| The New York Times | |
| Type: | Daily newspaper |
| Format: | Broadsheet |
| Foundation: | 1851 |
| Price: | USD 1.25 Monday-Saturday USD 4.00 Sunday USD 4.00/5.00 Special Editions |
| Owners: | The New York Times Company |
| Publisher: | Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. |
| Editor: | Bill Keller |
| Staff: | 350 |
| Circulation: | 1,000,665 Daily 1,438,585 Sunday[1] |
| Headquarters: | New York Times Building 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 United States |
| Issn: | 0362–4331 |
| Website: | nytimes.com |
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record. Founded in 1851, the newspaper has won 98 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.
Its motto, as printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." The Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which publishes 18 other newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.
This newspaper is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style and Features. The Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography. The Times website is rated as one of the most popular websites online, receiving over 14 million unique visitors in August 2008.
The New York Times was founded on September 18, 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond, the second chairman of the Republican National Committee, and former banker George Jones as the New-York Daily Times. Sold at an original price of one cent per copy, the inaugural edition attempted to address the various speculations on its purpose and positions that preceded its release:[2]
The paper changed its name to The New York Times in 1857. The newspaper was originally published every day but Sunday, but during the Civil War the Times, along with other major dailies, started publishing Sunday issues. The paper's influence grew during 1870–71 when it published a series of exposés of Boss Tweed that led to the end of the Tweed Ring's domination of New York's City Hall.[3] In the 1880s, the Times transitioned from supporting Republican candidates to becoming politically independent; in 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential election. While this move hurt the Times's readership, the paper regained most of its lost ground within a few years.[4]
The Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, publisher of The Chattanooga Times, in 1896. The following year, he coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print";[4] this was a jab at competing papers such as the New York World and the New York Journal American which were known for lurid yellow journalism. Under his guidance, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, and reputation. In 1904, the Times received the first on-the-spot wireless transmission from a naval battle, a report of the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Yellow Sea from the press-boat Haimun during the Russo-Japanese war. In 1910, the first air delivery of the Times to Philadelphia began.[4] The Times first trans-Atlantic delivery to London occurred in 1919. In 1920, a "4 A.M. Airplane Edition" was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening.[5]
In the 1940s, the paper extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the fashion section in 1946. The Times began an international edition in 1946. The international edition stopped publishing in 1967, when it joined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to publish the International Herald Tribune in Paris. The paper bought a classical radio station (WQXR) in 1946.[6] In addition to owning WQXR, the newspaper also formerly owned its AM sister, WQEW (1560 AM).[7] The classical music format was simulcast on both frequencies until the early 1990s, when the big-band and standards music format of WNEW-AM (now WBBR) moved from 1130 AM to 1560. The AM station changed its call letters from WQXR to WQEW.[8] By the beginning of the 21st century, the Times was leasing WQEW to ABC Radio for its Radio Disney format, which continues on 1560 AM. Disney became the owner of WQEW in 2007.[7]
The Times had a separate television guide from 1988 to 2006, and was the last major newspaper to outsource its television guide's editorial to a syndication service such as Tribune Media Services, which compiled the guide's TV grids. Theatrical and movie listings were based on the opinions of Times critics and edited by former film critic Howard Thompson[9] from the section's inception in 1988 until a year before his death in 2002, then by Lawrence Van Gelder, Gene Rondinaro, Tim Sastrowardoyo, Neil Genzlinger, and Anita Gates.[10]
The New York Times trails in circulation only to USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is owned by The New York Times Company, in which descendants of Adolph Ochs, principally the Sulzberger family, maintain a dominant role. In March 2007, the paper reported a circulation of 1,120,420 copies on weekdays and 1,627,062 copies on Sundays.[11] In the New York City metropolitan area, the paper costs $1.50 Monday through Saturday and $4 on Sunday. Elsewhere the Sunday edition costs $5. New home delivery subscribers receive a discount.[12] The Times has won 98 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.[13] [14]
The Times has been downsizing for several years, offering buyouts to workers and cutting expenses,[15] in common with a general trend among print news media. At the end of 2005 it had approximately 350 full time reporters and 40 photographers, in addition to hundreds of freelance contributors. In addition to its New York City headquarters, the Times has 16 news bureaus in New York State, 11 national news bureaus and 26 foreign news bureaus.[16] The New York Times reduced its page width to 12inches from 13.5inches on August 6, 2007, adopting the width that has become the US newspaper industry standard.[17]
The newspaper's first building was located at 113 Nassau Street in New York City. In 1854, it moved to 138 Nassau Street, and in 1858 it moved to 41 Park Row, making it the first newspaper in New York City housed in a building built specifically for its use.[18] The paper moved its headquarters to 1475 Broadway in 1904, in an area called Long Acre Square, which was renamed to Times Square. The top of the building is the site of the New Year's Eve tradition of lowering a lighted ball, which was started by the paper. The building is also notable for its electronic news zipper, where headlines crawled around the outside of the building. It is still in use, but is not operated by the Times. After nine years in Times Square, an Annex was built at 229 West 43rd Street. After several expansions, it became the company's headquarters in 1913, and the building on Broadway was sold in 1961. Until June 2007, The Times, from which Times Square gets its name, was published at offices at West 43rd Street; the paper stopped printing papers there on June 15, 1997.[19]
The newspaper remained there until June, 2007, when it moved three blocks south to 620 Eighth Avenue between West 40th and 41st Streets, in Manhattan. The new headquarters for the newspaper, The New York Times Building, is a skyscraper designed by Renzo Piano.[20] [21]
See main article: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. The paper's involvement in a 1964 libel case helped bring one of the key United States Supreme Court decisions supporting freedom of the press, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. In it, the United States Supreme Court established the "actual malice" standard for press reports about public officials or public figures to be considered defamatory or libelous. The malice standard requires the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove the publisher of the statement knew the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and difficulty in proving what is inside a person's head, such cases by public figures rarely succeed.[22]
See main article: Pentagon Papers. In 1971, the Pentagon Papers, a secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971, were given ("leaked") to Neil Sheehan of The New York Times by former State Department official Daniel Ellsberg, with his friend Anthony Russo assisting in copying them. The Times began publishing excerpts as a series of articles on June 13. Controversy and lawsuits followed. The papers revealed, among other things, that the government had deliberately expanded its role in the war by conducting air strikes over Laos, raids along the coast of North Vietnam, and offensive actions taken by U.S. Marines well before the public was told about the actions, and while President Lyndon B. Johnson had been promising not to expand the war. The document increased the credibility gap for the U.S. government, and hurt efforts by the Nixon administration to fight the on-going war.[23]
When the Times began publishing its series, President Richard Nixon became incensed. His words to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger included "people have gotta be put to the torch for this sort of thing..." and "let's get the son-of-a-bitch in jail."[24] After failing to get the Times to stop publishing, Attorney General John Mitchell and President Nixon obtained a federal court injunction that the Times cease publication of excerpts. The newspaper appealed and the case began working through the court system. On June 18, 1971, The Washington Post began publishing its own series. Ben Bagdikian, a Post editor, had obtained portions of the papers from Ellsberg. That day the Post received a call from the Assistant Attorney General, William Rehnquist, asking them to stop publishing. When the Post refused, the U.S. Justice Department sought another injunction. The U.S. District court judge refused, and the government appealed. On June 26, 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take both cases, merging them into New York Times Co. v. United States 403 US 713. On June 30, 1971 the Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the injunctions were unconstitutional prior restraints and that the government had not met the burden of proof required. The justices wrote nine separate opinions, disagreeing on significant substantive issues. While it was generally seen as a victory for those who claim the First Amendment enshrines an absolute right to free speech, many felt it a lukewarm victory, offering little protection for future publishers when claims of national security were at stake.[23]
The Ochs-Sulzberger family, one of the United States' newspaper dynasties, has owned The Times since 1896.[4] After the publisher went public in the 1960s, the family continued to exert control through its ownership of the vast majority of Class B voting shares. Class A shareholders cannot vote on many important matters relating to the company, while Class B shareholders can vote on all matters. Dual-class structures caught on in the mid-20th century as families such as the Grahams of the Washington Post Company sought to gain access to public capital without losing control. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, had a similar structure and was controlled by the Bancroft family; the company was later bought by the News Corporation in 2007.[25]
Major Class A shareholders, as of December 31, 2006, included the Sulzberger family (19 percent), T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. (14.99 percent), Private Capital Management Inc. (9.34 percent), MFS Investment Management (8.28 percent) and Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc. (7.15 percent). The Ochs-Sulzberger family trust controls roughly 88 percent of the company's class B shares. Any alteration to the dual-class structure must be ratified by six of eight directors who sit on the board of the Ochs-Sulzberger family trust. The Trust board members are Daniel H. Cohen, James M. Cohen, Lynn G. Dolnick, Susan W. Dryfoos, Michael Golden, Eric M. A. Lax, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and Cathy J. Sulzberger.[26]
To date, the company's dual-class ownership structure has deterred outside investors from pushing for change in Ochs-Sulzberger control., however, two hedge funds, Harbinger Capital and Firebrand Partners, bought 19 percent of The Times.[27] On September 10, 2008, it was reported that Carlos Slim, one of the world's wealthiest men, had acquired a 6.4 percent stake for $120 million. These moves were seen as putting increasing pressure on the company whose advertising and circulation have faltered recently. The downturn in print advertising sales has recently spread to the Internet, and some observers speculate that the recent acquisitions of Times Company stock might put increasing pressure on the family to sell or take the company private to escape Wall Street's attention.[27] The newspaper is currently over one billion dollars in debt.[28]
In December, 2008, the Times Co. said it planned to borrow up to $225 million against its new building, in which it has a 58 per cent stake. The company retained Cushman & Wakefield, the real estate firm, to act as its agent to secure financing, either in the form of a mortgage or a sale-leaseback arrangement, said James Follo, the Times Company's chief financial officer. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building.[29] In March, 2009, a 15-year sale-leaseback for $225 million with WP Carey & Co. on the Times' share of the building was announced. The NYT Co. will have the right to buy back its part of the building, covered under the arrangement, for $250 million in 10 years, and will pay rent in the interem. The NYT Co. paid more than $600 million for its share of the building, in 2007. Both parties to the sale-leaseback expect the Co. to repurchase its space.[30] Carey CEO Gordon DuGan said "We’re willing to trade a low purchase price and good yield for future appreciation," in a Bloomberg report. "Basically it’s a secured loan," said Craig Evans, a broker with Colliers ABR Inc., a New York-based real estate services firm (affiliate of Colliers International), in the report. "It’s a way for them to borrow significant amounts of money against the value of their offices. And they’re paying a pretty significant price to do that."[31]
In a footnote to the current building transaction, Bloomberg reported that The NYT Co. sold "its former headquarters to Tishman Speyer Properties LP for $175 million in 2004. Tishman Speyer later sold the building to Africa Israel Investments Ltd. for $525 million.[31] The older building is now known as Times Square Building.[32]
On January 19, 2009, the Times Co. announced that it had accepted a $250 million loan from Slim.[33] Slim will receive a 14 percent interest rate and warrants that are convertible into Times Company shares on the loan. He has lost tens of millions on his original equity investment. Under the new financial arrangement, the equity stake could grow to 17 percent, though he will receive no representation on the company’s board and no shares with special voting rights. Bankers representing The Times approached Mr. Slim with the investment opportunity, Slim advisers say. Those bankers, at the firm SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, had first approached The Times with the idea of a deal with Mr. Slim, said a Times spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis.[34] The loan will help ease the company's immediate cash flow problems, which have been reported to include a $400 million credit-line maturity in May.[33] The notes have a six year maturity.[31] The company's continuing financial problems and Slim's ongoing interest, as evidenced by his two interventions in the course of five months, has led to speculation that he might be contemplating an outright takeover of the Times Company.[35]
On January 28, 2009, as the Times Co. reported its earnings plunged 48 percent in the fourth quarter because of lower advertising revenue in a weak economy, it also said it "had retained investment firm Goldman Sachs to help explore a sale of its stake in the company that owns the Boston Red Sox. Investors have been pressuring the company to sell assets .... The company holds a 17.8 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Boston baseball team as well as Fenway Park, a portion of a cable sports network and other properties. The Times reported in December that its parent company was exploring a sale." [36]
On January 28, 2009, The New York Times itself ran an op-ed piece by David Swensen, the author of Pioneering Portfolio Management and chief investment officer at Yale, and Michael Schmidt, a financial analyst at Yale, entitled "News You Can Endow." The column took note of the challenging financial circumstances of the nation's newspapers, and proposed "another option: Turn them into nonprofit, endowed institutions — like colleges and universities." In the face of the impact of digital, Internet distribution of news, the change would "free [newspapers] from the strictures of an obsolete business model and offer them a permanent place in society." [37] Steve Coll of The New Yorker and, previously, the Washington Post, responded to the idea [38], as did the Posts Howard Kurtz [39] and, in opposition, Slate's Jack Shafer.[40]
On February 19, 2009, The NYT Co. suspended its common share dividends (both classes of stock) completely, having already cut it by 74% to 6 cents per share in November, 2008.[41] It was the first elimination of the dividend in four decades as a publicly traded company, and saved an additional $34 million per year.[42]
This newspaper is organized in three sections including the magazine.
Some sections, such as Metro, are only found in the editions of the paper distributed in the Tri-State Area and not in the national or Washington, D.C. editions. Aside from a weekly roundup of reprints of editorial cartoons from other newspapers, the Times does not have its own staff editorial cartoonist, nor does it feature a comics page or Sunday comics section.[43] In September 2008, the Times announced that it will be combining certain sections effective October 6, 2008, in editions printed in the New York metropolitan area. The changes will fold the Metro Section into the main International / National news section and combine Sports and Business (except Saturday through Monday, when Sports will still be printed as a standalone section). This change also included having the name of the Metro section be called New York outside of the Tri-State Area. The presses used by the Times allow four sections to be printed simultaneously; as the paper had included more than four sections all days except Saturday, the sections had to be printed separately in an early press run and collated together. The changes will allow the Times to print in four sections Monday through Wednesday, in addition to Saturday. The Times announcement stated that the number of news pages and employee positions will remain unchanged, with the paper realizing cost savings by cutting overtime expenses.[44]
When referring to people, the Times generally uses honorifics, rather than unadorned last names (except in the sports pages, Book Review and Magazine). The newspaper's headlines tend to be verbose, and, for major stories, come with subheadings giving further details, although it is moving away from this style. It stayed with an eight-column format until September 1976, years after other papers had switched to six,[45] and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography, with the first color photograph on the front page appearing on October 16, 1997.[46] In the absence of a major headline, the day's most important story generally appears in the top-right hand column, on the main page. The typefaces used for the headlines are custom variations of Cheltenham. The running text is set at 8.7 point Imperial.[47]
Joining a roster of other major American newspapers in recent years, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, The New York Times announced on July 18, 2006, that it would be narrowing the size of its paper by one and a half inches. In an era of dwindling circulation and significant advertising revenue losses for most print versions of American newspapers, the move, which was also announced would result in a five percent reduction in news coverage, would have a target savings of $12 million a year for the paper.[48] The change from the traditional 54-inches broadsheet style to a more compact 48-inch web width was addressed by both Executive Editor Bill Keller and The New York Times President Scott Heekin-Canedy in memos to the staff. Keller defended the "more reader-friendly" move indicating that in cutting out the "flabby or redundant prose in longer pieces" the reduction would make for a better paper. Similarly, Keller confronted the challenges of covering news with "less room" by proposing more "rigorous editing" and promised an ongoing commitment to "hard-hitting, ground-breaking journalism".[49] The official change went in to effect on August 6, 2007.[50]
The New York Times printed an advertisement on its first page on January 6, 2009, breaking tradition at the paper.[51] The advertisement for CBS was in color and was the entire width of the page.[52] The newspaper promised it would only place first-page advertisements on the lower half of the page.[51]
The Times has had a strong presence on the Web since 1995, and has been ranked one of the top Web sites. Accessing some articles requires registration, though this can be bypassed by using a link generator or in some cases through Times RSS feeds.[53] The website had 555 million pageviews in March 2005.[54] The domain nytimes.com attracted at least 146 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study. The Times website ranks 59th by number of unique visitors, with over 14 million unique visitors in August 2008.[55]
In September 2005, the paper decided to begin subscription-based service for daily columns in a program known as TimesSelect, which encompassed many previously free columns. Until being discontinued two years later, TimesSelect cost $7.95 per month or $49.95 per year,[56] though it was free for print copy subscribers and university students and faculty.[57] [58] To work around this, bloggers often reposted TimesSelect material,[59] and at least one site once compiled links of reprinted material.[60] On September 17, 2007, The Times announced that it would stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight the following day, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.[61] In addition to opening almost the entire site to all readers, Times news archives from 1987 to the present are available at no charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.[62] [63] Access to the Premium Crosswords section continues to require either home delivery or a subscription for $6.95 per month or $39.95 per year. Times columnists including Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman had criticized TimesSelect,[64] [65] with Friedman going so far as to say "I hate it. It pains me enormously because it’s cut me off from a lot, a lot of people, especially because I have a lot of people reading me overseas, like in India ... I feel totally cut off from my audience."[66]
The Times Reader is a digital version of the Times. It was created via a collaboration between the newspaper and Microsoft. Times Reader takes the principles of print journalism and applies them to the technique of online reporting. Times Reader uses a series of technologies developed by Microsoft and their Windows Presentation Foundation team. It was announced in Seattle in April 2006 by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., Bill Gates, and Tom Bodkin. The Times is also the first newspaper to offer a video game as part of its editorial content, Food Import Folly by Persuasive Games.[67]
Communication with its Russian readers is a special project of The New York Times launched at February 2008, guided by Clifford J. Levy. Some NYT articles covering the broad spectrum of political and social topics in Russia are being translated into Russian and offered for attention of Russia's bloggers in the NYT community blog[68] . After that, selected responses of Russian bloggers are being translated into English and published at The New York Times site among comments from English readers. [69] [70]
See main article: Criticism of The New York Times.
The paper has often been accused of giving too little or too much coverage to events for reasons not related to objective journalism. Before and during World War II, the newspaper downplayed the Third Reich targeting of Jews for genocide, in part because the publisher, who was Jewish, feared the taint of taking on any "Jewish cause".[71] During the war, Times journalist William L. Laurence was “on the payroll of the War Department[72] "[73] . Another serious charge is the accusation that the Times, through its coverage of the Soviet Union by correspondent Walter Duranty, helped cover up the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s.[74] [75]
Jayson Blair was a Times reporter who was forced to resign from the newspaper in May 2003, after he was caught plagiarizing and fabricating elements of his stories. Some critics contended that Blair's race was a major factor in the Times' initial reluctance to fire him.[76] Reporter Judith Miller retired after criticisms that her reporting of the lead-up to the Iraq war was factually inaccurate and overtly favorable to the Bush administration's position, for which the Times was forced to apologize.[77] [78] One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, who after US occupation became the interim oil minister of Iraq and is now head of the Iraqi services committee.[79] However, reporter Michael R. Gordon, who shared byline credit with Miller on some of the early Iraq stories, continues to report on military affairs for the Times.[80]
The Times has been variously described as having a liberal bias or described as being a liberal newspaper,[81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] or of having a conservative bias on certain issues or by some writers.[87] [88]
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a progressive media criticism organization, has accused The New York Times of following the "Reagan administration's PR strategy" in the 1980s by "emphasizing liberal repressive measures in Nicaragua [by the leftist [[Sandinista]] government] and downplaying or ignoring more serious human rights abuses elsewhere in Central America" (namely in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries with governments backed by the Reagan administration).[89]
According to a 2007 survey by Rasmussen Reports of public perceptions of major media outlets, 40% believe the Times has a liberal slant and 11% believe it has a conservative slant. In December 2004 a University of California, Los Angeles study gave the Times a score of 73.7 on a 100 point scale, with 0 being most conservative and 100 being most liberal.[90] The validity of the study has been questioned by various organizations, including the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America.[91] In mid-2004, the newspaper's then public editor (ombudsman), Daniel Okrent, wrote a piece in which he concluded that the Times did have a liberal bias in coverage of certain social issues such as gay marriage. He claimed that this bias reflected the paper's cosmopolitanism, which arose naturally from its roots as a hometown paper of New York City. Okrent did not comment at length on the issue of bias in coverage of "hard news," such as fiscal policy, foreign policy, or civil liberties, but did state that the paper's coverage of the Iraq war was insufficiently critical of the George W. Bush administration.[92] Recently, The New York Times has been accused of adopting a distinctly pro-Israel position in its reporting on the Israeli invasion of Gaza.[93] [94] In past years, however, the Times has also been accused of having a persistent anti-Israel bias.[95] The musician Lily Allen has criticised The New York Times for selling photos of her home to a "tabloidy magazine".[96]