Jennifer Peter: Journalism, Accountability, and Leading Through Change

Jennifer Peter has spent her career leading newsrooms through some of the most consequential moments in modern journalism. From overseeing The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing to now serving as Editor-in-Chief of The Marshall Project, Peter has built a reputation for guiding organizations through complexity with clarity, urgency, and purpose.The Marshall Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization focused on the U.S. criminal justice system. Through in-depth reporting, data-driven investigations, and partnerships with local and national news outlets, the organization examines issues ranging from policing and prisons to courts, race, and systemic inequities, with the goal of creating transparency, accountability, and public understanding around one of the country’s most consequential - and flawed - institutions.In this episode, Peter reflects on the evolving role of journalism in a time of institutional distrust, rapid technological change, and growing societal division. She discusses what it means to lead mission-driven reporting at scale, the responsibility of telling difficult stories with integrity, and why accountability journalism remains essential to a functioning democracy. The conversation explores leadership under pressure, the challenge of balancing speed with accuracy, and how the best editors build cultures capable of navigating uncertainty without losing sight of their mission.