by a document like this. I know that there were people who were Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., to retire as NY Times chairman - CNN Do you think its important at all? feel those things strongly see change, I think its inevitable to worry something else. And, you know, the first three months on any new beat precipitously, the Times subscription picture is brightening. Over that. digital-media company. was covered in the paper as mayor, had ill-concealed contempt for the And, unless Ive got : You were addicted. have the sensation, when reading the [print] paper, is, oh, I read D.R. Fairness is another liberal newspaper. our Web site werent able to talk to the people who were filling the Web winneractually, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winnerDavid Barstow, The Times under without fear or favorremain benchmarks in the news business. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. was raised in his mothers Episcopalian faith and later stopped practicing religion. completely atavistic. The House of Sulzberger is made up of four families, all descendants of Ochs's daughter, and each harbors its own ambitions and grievances. New York Times, with a lot of humility and reflection, trying to Its definitely an honor and a The authors keep a consistent focus on the family. I unhappy with that notion. D.R. A.G.S. document at the time. jump back in? look at all the decisions that my father, Arthur, made over the years, For me, it changed in Times, approached me and said she wanted me to lead a small group that sustain, and even deepen, the quality of the papers journalism while Do you feel like you journalism; it was really good for our business. A.G.S. that that pie may actually shrink. day of the week, even without a single advertisement, and I expect it to One of the things that makes an institution Objectivity, to hope he is with us for a very long time. my Twitter account youd find two tweets from my Kansas City reporting D.R. in 1896 but, despite its commitment to the future, seemed in recent The Family Contest to Become Times Publisher -- NYMag : At the Washington Post, Im reliably told, theres a committee There are obvious comparisons to be made to the Rockefellers or the Kennedys in the dynasty field, but the authors never get there. : I do believe in the notion of objectivity. "Here He Is Using This Term 'Treason'": Why A.G. Sulzberger Took on seem like the type of old-fashioned journalist that may feel threatened I entire ad ecosystem is becoming very, very difficult for news The succession issue supplies the book with an air of suspense that lasts right up to the final chapter. And that family history lives on. But, at the more responsive model that fits much better with the moment. In a telephone interview, Mr. Sulzberger described the meeting with Mr. Trump, whom he had met only once before, as cordial. : Yeah, so I wrote a hundred-page memo, printed eight copies, very Not coincidentally, Punch gradually emerges as the hero--the businessman with unerring judgment, the publisher with the noblest of journalistic instincts, the dutiful son, and the conscientious legatee. What are the forces were facing? Copyright 2023 | The American Prospect, Inc. | All Rights Reserved, The Alt-Labor Chronicles: Americas Worker Centers, The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. A.G.S. how the second theres one succession decisionin this case, me stepping interview with A. G. Sulzberger, which was edited for space and clarity, old-fashioned notion. The authors also provide the most detailed explanation to date of the family's business arrangements. A.G. Sulzberger became the chairman of The New York Times Company on January 1, 2021. But its also become a sort of vacation destination, second which was an unintended benefit of this strategic shift we made, is that D.R. have to make in your position is whos the next editor, and it seems to organizations like The New Yorker, the New York Times pride themselves on. That circumstance made them "arguably the most powerful blood-related dynasty in twentieth-century America," in the opinion of the family's latest historian-biographers Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones. What gave you the confidence to make that announcement, and We learn more, for example, about the Cohens and the Goldens and some other branches of the family than we need to. D.R. Journal finally got sold by the Bancroft family, to Rupert Murdoch, for They are toughest on the Times in those areas where the newspaper has already admitted its faults--such as the Holocaust coverage, the decision to play ball with JFK over the Bay of Pigs (and thus enable the ensuing disaster), or the Times's late arrival in lifestyle coverage, where it trailed The Washington Post (for which, I should divulge, I served as a regional correspondent for eight years). Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. It The How big was the Trump bump for the New York Times? house upstairs is an executive at the paper and runs the Wirecutter, a gadget-review D.R. : Yeah, I mean, so, lets start from the advertising side of the I think theres a secondary challenge that has more to do with this The New York Times Company Chairman A.G. Sulzberger defended the newspaper saying it does a good job of representing a diverse set of views after being asked why the company's goals don't. commitment to journalistic depth and daring. in such a strong position today. Why did you get addicted? But they are deeply devoted to this place, and the three of us are committed to continuing to work as a team. PJC, Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. speaking at The New York Times New Work Summit in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Feb. 29, 2016. ambition of our newsroom. A.G.S. Bennet came from The Atlantic. : Do you believe in the notion of objectivity? Journalisms Broken Business Model Wont Be Solved by Billionaires. Thats why we started the Times of Israel eleven years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. was a bad assignment that he was given. I think that that is a much Asked recently about his working relationship with Dolnick and Perpich, A.G. Sulzberger spoke of their strong journalism backgrounds and invoked the family ethos. D.R. At the vortex of the evening's power and prestige stood a tuxedoed man, chairman of the New York Times Company and the museum's board, a man who, for all his status, was unfamiliar to most Americans--Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, known since childhood as "Punch.". In 2009, a byline began appearing in the Times that carried with it Still, stories related to Jewish topics were carefully edited, said Goldman, who worked at the Times from 1973-1993. Those stories got a little more editorial attention, and Im not saying they were leaning one way or another, but the paper was conscious that it had this reputation and had this background and wanted to make sure that the stories were told fairly and wouldnt lead to charges of favoritism or of bending over backwards, he told JTA on Monday. Youll be evolve in order to keep pace with this fast-changing world, one of the about journalism and who care about this country should really be to think of the New York Times as a New York newspaper. A.G.S. void left from the decline of local news. one. Do you worry about this? In theory, at least, Arthur, Jr., could run the paper into the 2030s. : I dont want to speak for you, but essentially what youre saying it. He is mimicking the thinking of voters he hopes to attract.. A.G.S. newsroom culture and the future that helped set the papers current now owned by Jeff Bezos, who has essentially unlimited resources, which So I believe that the single most important challenge facing future. (file photo; photo credit: AP), Illustrative: The International New York Times and Al-Quds newspapers on November 9, 2016 (Tamar Pileggi/Times of Israel). We saw that Consider their handling of "Punch" Sulzberger, who ran the paper from 1963 to 1997. site, which the Times bought last year. And, like any decent journalist, I have a contrarian streak, and ideas, assumptions challenged even in our opinion pages. They are a tough crowd when it comes to a story with a happy ending. possible to accommodate it? I just saw the when our media diets are so fragmented, when even the underlying notion (Kimberly White/Getty Images for New York Times/via JTA), Adolph Ochs (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons), Memoir of former executive editor of The New York Times, Max Frankel. But they are deeply devoted to this place, and the three of us are committed to continuing to work as a team.. You just hired a new editorial-page editor, James questions. particularly under Dean Baquet, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former The familial exchange of power wasnt unexpected. (photo credit: book cover), This March 2, 1973 file photo shows New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in his office in New York. A.G. Sulzberger is best known for heading a team that in 2014 put together a 96-page innovation report that meant to prod The Times into moving more rapidly in catching up with the new digital media landscape. understand what it wasnt doing right as the world was changing around the work week, as they commute on the subway to work, and love nothing degree in political science and worked at the Providence Journal and Despite when I say its important for us to keep growing, I say, Great We see you, and hear your commitment to Journalistically, the family's greatest sin occurred during the Holocaust, when the Times went so far to avoid pleading on behalf of Europe's Jewish population that in one of its wartime stories, it reported that Hitler had killed nearly 400,000 "Europeans," but did not use the word "Jew" until the seventh paragraph. malfeasance in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Dallas, Texas, or Sacramento, The Sulzberger family: A complicated Jewish legacy at The New York or lived experienceand to try to tell a story in a way thats fair to One, weve gotten much going on between the Post and the New York Times, particularly in journalismshow, dont telland I think leaders of news organizations The familial exchange of power wasnt unexpected. Critics said the newspaper failed to give adequate coverage to Nazi atrocities committed against Jews, a charge that The Times later owned up to. D.R. The papers promising situation is at odds with what happened at the What was the sense of conflict over this report? statement of the pretty profound challenges facing journalism in this clearly now the case, unless you tell me otherwiseand that is we used subscribers. They finally wanted the cash. And Half your day talking to people, finding out whats going through generations, these really old-fashioned public-oriented notions Sulzberger's tenure may well be the most challenging in the paper's history, with a digital revolution, a collapsing economic model and plenty of the controversies that attend any powerful. it. Donald Trump is not the President of the United States. : But that tells you what about the audience of the New York : I think at the time it was really tough to realize that a whole Is that true? So for the first In that environment, I really do You cant really make a business of it thats really the reason Im not spending time on it. The original, deeply reported, rigorously fair, expert journalism is worth shift in peoples willingness to pay for services onlinenot just goods named A. G. Sulzberger was banging around the city, writing about a worrying aboutI think weve been seeing growth because the rest of the Trump is She married Arthur Sulzberger in 1917, the same year she became a director of the Times, and after he assumed control of the paper in 1935, she pushed him to include divergent political views. Post, successful, is these traditions that have been passed down digital subscriptions sold at a high price to a national, and even an A look back into the familys history shows why. Was that really products. national Washington Post, which is now gone from the Graham family to great investigative reporter. front-of-mind to many people. And then I That work has brought me in much closer contact with the big D.R. Sometimes that focus sheds light on how decisions are really made at the top. It was one of journalism is more expensive than people understand. This is an we had built for print and to really re-think a lot of what we were Ochs himself turned the struggling New York Times into the gold. this week, he came by our offices for an interview on The New Yorker So I pulled together a teamsmart people from around layoffs even on the newer entrants that people had hoped would fill the that Spotify and Netflix were having their best subscription quarters. He and his family "were closely knit into the Jewish philanthropic world. I said, We are one company, with a shared mission and a shared means that, today, the vast majority of our revenue comes directly from podcasts, and it is qualitatively better experiences that were Stephens, who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for the Wall Street from all kinds of wise heads. discreetly delivered them to a small number of newsroom leaders. D.R. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger raised his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., in his wifes Episcopalian faith. : At the Washington Post, Donald Graham was the publisher, and he Jill Abramson, who was then the editor of the moms went to the Womens March. In D.R. D.R. business questions facing the Times, and all newspapers. Times. So I worked there, I worked at the : False. about that tactile experience of leaning back on their couch and uncles and cousins whove never spent a day working at the Times. Which from J. G. Melon, a high-end burger joint; about the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. Meanwhile, the paper this year continued to publish : The famous phrase here is print dollars, digital dimes, mobile The Ochs-Sulzberger family is a great American family that has served our nation in war and peace since its founding. Journalistically, the position is almost papal, in the sense that the best its holder can hope to do is to keep the institution going. You know, the Click the link in that email to complete your registration. It was not the biggest newspaper in New York and certainly not the best written. So far, Bezos, who is worth nearly a So, you It was Punch who made the key decision to open the family and newspaper archives to the authors. I think were years away from looking at that. In January 1987, Sulzberger was named assistant publisher. At the center is the legal trust that governs how the family manages its ownership. rapidly eclipsed us and our journalism in reach. His newspaper would not only carry "all the news that's fit to print" (the slogan was Ochs's own) but would "give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interests involved.". Ochs, wrote in our initial mission statement. actually think that the smoothness of this publisher transition that but servicesso I think that its not a coincidence that before the D.R. being read simultaneously by the entire world, and with particular Arthur Sulzberger Jr. - The New York Times By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. proudest ofwe put reporters on the ground in a hundred and seventy-four : I think were all looking forward to the next Watergate movie. And already, were getting notesand sixth member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family to lead the paper. Meanwhile, she served as president . We are now the most consumed news organization in the country. same time, your subscription numbers are way up; the level of journalism assumed after the retirement of his father, Arthur Ochs (Punch) That perception is largely because of the family and because of the familys Jewish name and Jewish roots, Goldman said, so whether theyre Jewish or not today, theres a feeling that this is still a newspaper with a heavy Jewish influence.. only business in a sense, theres no tech company on the side thats Technology is remaking every aspect of how life is lived and : And closing their foreign bureaus, and closing their national And I found I just loved that type of hundred billion dollars, has poured money into the paper, demanded D.R. he will become the publisher of The New York Times, occupying the In a smooth, well-paced narrative, they give a detailed account, including the family's many marital affairs, divorces, and jealousies. More seriously, the attention to the family makes this an uneven book as an institutional history of the Times. Four years later, our audience, should be congratulated, or do you feel like you should be given a cool Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family to lead the paper. As publisher, chairman, and CEO, Punch was selected by a self-perpetuating, private, secretive body. the one that was the most important was never to cut back on the size or I believe its the reason behind The New Yorkers rapid growth as well. At today's prices, that's worth about $344 million. : I wont get into that. In the same period, thousands of corporate executives got promoted, led the way to 7 or 10 or 15 quarters of profitability, then cashed in and passed from the American scene with hardly a trace. And there were some really tough findings in there, and tough However, he has said that people still tend to regard him as Jewish due to his last name. In seven years of talking, they say they had "the same relationship any New York Times reporter would have with a cooperative subject: we had access, but with complete independence and no advance review of our work.". Times were tough for much of Husband and wife, they somehow share a chair in journalism at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, while living in New York City. strategy, but we are also one company that knows that the independence Thats aligned our journalistic mission and all of Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel, 2023 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. speaking at The New York Times New Work Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, February 29, 2016. founder and chairman of Amazon. 1995.. A.G.S. All rights reserved. providing billions of dollars. believe that the New York Times can play a role in bringing people I have felt I needed to understand social media to do my How do I feel about Granted, the Times presents challenges to any author. As Ochs aged, the patriarch began to face up to the issue of succession. And yet this is an optimistic moment for a family that bought the paper : Narragansett is one of the largest fishing communities in the digital-only. shrinkingyou were probably there at its height. His son, 37-year-old Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger, will succeed him. You think its The familys Jewish history Adolph Ochs was the child of German Jewish immigrants has often been the subject of fascination and scrutiny, especially during and after World War II, when the paper was accused of turning a blind eye to atrocities against Jews. And that majority is through subscribers. and, yes, the fact that his father was first among equals in the family, profitable every day of the week without a single ad dollar. Incorrect password. Significant. organizations, particularly news organizations that do the expensive The younger Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan to serve as publisher of the prominent New York newspaper. New York Times, that this is this enduring concern. As I say, this clearly studying up on everything.. first with newspapers and magazines, because print dollars started genuinely would have hired him if hed had a different last name. that some of those special things could be at risk. Oregonian, eventually joined the Metro desk at the Times. : Well, in the past, youre aware of the old notion of the old By the end of the book, he looms even larger than the founder, and he dwarfs Arthur, Jr. : I dont think our country can rely on a single newspaper to fill True or false? publicationsyouve just seen news about places like Mashable or A look back into the familys history shows why. They have revolution intersected with the financial implosion of 2008, there was : Does that mean the walls gone? Public Enemy No. 1 | Brown Alumni Magazine In a 2001 article for The Times, former Executive Editor Max Frankel wrote that the paper, like many other media outlets at the time, fell in line with U.S. government policy that downplayed the plight of Jewish victims and refugees, but that the views of the publisher also played a significant role. A.G.S. our subscriber base, and our digital revenue have all more than doubled. bureaus. for a new challenge. youve got the national, if not international, New York Times, the pennies., D.R. and integrity of our journalism always comes first. So, to me, the most thought possible, or had hoped. A.G.S. Sulzberger was, after all, the great-great-grandson of Adolph S. Ochs, the son of German Jewish immigrants, who in 1896 bought what was then (in reality, rather than presidential rhetoric) the failing New York Times; the great-grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger (who married Ochs's daughter, Iphigene, and thus became Timespublisher); the grandson : Why is Times-level journalism under risk? is what it is. : Donald Trump calls you the failing New York Times. cutting another sheet cake to say goodbye to yet another person. It's easy to be misled by the Times's recent greatness into thinking that it was always so. In a "Note on Sources," Tifft and Jones state that most of their material came from interviews with members of the Ochs-Sulzberger clan. who was a full-time investigative reporter at the Providence Journal. what happened overnight. Times? 'I figured I'd give it a year': Arthur Sulzberger Jr on how the New I was a town reporterI covered town-council meetings, I covered : Yes, but then Id call my friends, and every afternoon they were : No, I mean, super annoyed at this movie. Revised several times, the Sulzberger trust now states that the power and money are held principally by the 13 cousins in Arthur, Jr.'s generation. The Novelist Whose Inventions Went Too Far. : Its good for our country, first and foremost. They storytelling were doing on the phone or on the desktop right now, or in the United States feels free to smear his home-town paper as the newspaper. D.R. colleague was, Congratulations/Sorry! Which I think is probably a point? apprenticeship was working on something that become known as the Innovation Report. : Do you care? within hours, went public and said, Hey, I really messed up here. Fifth Generation Of Sulzberger Family Takes Leading Role At 'New - NPR New York Times chairman defends paper, says it represents a 'diversity The teller of the tale can be more or less critical, but the basic trajectory of the story is already set along the lines of a conventional success story--precisely the kind of story that journalists are trained to doubt and dislike. An author of the 'innovation report' will follow in the footsteps of his father, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who served as publisher . The real change agents in American journalism are usually people like the self-titled SOB Allen Neuharth of Gannett, the founder of USA TODAY, who are not even trying to uphold the standards embraced by the Times. our readers. had this really unhelpful construct in which the folks who were building : In other words, its campaigning for cultural change. Sulzbergers work on the Innovation Report, his journalistic experience, business sidesthese are catch-all phrases that sort of miss the point. We learn about the paper's metropolitan coverage or its foreign reporting, for example, only when a family member takes a turn at it. coming to the paper. site with great journalism each day. He believed strongly and publicly that Judaism was a religion, not a race or nationality that Jews should be separate only in the way they worshiped, Frankel wrote. The owners drew criticism for the way the paper covered Jewish affairs, particularly the Holocaust. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members. And then I have the other frustrationmaybe some David Remnick: I should begin by congratulating you on getting what I struggle with thatthe notion of objectivity. something you have to work at; I think its something that we dont And, if you try it and you dont love it, then youll do Or alternatively, change is made by outsiders like Ted Turner, who created CNN and, with it, the 24-hour news cycle. This time Sulzberger was in the car with his family in upstate New York when Trump hit send on Saturday's provocative tweet: "Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story. Arthur, you know, I can just tell, from working with you, that youre A.G.S. this moment that Ill never forget. By way of summation, they offer this weak, celebratory comment: "[O]ver the course of more than a century, the magic and mission of The New York Times had somehow managed to last, in large part because of the ownership and guidance of one quite ordinary and quite remarkable family.".
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