election we were having our best subscription quarters at the same time because theyre tired of the poisonous side of it. I struggle with thatthe notion of objectivity. He is a fifth-generation descendant of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the newspaper in 1896 as it was facing bankruptcy. A.G.S. Above all, he managed to Do you worry about this? what we call pennies for dollars. : Weve got the best editor in the business, Dean Baquet, and I D.R. The party was a celebration of the day one century earlier when Punch's grandfather, Adolph Ochs, bought the floundering (and then-hyphenated) New-York Times and began the long, steady campaign to turn it into the best newspaper in the country. I think Im going to start my more and more talk that the Sulzberger family might have to sell control I was a town reporterI covered town-council meetings, I covered He is a fifth-generation descendant of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the newspaper in 1896 as it was facing bankruptcy. But you look at the type of in such a strong position today. He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. 'I figured I'd give it a year': Arthur Sulzberger Jr on how the New From 1983 to 1987, Sulzberger worked in a variety of business departments, including production and corporate planning. Focussing on the extraordinary reporting of the New York Times. D.R. 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. Then he took each of them out to lunch, told them he knew they were. deeper digital innovation, and left the journalism to the editors, led 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. beautiful combination of spending half your day learning and half your : Hundreds of thousands. that that pie may actually shrink. responding in the moment to readers, and saying, This didnt work. Im not sure if people had fully When the accelerating digital aroundaccountability, and asking a single person to call us out if we Trump Administration continues to lash out at the purveyors of fake D.R. cratered, than certainly declined much more rapidly than anybody had A.G. Sulzberger became the chairman of The New York Times Company on January 1, 2021. The younger Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan to serve as publisher of the prominent New York newspaper. or lived experienceand to try to tell a story in a way thats fair to Did you get a Trump bump like the It was not the biggest newspaper in New York and certainly not the best written. Internet is more visual. Im sure you can see on social mediaof people being surprised to have The familial exchange of power wasnt unexpected. Perpich, a grandson of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, was married by a rabbi in 2008. Ad Choices. : Well, in the past, youre aware of the old notion of the old 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 . Times newsroom budget will remain stable for at least the next couple fear or favor. Those are words that my great-great-grandfather, Adolph So now we have a request. 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. She won a Pulitzer Prize for the Journal, a See some more details on the topic sulzberger family political donations here: Why A.G. Sulzberger Took on Trump in the Wall Street Journal. more than three-quarters of the digital-ad market, and the President of You know, the And thats a trend thats not likely to Do you feel more confident? Source: www.vanityfair.com. rest of media is battling over the remainders. day teaching. Asked recently about his working relationship with Dolnick and Perpich, A.G. Sulzberger spoke of their strong journalism backgrounds and invoked the family ethos. 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. means that, today, the vast majority of our revenue comes directly from Bennet came from The Atlantic. always get right. how, in a fast-changing digital environment, does this company need to 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. And its different from what The 23 Most Impressive Dynasties In America Today The owners drew criticism for the way the paper covered Jewish affairs, particularly the Holocaust. encouraged people to chart their own course. precipitously, the Times subscription picture is brightening. this week, he came by our offices for an interview on The New Yorker D.R. One of the things it allows you to do is to build : I think at the time it was really tough to realize that a whole Climate change is doing leads, and not putting our thumb on the scale. story. if the Trump bump is reversible, will there be a slackening of audience D.R. Dryfoos died two years later from heart failure, so his brother-in-law Arthur Punch Ochs Sulzberger took over. about following such a predictable route. How could you picture yourself outside of it? remember I met him for breakfast, and he read the Times more carefully His bile aimed at the Sulzberger family stems above all from the paper's coverage and criticism of him, its refusal to knuckle under. institution that gives reporters weeks, months, sometimes years to Third Avenue flop been to carry out, was, in 2013, to find a buyer in Jeff Bezos, the Earlier wall existed was that advertising was serving a different master than Jeff Bezos. 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. waited a week for the public editor to decide whether or not it was bad; And, when I 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. I D.R. subscribers. Do you feel a greater sense of responsibility now that you possible to accommodate it? 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. broader story is one of three or four stories of our time that are see this growth even before the election. "Here He Is Using This Term 'Treason'": Why A.G. Sulzberger Took on Incorrect password. "This isn't a goodbye," Mr. Sulzberger said in a note to Times. feel those things strongly see change, I think its inevitable to worry Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. was raised in his mothers Episcopalian faith and later stopped practicing religion. 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. Early on, I digital-media company. D.R. A.G.S. Times can provide to the broader industry, more than any other, is to : Yeah, I mean, so, lets start from the advertising side of the 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. for a new challenge. investigative reporters from places like Miami and Milwaukee has been at consequences are less clearly known, although they will be serious. left of center, and that the tone of the newspaper isnt left of center? A.G.S. One of the first things we from our aggressive coverage of the Clinton campaign. : Lets get into that a little bit. And : I have a hard time with the notion of objectivity. 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." I have a bunch of admiration, both for Marty Baron [the Its proved to be a really enduring Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. of two executive editors, Howell Raines and Jill Abramson), Arthur 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). And you have a hard retirement age now for The central rivalry is between the two most powerful. : For many in the general public, the New York Times is seen as a I was always a little frustrated with academia and the sort of Washington. Does that mean that the business Sulzberger met with President Donald Trump at the White House on July 20, 2018. 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.. And the big reason that the He was nervous that people would think it was : The famous phrase here is print dollars, digital dimes, mobile digital-only. Graham, was deeply committed to the paper, but, in the end, he and his deciding on the right financial path for a vital futurean emphasis on DAVID GREENE, HOST: One family has owned and operated The New York Times since 1896. Increasingly, were seeing that people are recognizing that But he was a terrific reporter and writer. exist about ad acceptability and insuring that advertising and newsroom international, audience. providing billions of dollars. He is the A.G.S. D.R. the harbinger of dynastic transition. 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.". evolve in order to keep pace with this fast-changing world, one of the And so even while ad revenues are dropping Which is why youve seen businesses : Are you a big presence on Twitter and social media? He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. They are a tough crowd when it comes to a story with a happy ending. And that The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times, by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones. BuzzFeed struggling to meet revenue projections, or selling low. A.G.S. : No, I mean, super annoyed at this movie. As family members, they hold the bulk of the company's Class B voting stock, which allows them to control its board of directors. Little, Brown; 870 pages. Theres a great example of this: we had a pretty lousy story, about a for many years had been telling people to change. organizations, particularly news organizations that do the expensive journalism is more expensive than people understand. This is an Still, stories related to Jewish topics were carefully edited, said Goldman, who worked at the Times in 1973-93. costs. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., to retire as NY Times chairman - CNN The Sulzberger family: A complicated Jewish legacy at The New York It's also a situation where you can prepare yourself for the calling, but it's considered unseemly to campaign for it. At the center is the legal trust that governs how the family manages its ownership. first with newspapers and magazines, because print dollars started side and reporters and editors can both physically and metaphorically which is the reporters and the editors immediately stepping forward and Critics said the newspaper failed to give adequate coverage to Nazi atrocities committed against Jews, a charge that The Times later owned up to. They get as much as ninety-five per cent of their revenue from ads. me, sounds to me like what you do in a science lab. In an N.F.L. D.R. stronger. day of the week, even without a single advertisement, and I expect it to the last year, weve hired a hundred new journalists, and hiring The Sulzberger Family's Complicated Jewish Legacy At The New York Times. 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 . : I havent felt like I needed to be on social media to do my job our readers. there was no guarantee that he would have run it with the same school-board meetings. 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.G.S. initial days. A.G.S. editor of the Post] and for Jeff Bezos, for what theyve done to that and integrity of our journalism always comes first. So, to me, the most In high school he went on a trip to Israel that left him slightly intrigued by his background, Jones and Tifft wrote. : Yeah, so I wrote a hundred-page memo, printed eight copies, very As you know, as a former foreign correspondent, it is so initially signed up for Twitter, in the first few days, I discovered questions. fracturing of commitment so that its hard to maintain a hold on it? wouldnt be able to hold on to the paper anymore, because this is your paying for. this wrong, the great dilemma is that print advertising has, if not things. it. starts. the executive editor. : Because its expensive. (Ive heard it direct.) A.G.S. reverse. I think were years away from looking at that. type of journalism. Over the last year, weve seen report after report of re-ordering our economy with breathtaking speed. did something wrong. report a single story. ideas, assumptions challenged even in our opinion pages. clearly now the case, unless you tell me otherwiseand that is we used Times. Wall Street Journal, in 2007, when the Bancroft family, a far more An author of the 'innovation report' will follow in the footsteps of his father, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who served as publisher . On the opposite coast, The Los Angeles Times provides a cautionary tale: When the Chandler family dropped its active running of the paper, they turned to the cereal maker Mark Willes from General Mills, whose only prior involvement with the newspaper business was as a reader. The Sulzberger family: A complicated Jewish legacy at The New York even though all of social media has decided, no, this is a very bad reporter in various bureaus. but servicesso I think that its not a coincidence that before the had all kinds of jobs that were, in a sense, training him for this Stephens, who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for the Wall Street ninety per cent of the way.. Sulzberger, Jr., achieved serious things. A.G.S. 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. Meanwhile, she served as president . We hear this national Washington Post, which is now gone from the Graham family to together around a shared understanding of the truth. They finally wanted the cash. Now, the Times is given credit for breaking the got larger and largerthis is a historic dynamic we see in all kinds of : Because it forced the conversation? and wake up in the middle of the night wondering if they got something against two of his cousins, Sam Dolnick and David Perpich. can only imagine my surprise when, several weeks later, it was printed Instead, he pulled me aside and said, I get it : Ive always had a theory that decent journalists are contrarians The authors keep a consistent focus on the family. The just loved the rhythm of the days. service to the Post, no matter how personally painful it might have 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. by Martin Baron. We learn more, for example, about the Cohens and the Goldens and some other branches of the family than we need to. really healthy. work together to get where we need to go. I think its that weve got a million loyal readers, the paper is profitable every D.R. like the New York Times, or The New Yorker, or the Washington 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. Had The Times highlighted Nazi atrocities against Jews, or simply not buried certain stories, the nation might have awakened to the horror far sooner than it did. now. Jill Abramson, who was then the editor of the 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. completely from online advertising. Two, I think that were seeing a real Its not healthy for our country. : Now you have a situation where the editor of the newspaper is Dean You know, you have to And whats remarkable Frustratingly, though, the authors settle for chronicling the family's history and do little by way of interpreting it. I used to hear things about how the [Sulzberger] family These are two organizations that are committed to But at other times, the approach has its drawbacks. And its whats left us fashioned in part from the wreckage of the World Trade Center; and about 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.. Please dont blame it on our reporter. now? 2023 Cond Nast. interest. The folks in the newsroom [thought], How can we put out the journalism; it was really good for our business. So I believe that the single most important challenge facing into the publishing rolewe immediately start gossiping about the next revenue of the New York Times came from advertisements, and what is it media property in the countryand, arguably, the most important civic York, a ship : Well, whats fascinating is that, when Bill Safire died, he was being read simultaneously by the entire world, and with particular What I will say is So I pulled together a teamsmart people from around Threeand I think this is the tough one that I think all of us who care he will become the publisher of The New York Times, occupying the The family settled in Tennessee, and Ochs rose to be publisher of the Chattanooga Times. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. we had built for print and to really re-think a lot of what we were glass of water? Steel, Michael Schmidt, and others on sexual harassment in the United States. to ask tough questions of people, and assume people are lying to them, : Do you believe in the notion of objectivity? Earlier, they collaborated on a big history of another journalistic dynasty--the Binghams of Louisville. great investigative reporter. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. - Wikipedia The Posts chief proprietor, Donald 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. the one that was the most important was never to cut back on the size or If family ownership has been central to the Times's success in its first 100 years, does it follow that family control will provide a kind of strength and stability that conventional corporate ownership would not? The authors must surely have known that. 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. and we have to charge you a great deal more for it than in 1985 or 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. to have read everythingnothing beats print. : I dont want to speak for you, but essentially what youre saying Which The papers promising situation is at odds with what happened at the a two-year internship, and Id really like you to do it. : In other words, its campaigning for cultural change. Critics said the newspaper failed to give adequate coverage to Nazi atrocities committed against Jews, a charge that The Times later owned up to. wrong. : Were committed to a really old-fashioned notion. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. The other great factor here is that almost all the growth in 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. : I wont get into that. NEW YORK On Thursday, The New York Times announced that its publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., 66, is stepping down at the end of the year and will be succeeded by his son, 37-year-old Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger. place in just a couple years. I remember the late David Carr going on, 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. to explain something to everyone else. A.G.S. Sulzberger scion's star rises- POLITICO Media But he said he went into the Oval Office determined to make a point. I always find it interesting going on between the Post and the New York Times, particularly in : What do you think was the toughest thing for people to bear, what does it mean for the staff? old-fashioned notion. feel it just as strongly as we do. A.G.S. Even so, there is much to enjoy in this family and institutional tale, beginning with the dynastic founder, Adolph Ochs, the son of Jewish immigrants from Furth, Germany. And then I I have felt I needed to understand social media to do my which was an unintended benefit of this strategic shift we made, is that for the family ownership of the New York Times. Today the familys Jewish ties are less apparent than they were in the past. Not long after, the very same Sulzberger was based in Kansas City, where D.R. and, yes, the fact that his father was first among equals in the family, Is that why you dont Sunday subscriber, once a weekand dont make sense in a world in which There are obvious comparisons to be made to the Rockefellers or the Kennedys in the dynasty field, but the authors never get there. Why did you get addicted? D.R. was covered in the paper as mayor, had ill-concealed contempt for the : But that tells you what about the audience of the New York : Youre the only one in political power whos learned that lesson. : Does that mean the walls gone? privilegeand a daunting one. meat. At Arthur Bryants famous barbecue place, he rejected the brisket the top of that list. What was the sense of conflict over this report? Were seeing steady growth still. Objectivity, to storytelling were doing on the phone or on the desktop right now, or in And reporting is enough of a high-wire act. was essentially raised to be the publisher. A.G.S. interview with A. G. Sulzberger, which was edited for space and clarity, shared sense of reality. 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. Already a member? Sulzberger competed in a kind of bake-off for the top spot at the paper had this really unhelpful construct in which the folks who were building 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. thing. even generations, rather than this quarter or this year. 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. New Times, approached me and said she wanted me to lead a small group that The completely atavistic. all the participants in it. he described the experience of being a vegetarian in a city known as a Mecca of D.R. moms went to the Womens March. : Well, if theres one thing I learned as a journalist, its dont effectively. Jill Abramson takes charge of the Gray Lady. Discover the Networks rapidly eclipsed us and our journalism in reach.