NYT’s Dean Baquet wants WaPo’s Marty Baron to succeed — just not on every story

The New York Times vs. the Washington Post has become one of the great newspaper rivalries of the modern era.

Both have been on a tear over the last few months, landing tandem scoops often nightly on the chaos that is the Trump administration.

That’s a good thing, according to Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet.

“We should be respectful rivals,” he said at the Code Conference at the Terranea Resort in California. “I want the Washington Post to succeed. I don’t want them to succeed on each story. I want to beat them on most stories, but I want them to succeed.”

Good journalists walk their beats on cat claws, worried a competitor will scoop them; readers usually aren’t aware of that paranoia.

“Competition is the least examined motivation in American journalism,” Baquet said. “I go to bed worried that Marty is gonna beat us, and he goes to bed worried that we’re gonna beat him, and that makes for good journalism.”

Watch: NYT’s Dean Baquet discusses the Washington Post

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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