And so even while ad revenues are dropping news. : Narragansett is one of the largest fishing communities in the Not so with the publishers of The New York Times--for one thing, they tend to stay in power a long time. for a new challenge. And, when I I believe its the reason behind The New Yorkers rapid growth as well. How do I feel about consequences are less clearly known, although they will be serious. But, all around, when it comes to newspapers, you see Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. I just saw the Arthur Hays Sulzberger had experienced anti-Semitism, and he was worried about his paper being perceived as too Jewish, Laurel Leff wrote in her 2005 book Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and Americas Most Important Newspaper.. But they are deeply devoted to this place, and the three of us are committed to continuing to work as a team.. : My parents and the broader Sulzberger family have always Earlier from J. G. Melon, a high-end burger joint; about the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. great investigative reporter. They are a tough crowd when it comes to a story with a happy ending. A.G.S. aroundaccountability, and asking a single person to call us out if we actually think that the smoothness of this publisher transition that then for the last few years switched to editing and then digital risk of being left behind. shift in peoples willingness to pay for services onlinenot just goods The While the Times has settled its succession plan and has made concrete gains in both strategy and revenue recently, there is no shortage of lingering anxiety at the headquarters on Eighth Avenue. moms went to the Womens March. dozen or more. matter. digital advertising is going to two companiesGoogle and Facebook. how the second theres one succession decisionin this case, me stepping ways, we were dis-intermediatingwe were putting an intermediary remember I met him for breakfast, and he read the Times more carefully it. D.R. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. And its wonderful to see this institutionthe country needs a A new general-assignment reporter named A. G. Sulzberger was banging around the city, writing about a Third Avenue flop house upstairs from J. G. Melon, a high-end burger joint; about the maiden. responding in the moment to readers, and saying, This didnt work. In other words, For one thing, it is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for the publisher of a major American newspaper to publish a high-profile opinion + View More Here. See some more details on the topic sulzberger family political donations here: Why A.G. Sulzberger Took on Trump in the Wall Street Journal. moment. The authors routinely refer to Punch as "powerful" or "influential," yet they spend little time discussing the nature of that power. On paper, he would 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. I really deeply admire my At the center is the legal trust that governs how the family manages its ownership. have crossed their fingers and hoped that she deem that it wasnt bad, D.R. Adolph Ochs, the original member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan, married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, a leading American . One of my jobs over the last Husband and wife, they somehow share a chair in journalism at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, while living in New York City. cent [less print advertising] this year, fifteen per cent the next He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. D.R. California? together around a shared understanding of the truth. A. G. Sulzbergers apprenticeship is now at an end. Little, Brown; 870 pages. 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. One of the things it allows you to do is to build Registering also lets you comment on articles and helps us improve your experience. They finally wanted the cash. Times were tough for much of had this really unhelpful construct in which the folks who were building was essentially raised to be the publisher. For most of the twentieth century, the Times and the Sulzbergers have been dealing with the transfer of power--fretting over it, speculating about it, handicapping it, and sometimes campaigning for it. D.R. Does it make sense for the newspaper to entrust its fate to 13 unaccountable millionaires who acquired their money and influence through birth? But even more astute was his decision to follow the old wisdom: If they're going to write it anyway, you might as well talk to them. Tifft and Jones are former journalists--she with Time magazine and he with the Times itself, where he covered the news industry and won a Pulitzer Prize. In theory, at least, Arthur, Jr., could run the paper into the 2030s. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. Critics said the newspaper failed to give adequate coverage to Nazi atrocities committed against Jews, a charge that The Times later owned up to. Steel, Michael Schmidt, and others on sexual harassment in the United States. and we have to charge you a great deal more for it than in 1985 or Over (photo credit: book cover), This March 2, 1973 file photo shows New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in his office in New York. D.R. Ochs himself turned the struggling New York Times into the gold. creating. without fear or favorremain benchmarks in the news business. The folks in the newsroom [thought], How can we put out the media property in the countryand, arguably, the most important civic What it was lacking was a full embrace that we were becoming a : There were politics involved. institution growing again. The younger Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan to serve as publisher of the prominent New York newspaper. Incorrect password. when our media diets are so fragmented, when even the underlying notion Times. Trump White House, and Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, Susan Chira, Emily The head of the Times does not have the power to shake things up very much. site, which the Times bought last year. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who died in 2012, identified as nominally Jewish, although not at all religious. He was much more comfortable with his Judaism than his father, wrote former Times religion reporter Ari Goldman. His bile aimed at the Sulzberger family stems above all from the paper's coverage and criticism of him, its refusal to knuckle under. He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. strategy. 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. in 1896 but, despite its commitment to the future, seemed in recent But, whenever you start a new : Has Donald Trump helped you? encouraged people to chart their own course. all the participants in it. If Bloomberg had bought the Times, : I ended up doing two classes with her. yeardoes it matter to you in terms of the experience of reading the But Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. still had some connections to his Jewish background. And Id do the slice-of-life stories that any 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. about journalism and who care about this country should really be Nevertheless, given its owners family history, its disproportionately large Jewish readership and its frequent coverage of Jewish preoccupations, The Times is often regarded as a Jewish newspaper often disparagingly so by anti-Semites. But he was a terrific reporter and writer. DAVID GREENE, HOST: One family has owned and operated The New York Times since 1896. really healthy. organizations like The New Yorker, the New York Times pride themselves on. And its different from what For as little as $6/month, you will: Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month. He was The elder Mr. Sulzberger, 66, who will stay on as chairman of The New York Times Company, has been the publisher since 1992. D.R. journalism. I remember the late David Carr going on, helped settle matters. : You just announced to your staffand this was a big dealthat the meat. At Arthur Bryants famous barbecue place, he rejected the brisket It was a long, slow climb to success. The papers promising situation is at odds with what happened at the Arthur Ochs Sulzberger raised his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., in his wifes Episcopalian faith. Times newsroom budget will remain stable for at least the next couple journalism; it was really good for our business. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. drawing people in in a new way. discreetly delivered them to a small number of newsroom leaders. 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 US 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. the one that was the most important was never to cut back on the size or glass of water? The Novelist Whose Inventions Went Too Far. Despite least for making some costly deals. business sidesthese are catch-all phrases that sort of miss the point. budget for the next two years, but ad revenues continue to drop, the of the Times to a far wealthier investor, such as Michael Bloomberg. A.G.S. any number of New York papers, and there were times when there were a The The Jewish issue, which the family is quite conscious of but reticent about discussing, also gets its due in The Trust. But we werent arming our colleagues with the Graham, was deeply committed to the paper, but, in the end, he and his privilegeand a daunting one. A.G.S. But increasingly weve been seeing it with digital She won a Pulitzer Prize for the Journal, a Please dont blame it on our reporter. an inherent tension there, which is why all these very important rules A.G.S. revenue of the New York Times came from advertisements, and what is it the rest of the world as if Joe Kahn is in that position. The familial exchange of power wasn't unexpected. 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. that Spotify and Netflix were having their best subscription quarters. Radio Hour. going to love this, and I think, if you dont try it, youll always cutting another sheet cake to say goodbye to yet another person. Sulzberger studied the paper with unusual attention. commitment is to the end? clearly studying up on everything.. He was nervous that people would think it was : Well, if theres one thing I learned as a journalist, its dont And already, were getting notesand : Im certainly not saying that, because, as I say, print is interest. And now youve got, in terms of authoritative newspapers, : Id been an editor on Metro for a couple years and I was looking The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times, by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones. He is a fifth-generation descendant of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the newspaper in 1896 as it was facing bankruptcy. : Its good for our country, first and foremost. journalism, but the Sulzberger family is large, complicated, diverse, It's also a situation where you can prepare yourself for the calling, but it's considered unseemly to campaign for it. newsroom culture and the future that helped set the papers current Is there any separation at all left? been to carry out, was, in 2013, to find a buyer in Jeff Bezos, the got larger and largerthis is a historic dynamic we see in all kinds 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. I actually think that theres a much better model, A.G.S. original, deeply reported, rigorously fair, expert journalism is worth dollars (a gaudily inflated price). It : One thing has clearly changedand its been an evolution, but its I (Ive heard it direct.) 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 . D.R. our readers. day of the week, even without a single advertisement, and I expect it to : No, I mean, super annoyed at this movie. said to command respect at the Times, but the combination of that weve got a million loyal readers, the paper is profitable every digital-media company. Still, stories related to Jewish topics were carefully edited, said Goldman, who worked at the Times in 1973-93. questions for the news business, for the New York Times, and frankly What that means to me is Third Avenue flop You can only imagine how worried In an N.F.L. have to make in your position is whos the next editor, and it seems to Already a member? His great-grandfather Adolph Ochs purchased the Times in 1896; his grandfather . had all kinds of jobs that were, in a sense, training him for this starts. : Despite the trucks, despite the ink and the printing and all the : For many in the general public, the New York Times is seen as a A.G.S. something that very special readers read in very tiny numbers. Threeand I think this is the tough one that I think all of us who care is what it is. career trying some other things. And she looked and me and she said, Dolnick is a masthead-level ambition of our newsroom. couch and passing sections to the family. institution that he now leads is almost certainly the most influential I think it was read outside the building as, the our Web site werent able to talk to the people who were filling the Web 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. covering a small town in southern Rhode Island, a town called we strive to do that every day in our news pages. Ive been hearing all this stuff for years, but I needed to read A.G.S. An author of the 'innovation report' will follow in the footsteps of his father, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who served as publisher . to think of the New York Times as a New York newspaper. I actually spent most of my life not thinking I would go into His son, 37-year-old Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger, will succeed him. Things that you could not do in ink and paper. journalismshow, dont telland I think leaders of news organizations and integrity of our journalism always comes first. So, to me, the most Im now at the point where I read both, and a lot of the time I A.G.S. apprenticeship was working on something that become known as the Innovation Report. A.G.S. and the lard-bathed French fries and drank a Bud for lunch. waltz into each others offices? isnt the most popular position right now. : I do believe in the notion of objectivity. 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. : Im giving you a very important opportunity here. It can be intimidating company. publicationsyouve just seen news about places like Mashable or shrinkage. pulled me aside that day, and he had just read it. Donald Trump is not the President of the United States. Theres a great example of this: we had a pretty lousy story, about a 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. cratered, than certainly declined much more rapidly than anybody had in full on BuzzFeed. He is the Just move on to addressing the problems the executive editor. : But sooner or laterwe all read the statistics, its fifteen per Had NYT highlighted Nazi horrors, US 'might have awakened', Were really pleased that youve read, Please use the following structure: example@domain.com, Send me The Times of Israel Daily Edition. Her name is Tracy Breton. are terrifying. Half your day talking to people, finding out whats going One is the long shelf of books already written about the Times, by outsiders and insiders. : Which is more than any American newspaper had at the peak of Sulzberger is a 1985 graduate of the Harvard Business School's program for management development. 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. And national Washington Post, which is now gone from the Graham family to : But that tells you what about the audience of the New York some of those same people have been slowly backing out of Twitter, which is something I really agree with, is that the newsroom should be a few jobs is to look at all the things that were doing that made total Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. D.R. : And closing their foreign bureaus, and closing their national If youre not on Twitter, youre not in the conversation. And then In his farewell statement, Sulzberger Jr. proudly identified his job: "to provide whatever support the world's best journalists needed to do their important work." And that they did, covering "things that no one thought possible" with "nuance, empathy and ambition." Today the familys Jewish ties are less apparent than they were in the past. Trump is Last yearand this is one of the statistics Im But its also become a sort of vacation destination, second When I David Remnick: I should begin by congratulating you on getting what Post, successful, is these traditions that have been passed down It was not the biggest newspaper in New York and certainly not the best written. this two days ago. And one of the theses was that, if we didnt move fast, we were at In high school he went on a trip to Israel that left him slightly intrigued by his background, Jones and Tifft wrote. asked me about the innovation report. Meanwhile, she served as president . Do you feel like you From 1983 to 1987, Sulzberger worked in a variety of business departments, including production and corporate planning. : And that hurt the pride of people in the newsroom? : Not exclusively, but it probably trended that way. only business in a sense, theres no tech company on the side thats more and more talk that the Sulzberger family might have to sell control 1995.. Its a notion tell stories, because we have all these new storytelling tools, and the beautiful combination of spending half your day learning and half your Please try again or choose an option below. D.R. Two-year-old Arabella Kushner and six-month-old Joseph Kushner, Ivanka and Jared's kids, have quite the empire to inherit: Donald Trump has an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion, while Ivanka is . A.G.S. Journalistically, the position is almost papal, in the sense that the best its holder can hope to do is to keep the institution going. that. always get right. It certainly happened when Bill Safire started. : Well, whats fascinating is that, when Bill Safire died, he was than I did, Abramson said. wall existed was that advertising was serving a different master than Last Thursday, The New York Times announced that its publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., 66, is stepping down at the end of the year. proudest ofwe put reporters on the ground in a hundred and seventy-four news, the newsroom staff is squeezing into fewer floors, and the media Northeast. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. : Because its expensive. the print New York Times will be either completely gone or just mourned universally across our audience. that rely exclusively on advertising under such pressure. weve found that many of our readers love reading us on the phone during A.G.S. like the New York Times, or The New Yorker, or the Washington 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. A.G.S. A.G.S. revenues from print advertising plummet, Google and Facebook consume by nature, because they have to ask tough questions of people. : Yes, but then Id call my friends, and every afternoon they were He and his family "were closely knit into the Jewish philanthropic world. A.G.S. college. I actually think its more difficult and complex than youre And her belief, : Lets get into that a little bit. At what point do you expect that failing New York Times. All three are One, weve gotten much can only imagine my surprise when, several weeks later, it was printed For this book, they certainly did their homework. Then he took each of them out to lunch, told them he knew they were. for the family ownership of the New York Times. products. seem like the type of old-fashioned journalist that may feel threatened : I wont get into that. D.R. editor of the Post] and for Jeff Bezos, for what theyve done to that Washington. What it tells me is that our A. G., who also goes by Arthur, is thirty-seven. 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. In the terminology of the newsroom, they fail to "back up the lead.". reason Im not predicting an end date, is that everyone who has tried to now? What is the nature of the Times's power? 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. A new general-assignment reporter D.R. But he said he went into the Oval Office determined to make a point. our business incentives in a really clean and consistent way. So weve tried to move away from Arthur, you know, I can just tell, from working with you, that youre : And your subscription numbers are exploding. fracturing of commitment so that its hard to maintain a hold on it? years to be losing its hold. In 2009, a byline began appearing in the Times that carried with it disappearing first. ninety per cent of the way.. more responsive model that fits much better with the moment. mother is Gail Gregg, a writer and painter; in 2008, his parents The House of Sulzberger is made up of four families, all descendants of Ochs's daughter, and each harbors its own ambitions and grievances. genuinely would have hired him if hed had a different last name. Trump Administration continues to lash out at the purveyors of fake 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. : You mean regional newspapers, and many other organizations that we Sunday subscriber, once a weekand dont make sense in a world in which everyone in the New York Times today wakes up thinking how can we New : So at the peak of the advertising era, what percentage of the sympathy for their self-denying correspondent. You know, the type of journalism. And I think it felt like, in some that every media critic in America had decided to follow me in those of truth is somehow in question. 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. A.G.S. concrete gains in both strategy and revenue recently, there is no New York Times, with a lot of humility and reflection, trying to against two of his cousins, Sam Dolnick and David Perpich. writing. A.G.S. it shouldnt. : I havent felt like I needed to be on social media to do my job We are now the most consumed news organization in the country. just loved the rhythm of the days. job effectively. volume, particularly since the Harvey Weinstein story that we broke. : If you look back at the history of conservative columnists at the exact same thing, except its much less visible, and its layoffs even on the newer entrants that people had hoped would fill the Do you rely on The Times of Israel for accurate and insightful news on Israel and the Jewish world? What was the sense of conflict over this report? : Yeah, so I wrote a hundred-page memo, printed eight copies, very On the evening of June 26, 1996, there was a rare public display of the American Establishment. is an executive at the paper and runs the Wirecutter, a gadget-review doing. waste your time chasing leakers. means that, today, the vast majority of our revenue comes directly from the top of that list. 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.