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Marty Baron, center, with U. of Navarra faculty and students. Photo by Manuel Castells Marty Baron, editor of the Washington Post, came to speak at University of Navarra events in Madrid and Pamplona last week. Baron's message made me proud to be an American and a journalist. The whole world looks to the U.S. for leadership. Here is an excerpt from his speech in Madrid. " At the center of our mission is journalism that holds powerful institutions and individuals accountable . We have an obligation to speak truth to power. And the powerful in our world should never be allowed to suppress it. For all the challenges we face in the media today, this is the greatest. It is why we as journalists must stay faithful to our central purpose. Someone must still tell things as they really are. No government power, no powerful institution, and no powerful individual should have the right to stop us . And we in the press should not stop ourselves because of fear or self-censorship. These a...

Executive Editor Marty Baron interviews Post owner Jeff Bezos. (Washington Post photo) Note: Marty Baron will be speaking here at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, on Jan. 26. The Washington Post is following the strategy of world domination of its owner, Jeff Bezos , the founder and CEO of Amazon , the world's largest online retailer. In contrast with most of the newspapers in the U.S. and Europe, the Washington Post is hiring journalists and engineers, investing in new technology, and expanding into new markets. Bezos has global ambitions for the Post, as Newsweek detailed in a recent analysis. In the same way that he built the business of Amazon, Bezos has committed to absorbing financial losses in the short term with an eye toward gaining market share over the long term. It's a strategy that requires an owner with deep pockets. Read more �

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz speaks to the press in Huesca. Photo by EFE HUESCA, Spain -- Yes, it�s good to have a billionaire owner with patience, but it�s even better to have a billionaire owner with a vision. And the vision of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is that a news organization has to make its work available free, everywhere. Bezos is urging the publication's journalists to adopt the principles of retail sales that he has learned over the years in running Amazon , America's largest online retailer of practically everything. And the man who is putting that vision into practice is Emilio Garcia-Ruiz , the Post's managing editor for digital. Versi�n en espa�ol A fundamental concept in retail strategy is the sales funnel, Garcia-Ruiz said in his keynote address March 10 at the Digital Journalism Conference in Huesca, Spain. The idea is to get as many people as possible to sample your product (in journalism, it's through sharing in social networks ), get them to pay for...