This year The Lakeville Journal is marking its 125th anniversary of continuous publication as a weekly newspaper serving northwest Connecticut, the southern Berkshires, and eastern New York. To help celebrate this extraordinary achievement, the Salisbury Forum has organized a panel of media giants to discuss “The Future of American Journalism,” including Brian Ross, Marty Baron, Subrata De, and John Coston.

Brian Ross will act as the moderator for this distinguished group of journalists. Ross had an illustrious 40-year career as an investigative journalist, most notably as the Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC News from 1994 to 2018. Ross has won every broadcast journalism award, including 19 Emmys, 6 Peabody’s, and 5 duPont-Columbia awards.

Joining Ross will be Marty Baron, who had a long career as executive editor of some of the most influential newspapers in the county, including The Washington Post from 2012 to 2021, The Boston Globe from 2001 to 2012, and prior to that, The Miami Herald. Under his leadership the newspapers won 17 Pulitzer Prizes, perhaps most famously for the Globe’s 2003 investigation of child sexual abuse in Boston Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. Portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight, Baron’s team of investigative reporters uncovered decades of predatory behavior by priests and covered-up by the Church. Among groundbreaking investigations at the Post, Baron’s newsroom exposed the secret surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency Also on the panel will be Subrata De, who is Executive Vice President and Global Head of Programming at VICE News. De is also the Executive Producer of the Emmy-nominated weekly documentary series, VICE on Showtime, and is the winner of 8 Emmys, 3 duPont-Columbia awards, and a Peabody award.

John Coston, the new editor of The Lakeville Journal and longtime resident of the Northwest Corner, will round out the panel. Coston is also a veteran journalist with a 33-year career at The Wall Street Journal, serving as national news editor, deputy foreign editor, and markets editor. He is also the author of two true crime books.