualified to call for unity.

O’Leary: Did you see it beforehand?

Baquet: No. And to be honest, that’s not unusual in the era we’re in.

O’Leary: This is a high-profile story, though.

Baquet: Yeah. But we have high-profile stories all across the internet all day—and by the way, some of what I’m about to say should change now—but the days when half a dozen masthead editors focus all day on the print front page, and that is the main vehicle for getting news to Americans, that has changed dramatically in the era we’re in. We have video; we have an internet that is constantly updated.

And I think I, personally, should pay more attention to the print front page, maybe, than I did yesterday. But in this case what happened is the page is drawn. The headline is written and then the page is sent later that evening to masthead editors—all of whom are home at that point. I personally don’t focus enough on it; I should focus on it more. But as soon as we all saw the headline, Matt Purdy, one of the deputy managing editors, pretty quickly sent me a note questioning the headline. And we immediately started … but one edition had already gone out.

O’Leary: It’s the one that landed on my doorstep this morning in Michigan.

Baquet: I think it’s probably the edition that landed in the middle of the country, which is unfortunate. So the first edition closes, at this point we see we have a bad headline, and we all start scrambling to recast the headline before the next edition deadline. We came up with a headline that I think was better, but not perfect, because we were still working under the construct of a page that I think should have given more room for more words. I know people want a richer, more thoughtful explanation. But the reality is, some of putting out a daily print newspaper is mechanical. So that’s what happened. Somebody jumped in and said we were getting killed on social media, but we recognized this before that and started working on the headline before we knew that.