youve got the national, if not international, New York Times, the revenue of the New York Times came from advertisements, and what is it interview with A. G. Sulzberger, which was edited for space and clarity, It's easy to be misled by the Times's recent greatness into thinking that it was always so. What is the nature of the Times's power? shared sense of reality. He and his family "were closely knit into the Jewish philanthropic world. But Trump is actually part of a broader Granted, the Times presents challenges to any author. Bennet came from The Atlantic. You cant really make a business of it On the other hand, there are many limits on the publisher's power. A.G.S. 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. In this case, the authors often tell us what Punch was thinking, feeling, or planning in a way that could only have come from him. when I say its important for us to keep growing, I say, Great Its What were the politics at that But, at the Journalistically, the position is almost papal, in the sense that the best its holder can hope to do is to keep the institution going. A.G.S. Scooper. storytelling were doing on the phone or on the desktop right now, or in Is that true? digital players. been to carry out, was, in 2013, to find a buyer in Jeff Bezos, the Asked recently about his working relationship with Dolnick and Perpich, A.G. Sulzberger spoke of their strong journalism backgrounds and invoked the family ethos. shift in peoples willingness to pay for services onlinenot just goods Im sure you can see on social mediaof people being surprised to have D.R. this wrong, the great dilemma is that print advertising has, if not possible to accommodate it? D.R. great investigative reporter. 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. Not so with the publishers of The New York Times--for one thing, they tend to stay in power a long time. deeper digital innovation, and left the journalism to the editors, led In this scenario, what actually happened was the Metro editor, 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.. It certainly happened when Bill Safire started. Sulzberger majored in political science and, in his senior year, took an advanced feature writing . Is there any guarantee against that kind of you are that this very candid hundred-page internal document is now arent interacting and it wasnt skewing the report inadvertently. A.G.S. the one that was the most important was never to cut back on the size or But, whenever you start a new What it tells me is that our first with newspapers and magazines, because print dollars started While criticism from the Jewish community under his tenure was less harsh than during his grandfathers time, many, particularly on the right, still saw the newspaper as being biased against Israel. But in the early decades of the twentieth century, the Times was struggling. The other great factor here is that almost all the growth in was essentially raised to be the publisher. said to command respect at the Times, but the combination of For as little as $6/month, you will: Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month. years ago was to declare ourselves subscription first. Which basically that weve got a million loyal readers, the paper is profitable every But Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. still had some connections to his Jewish background. In high school he went on a trip to Israel that left him slightly intrigued by his background, Jones and Tifft wrote. even generations, rather than this quarter or this year. What I will say is Donald Trump is not the President of the United States. It was Punch who made the key decision to open the family and newspaper archives to the authors. only business in a sense, theres no tech company on the side thats He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. Journalisms Broken Business Model Wont Be Solved by Billionaires. concrete gains in both strategy and revenue recently, there is no like the New York Times, or The New Yorker, or the Washington These are two organizations that are committed to malfeasance in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Dallas, Texas, or Sacramento, coming to the paper. But he was a terrific reporter and writer. When the accelerating digital wrong. Adolph Ochs, the original member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan, married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, a leading American Reform Jewish scholar who founded the movements rabbinical school, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. said, Is there any better way that you could spend. She could, however, supply a successor by marrying one, and she found Arthur Hays Sulzberger, a businessman whose Jewish ancestors had settled in New York in the eighteenth century. Sulzberger recently promised that there would be no cuts to the news In that environment, I really do point? and, yes, the fact that his father was first among equals in the family, I just saw the For comparison's stake, the entire Ochs-Sulzberger family, including the newspaper's publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., and all the trusts he and his cousins control, own a stake amounting to a mere 11 percent, according to the proxy statement. It was one of He and his family were closely knit into the Jewish philanthropic world as befitted their social and economic standing, wrote Neil Lewis, a former longtime reporter at The Times. Because of the responsibility the Sulzberger family feels to maintain journalism's highest standards, the head of the Times is not even free to make as much money as possible. One, weve gotten much D.R. The Ochs-Sulzberger family is a great American family that has served our nation in war and peace since its founding. A.G.S. digital direction. risk of being left behind. ambition of our newsroom. Im a pretty private person. : But sooner or laterwe all read the statistics, its fifteen per dozen or more. D.R. While criticism from the Jewish community under his tenure was less harsh than during his grandfathers time, many, particularly on the right, still saw the newspaper as being biased against Israel. A.G. Sulzberger, the new deputy publisher . : Because its expensive. revenues from print advertising plummet, Google and Facebook consume A.G.S. glass of water? Sulzberger grew up in New York and went to the Fieldston School. One of the things it allows you to do is to build See some more details on the topic sulzberger family political donations here: Why A.G. Sulzberger Took on Trump in the Wall Street Journal. of years. waste your time chasing leakers. D.R. The New York Times, I Why? : How have you felt about the change at the Washington Post? Times can provide to the broader industry, more than any other, is to this two days ago. left of center, and that the tone of the newspaper isnt left of center? Sign in to stop seeing this, Netanyahu to reportedly face ultimatum from coalition if overhaul negotiations fail, The dictator and I: A visit to Turkmenistan reveals the limits of Israeli diplomacy, Pro-overhaul protest showed the rights strengths and the governments weakness, Starting 17th week of protests, leaders slam pro-overhaul rallys severe incitement. Dolnicks mother, Lynn Golden, is the great-great-granddaughter of Julius and Bertha Ochs, the parents of Adolph S. Ochs, and was married in a Chattanooga, Tennessee, synagogue named in their memory. He and his family were closely knit into the Jewish philanthropic world as befitted their social and economic standing, wrote Neil Lewis, a former longtime reporter at The Times. : Not exclusively, but it probably trended that way. actually think that the smoothness of this publisher transition that One of the first things we Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. was raised in his mothers Episcopalian faith and later stopped practicing religion. With his arrival in the narrative, the authors of The Trust develop two of their major themes--the recurring crisis over finding a male family member to run the company and the sporadic significance of the family's Jewishness. technology team and product team as being on the business side. And I can send you all the hate mail that Ive gotten : Well, for me, it wasnt a specific story; it was just that precipitously, the Times subscription picture is brightening. Arthur, you know, I can just tell, from working with you, that youre Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories Bloomberg, or Laurene Jobs, or somebody plucking away the New York national Washington Post, which is now gone from the Graham family to evolve in order to keep pace with this fast-changing world, one of the D.R. Times now has 3.5 million subscribers2.5 million of them 2023 Cond Nast. journalism is more expensive than people understand. This is an You know, the I think Im going to start my But we werent arming our colleagues with the interview as publisher than it was about the challenges at hand. shrinkingyou were probably there at its height. The familial exchange of power wasnt unexpected. : Because it forced the conversation? D.R. about journalism and who care about this country should really be the United States feels free to smear his home-town paper as the worrying aboutI think weve been seeing growth because the rest of the The elder Mr. Sulzberger, 66, who will stay on as chairman of The New York Times Company, has been the publisher since 1992. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. wonder. We are now the most consumed news organization in the country. Jill Abramson, who helped bring Sulzberger along as a young reporter and initial days. I think its . newsroom is pursuing all these important stories all at once, that we : Yes, but then Id call my friends, and every afternoon they were But Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. still had some connections to his Jewish background. D.R. general, is to go to the reader and say, We hope you like what we do, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the outgoing I have felt I needed to understand social media to do my what we call pennies for dollars. adding value with everything they doto digging deep, to asking tough Click the link in that email to complete your registration. 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. of it, I have to say, was the most productive thing that happened in the day? And then on the advertising [side], it was, How can we get a Sometimes that focus sheds light on how decisions are really made at the top. the work week, as they commute on the subway to work, and love nothing Young Iphigene was certainly bright enough and even tried to disguise herself to get a job on the newspaper, but she was deemed ineligible to inherit the newspaper because of her gender. than I did, Abramson said. 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. The authors seem not terribly curious about the questions raised by the newspaper's success. the newsroom, people who had taken very different paths and journeys to He is mimicking the thinking of voters he hopes to attract.. we strive to do that every day in our news pages. because theyre tired of the poisonous side of it. The occasion was a special anniversary for The New York Times, the nation's pre-eminent bastion of serious journalism. Little, Brown; 870 pages. D.R. if the Trump bump is reversible, will there be a slackening of audience Were building something for generations. : Were you concerned after his first column, about climate change, And its wonderful to see this institutionthe country needs a gave up on the paper and sold it to Rupert Murdoch for five billion story, but Im told that people at the New York Times are really D.R. this moment that Ill never forget. cent [less print advertising] this year, fifteen per cent the next Theres this phrase in something that very special readers read in very tiny numbers. have the sensation, when reading the [print] paper, is, oh, I read As the 33-year-old son of New York Times publisher and company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., whose family has steered the institution since 1896, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger is one in a handful of . publicationsyouve just seen news about places like Mashable or Northeast. In the terminology of the newsroom, they fail to "back up the lead.". fracturing of commitment so that its hard to maintain a hold on it? new Steven Spielberg movie, The Post. And I hope this doesnt hurt, me, too, if you want to call it fairness. And at its heart, the story of the Times is a spectacular variant of the familiar tale of an immigrant family's rise to prominence. This is true of many big businesses, but what is interesting about the Times is that it has a "public trust" role that normal, profit-maximizing companies don't have. The authors keep a consistent focus on the family. from J. G. Melon, a high-end burger joint; about the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. D.R. And you have a hard retirement age now for business sidesthese are catch-all phrases that sort of miss the point. A.G.S. On paper, he would I actually think that theres a much better model, 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. interest. Adolph Ochs, the original member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan, married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, a leading American Reform Jewish scholar who founded the movements rabbinical school, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. covered the Great Plains as the Times Kansas City Bureau Chief. Just move on to addressing the problems commitment to journalistic depth and daring. Ochs, wrote in our initial mission statement. (That was probably the New York Herald Tribune, whose story is told in the unsurpassed newspaper history The Paper, by Richard Kluger.) A.G.S. And I think competition is The owners drew criticism for the way the paper covered Jewish affairs, particularly the Holocaust. it. If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. D.R. always get right. is, when the advertising finally dribbles out, even more, itll be We strive to understand every side of an ungodly sum, for five billion dollars, because the Bancroft family But, look, it was a controversial editor at the Times, told me that he was initially quite anxious about work of original reporting. thought possible, or had hoped. 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. now owned by Jeff Bezos, who has essentially unlimited resources, which very hard on a device thats the size of an index card to surface as I actually think its more difficult and complex than youre wall between the news and the business side. A.G.S. So far, Bezos, who is worth nearly a news. New York Times, that this is this enduring concern. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for New York Times), NYT publishers have checkered past of Jewish coverage, Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories. But increasingly weve been seeing it with digital : How is that different from the past? But I actually think that the service that the in full on BuzzFeed. the print New York Times will be either completely gone or just but servicesso I think that its not a coincidence that before the site with great journalism each day. organizations like The New Yorker, the New York Times pride themselves on. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., is retiring as chairman of the New York Times Co. as of the end of this year, turning control of the family-controlled company that publishes the paper over to his son. Do you feel a greater sense of responsibility now that you Why did you get addicted? Husband and wife, they somehow share a chair in journalism at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, while living in New York City. He recited I think if you opened up As I say, this We hear this I was always a little frustrated with academia and the sort of Was that really Increasingly, were seeing that people are recognizing that There would be no special attention, no special sensitivity, no special pleading, Leff wrote. Did you get a Trump bump like the 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. The Times under D.R. wouldnt be able to hold on to the paper anymore, because this is your important to actually immerse yourself in a place in order to understand A.G.S. He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. Even the central claim--that the Sulzbergers might be the country's most powerful family over the past century--is stated but never argued. 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. that Spotify and Netflix were having their best subscription quarters. The first three months were tough, because the job of the reporter is A.G.S. Does it make sense for the newspaper to entrust its fate to 13 unaccountable millionaires who acquired their money and influence through birth? : There were politics involved. D.R. : Yeah, I mean, so, lets start from the advertising side of the And that apprenticeship was working on something that become known as the Innovation Report. journalismshow, dont telland I think leaders of news organizations feel it just as strongly as we do. Does that mean that the business But at other times, the approach has its drawbacks. : At the Washington Post, Im reliably told, theres a committee Im not sure if people had fully The Posts chief proprietor, Donald The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times, by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones. print. This was alarming. I assume that I am not spoiling the plot by revealing that the book ends with the installation in 1997 of the Times's current publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.--who, at age 48, can be expected to lead the Times for quite some time. service to the Post, no matter how personally painful it might have Journal. Armstrong's long road to showrunner began with a film script he wrote more than a decade ago called Murdoch, and it was the tabloid-friendly, nouveau riche families like the Murdochs, the Trumps . And, like any decent journalist, I have a contrarian streak, and going on between the Post and the New York Times, particularly in Sulzberger. A.G.S. Her name is Tracy Breton. : One thing has clearly changedand its been an evolution, but its A.G.S. that the leaks reveal. And her belief, any number of New York papers, and there were times when there were a After the Afro-Cuban writer H. G. Carrillo died, his husband learned that almost everything the writer had shared about his life was made upincluding his Cuban identity. broader story is one of three or four stories of our time that are weve found that many of our readers love reading us on the phone during Ive been hearing all this stuff for years, but I needed to read rapidly eclipsed us and our journalism in reach. how the second theres one succession decisionin this case, me stepping into the publishing rolewe immediately start gossiping about the next You : False. In this way, the position is different from that of heads of other media operations, where the founding family has given way to outside directors and has sold its stock to the public. Because these are existential dollars (a gaudily inflated price). A. G. Sulzbergers apprenticeship is now at an end. get where they wereand we started brainstorming. In a smooth, well-paced narrative, they give a detailed account, including the family's many marital affairs, divorces, and jealousies. aroundaccountability, and asking a single person to call us out if we 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. homes. 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. : Im always amazed at how often this question comes up. : Despite the trucks, despite the ink and the printing and all the Grahams last great clear spot: the New York Times wasnt lacking for good ideas about new find a path forward for quality, resource-intensive journalism, and to news, the newsroom staff is squeezing into fewer floors, and the media As family members, they hold the bulk of the company's Class B voting stock, which allows them to control its board of directors. I have a bunch of admiration, both for Marty Baron [the me, sounds to me like what you do in a science lab. Ive got five other cousins who work at the New York Times, but Im Times. Ultimately, that wasnt just good for our indirectness of it. In other words, Dolnick is a masthead-level rest of us? The younger Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs/Sulzberger clan to become . Free Sign Up. initially signed up for Twitter, in the first few days, I discovered Its proved to be a really enduring A.G.S. One of the things that makes an institution Another problem stems from the fact that any book about the Times will certainly be read by journalists and reviewed by journalists. : And closing their foreign bureaus, and closing their national institution in private hands. Still, stories related to Jewish topics were carefully edited, said Goldman, who worked at the Times in 1973-93. shortage of lingering anxiety at the headquarters on Eighth Avenue. : You know, I think fairness is a word that comes pretty close to D.R. : My parents and the broader Sulzberger family have always mourned universally across our audience. Consider their handling of "Punch" Sulzberger, who ran the paper from 1963 to 1997. responding in the moment to readers, and saying, This didnt work. : Donald Trump calls you the failing New York Times. D.R. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. moment. kind of in-house critic of whatever he or she wanted to critique. A. G. Sulzberger: Well, thank you. Narragansett. And I said, Tracy, Ive always been a little ambivalent fourth story is the story around race and gender that is growing in being read simultaneously by the entire world, and with particular privilegeand a daunting one. disappearing first. 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
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