{"id":189964,"date":"2026-05-27T17:12:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=189964"},"modified":"2026-05-27T17:12:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:12:56","slug":"the-peter-baker-social-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=189964","title":{"rendered":"The Peter Baker Social Set"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Baker<\/a> (b. 1967) and Susan Glasser<\/a> (b. 1969) sit at the center of a Washington social and journalistic set with clear contours. He is chief White House correspondent for The New York Times<\/a><\/i>. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker<\/a><\/i>. Together they have written The Divider<\/a><\/i>, Kremlin Rising<\/i>, and The Man Who Ran Washington<\/i>. They host dinners. They appear together on panels. They represent the reigning Washington power couple, inheriting that position from Sally Quinn<\/a> (b. 1941) and Ben Bradlee<\/a> (1921-2014).<\/p>\n

The set around them includes Maggie Haberman<\/a> (b. 1973), David Sanger<\/a> (b. 1960), Adam Liptak<\/a> (b. 1960), Maureen Dowd<\/a> (b. 1952), Thomas Friedman<\/a> (b. 1953), David Brooks<\/a> (b. 1961), Carl Hulse<\/a>, Glenn Thrush<\/a>, Adam Nagourney<\/a>, and Elisabeth Bumiller<\/a> at the Times<\/i>. At The Washington Post<\/a><\/i>: Dan Balz<\/a> (b. 1946), Ruth Marcus<\/a> (b. 1958), Eugene Robinson<\/a> (b. 1954), David Ignatius<\/a> (b. 1950), Bob Woodward<\/a> (b. 1943), and Carl Bernstein<\/a> (b. 1944). At the magazines: David Remnick<\/a> (b. 1958), Jeffrey Goldberg<\/a> (b. 1965), Anne Applebaum<\/a> (b. 1964), George Packer<\/a> (b. 1960), David Frum<\/a> (b. 1960), Mark Leibovich<\/a> (b. 1965), and Franklin Foer<\/a> (b. 1974). Television: Andrea Mitchell<\/a> (b. 1946) with her husband Alan Greenspan<\/a> (b. 1926), Jake Tapper<\/a> (b. 1969), Chuck Todd<\/a> (b. 1972), Wolf Blitzer<\/a> (b. 1948), Jonathan Karl<\/a> (b. 1968), Robert Costa<\/a> (b. 1965), Norah O’Donnell<\/a> (b. 1974), and Margaret Brennan<\/a> (b. 1970). The Politico<\/a><\/i>, Axios<\/a>, Puck<\/a>, Semafor<\/a> tier: Mike Allen<\/a> (b. 1964), Jim VandeHei<\/a> (b. 1971), Ben Smith<\/a> (b. 1976), Jonathan Martin<\/a> (b. 1976), and Alex Burns<\/a>. The older presences who still set tone: Sally Quinn, and the memory of Tim Russert<\/a> (1950-2008), David Broder<\/a> (1929-2011), R.W. Apple Jr.<\/a> (1934-2006), Mary McGrory<\/a> (1918-2004), and Walter Cronkite<\/a> (1916-2009).<\/p>\n

What they value.<\/p>\n

Access above all else. Proximity to the source is the basic currency. A reporter who can call a senator at home, who has the chief of staff on speed dial, who gets the return call from the cabinet secretary on a Saturday, ranks higher than a reporter who cannot. They tend their sources. Lunches at Caf\u00e9 Milano<\/a>. Off-record dinners at the Bombay Club<\/a>. Drinks at the Hay-Adams<\/a>. Long background conversations that feed the next book.<\/p>\n

Norms and decorum. They believe in the unwritten rules of American government and they covered the era when those rules held. They mourn the loss of the working filibuster, the disappearance of cross-aisle friendship, the collapse of debate civility, the rise of social media performance. They want the institutions to work the way they were taught they worked.<\/p>\n

Bipartisanship. The figures they have honored over decades sit across the aisle from their own background politics. John McCain<\/a> (1936-2018). Joe Lieberman<\/a> (1942-2024). Joe Biden<\/a> (b. 1942) in his Senate years. Mitt Romney<\/a> (b. 1947) in his late phase. They reward the maverick. They punish the strict partisan, and the punishment now falls harder on Republicans because the Republican party broke from older norms after 2015.<\/p>\n

Expertise. The credentialed authority deserves deference. The Council on Foreign Relations<\/a> report, the Brookings<\/a> paper, the Kennedy School<\/a> scholar, the former cabinet secretary now at a think tank, the retired four-star at the Atlantic Council<\/a>. These voices carry weight. Skepticism toward expertise reads to them as anti-intellectualism. They came of age when expertise produced the postwar order and they want that order to hold.<\/p>\n

Their hero system.<\/p>\n

Watergate<\/a> is the founding scene. Bradlee and Graham (Katharine Graham<\/a>, 1917-2001) at the Post<\/i>. Woodward and Bernstein at the desk. The Pentagon Papers<\/a> and Vietnam coverage. The press as the institution that brought down a corrupt president. This is the origin story they tell themselves and each other.<\/p>\n

The press giants who followed: Cronkite, Russert, Broder, Apple, Russell Baker<\/a> (1925-2019), David Halberstam<\/a> (1934-2007), Anthony Lewis<\/a> (1927-2013), Mary McGrory, Tom Wicker<\/a> (1926-2011). The book is the proof of seriousness. Woodward writes another book. Baker writes another book. Leibovich writes This Town<\/i>. Haberman writes Confidence Man<\/i>. The book outranks the daily story because the book becomes the historical record. They do not chase tomorrow’s news. They write tomorrow’s history.<\/p>\n

Tim Russert holds a particular place. His memorial at the Kennedy Center<\/a> in 2008 was the gathering high mass of this set. His Meet the Press<\/a><\/i> chair was the throne. The tough but fair questioner from blue-collar Buffalo who rose through merit to interrogate presidents was the platonic form. The chair never refilled.<\/p>\n

Status games.<\/p>\n

Bylines on the front page above the fold. The lead byline on a co-written investigation. The exclusive interview with a former president. The book deal at seven figures. The Pulitzer<\/a>. The Polk<\/a>. The Peabody<\/a>. The Loeb<\/a>. The named lecture at the Shorenstein Center<\/a>. The teaching post at Columbia Journalism<\/a>. The professorship at NYU<\/a>. The cable hit on Morning Joe<\/a><\/i> in the seven o’clock hour. The panel chair at the Aspen Ideas Festival<\/a>. The keynote at any Newseum-adjacent dinner. The toast at the White House Correspondents Dinner<\/a>. The book blurb from a senior peer.<\/p>\n

Inside the New York Times and the Washington Post a granular hierarchy runs. Whose name leads the joint byline. Who gets sent on the presidential trip. Who anchors election night. Who writes the obituary of a major figure. Who reviews a colleague’s book in the Sunday paper.<\/p>\n

Migration patterns reveal position. The reporter who leaves the Times<\/i> for Semafor<\/i> or Puck<\/i> signals one thing. The reporter who leaves Politico<\/i> for the Times<\/i> signals another. Substack<\/a> is acceptable for those already established. Founding a publication confers prestige when it is funded and respectable. Bari Weiss<\/a> (b. 1984) sits outside the set, regarded with suspicion. The Atlantic<\/a><\/i> under Goldberg holds more status than the Atlantic<\/i> of earlier editors. The New Yorker<\/i> under Remnick holds the literary apex.<\/p>\n

The ritual calendar binds them. The Gridiron Club<\/a> dinner. The Alfalfa Club<\/a>. The Bohemian Grove<\/a> for some of the older men. Renaissance Weekend<\/a>. The Bilderberg invitation<\/a>. The Aspen Strategy Group. Council on Foreign Relations membership. The Pacific Council<\/a>. Sun Valley<\/a> for the media titan tier. Davos<\/a>. The Christmas parties at senior editors’ homes. The book parties at Cleveland Park<\/a> houses.<\/p>\n

Marriages and friendships within the set produce small dynasties. Glasser and Baker. Mitchell and Greenspan. Quinn and Bradlee. Anne Kornblut<\/a> and Jon Cohen. Ezra Klein<\/a> (b. 1984) and Annie Lowrey<\/a> (b. 1984). Carl Bernstein’s son Jacob writes for the Times<\/i>. Sally Quinn’s son Quinn Bradlee writes. The children of journalists go to Sidwell<\/a>, St. Albans<\/a>, or National Cathedral<\/a>. The set reproduces.<\/p>\n

Normative claims.<\/p>\n

Democracy requires a free press and they constitute that press. The First Amendment is sacred and they are its keepers.<\/p>\n

Civility protects the republic. Decorum is more than manners. Decorum holds the republic in place. The breakdown of civility is the breakdown of the order.<\/p>\n

Both-sides framing is fair, with one departure: when one side has broken from shared norms far enough to require asymmetry. The set held to symmetric language through 2015 and then began to shift. Internal debate continues. Baker and Haberman lean toward straight reporting. Others want sharper editorial framing.<\/p>\n

Trump represents an existential threat to American democracy. This claim consolidated after January 6, 2021. It now operates as shared premise rather than contested view.<\/p>\n

Access produces understanding. The reporter who can sit with the source, read the body language, hear the unspoken qualifier, knows more than the analyst who only reads the documents. This belief justifies the social rituals and the source tending.<\/p>\n

The institution has a soul. The New York Times is more than a newspaper. The Washington Post is more than a newspaper. They are institutions with traditions, standards, and obligations to the republic. The journalist who works there inherits something larger than himself.<\/p>\n

Essentialist claims.<\/p>\n

Trump voters carry certain traits: resentment toward elites, racial anxiety, economic dislocation channeled into cultural grievance, lower educational attainment, geographic concentration in declining places. This portrait was assembled in 2016 and refined since. The basic essentialism holds in coverage.<\/p>\n

The serious journalist possesses a calling. Not every man can do the work well. It requires temperament, training, relationships, years of investment. The serious journalist is a kind of man, and the kind reproduces through mentorship and institutional formation.<\/p>\n

The serious politician is identifiable. McCain had the traits. Biden has them. Obama has them. Lieberman had them. Romney has them in his late phase. The traits include institutional respect, willingness to compromise, gravitas, restraint, command of policy detail, a certain dignity in bearing. The unserious politician is identifiable by the inverse.<\/p>\n

America has an essential character the set understands and protects: liberal democratic, pluralist, internationalist, committed to the rule of law and the postwar order. Deviations are aberrations to be reported, contained, and corrected. The arc of American history bends toward this character even when interrupted. They hold this with religious conviction.<\/p>\n

Foreign adversaries have essential characters too: Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Khamenei’s Iran, Kim’s North Korea. These characters explain behavior and resist deep change. The set’s foreign policy coverage rests on this essentialism more than its members might admit.<\/p>\n

The members of the set know they belong to it. They read each other. They review each other. They quote each other on cable. They invite each other to panels. They attend each other’s parties. They mourn each other’s deaths in collective elegies that appear on the Times<\/i> opinion page, the Post<\/i> opinion page, the Atlantic<\/i>, and the New Yorker<\/i> within the same week. They take their own seriousness as given. The republic, they believe, is safer because they are at work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Baker (b. 1967) and Susan Glasser (b. 1969) sit at the center of a Washington social and journalistic set with clear contours. He is chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. She is a staff writer at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t