Everything about New York Times totally explained
The New York Times is a daily
newspaper published in
New York City and distributed internationally. It is owned by
The New York Times Company, which publishes 15 other newspapers, including the
International Herald Tribune and
The Boston Globe. It is the largest metropolitan newspaper in the
United States. Nicknamed the "Gray Lady" for its staid appearance and style, it's often regarded as a national
newspaper of record, meaning that it's frequently relied upon as the authoritative reference for modern events. Founded in 1851, the newspaper has won 98
Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The newspaper's title, like other similarly-named publications, is often abbreviated to
the Times. Its motto, always printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is: "All the news that's fit to print."
The publisher is
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., a member of the family that has controlled the paper since 1896. Sulzberger is widely seen as being under increasing pressure lately as dissident investors have pressed the company for board representation as the company's circulation figures have plummeted amidst an industry-wide circulation downturn and a migration of readers and advertisers to the
Internet.
History
The New York Times was founded on
September 18,
1851, by journalist and politician
Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker
George Jones as the
New-York Daily Times. 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 growing influence was seen when, in 1870 and 1871, a series of
Times exposés targeting
Boss Tweed ended the
Tweed Ring's domination of
New York's city hall.
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.
The
Times was acquired by
Adolph Ochs, publisher of
The Chattanooga Times, in 1896. In 1897, he coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print," interpreted as a jab at competing papers in New York City (the
New York World and the
New York Journal American) known for lurid
yellow journalism. Under his guidance,
The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, and reputation.
The paper moved its headquarters to
42nd Street in 1904, giving its name to
Times Square, where the
New Year's Eve tradition of lowering a
lighted ball from the Times building was started by the paper. After nine years in Times Square, the paper relocated to 229 West 43rd Street. It remained there until spring 2007, and is now three blocks south at 620 Eighth Avenue. The original Times Square building, known as
One Times Square, was sold in 1961.
During the next two decades, the
Times used new technology to obtain news and deliver it to readers. 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. The Times' first trans-Atlantic delivery to
London occurred in 1919. Finally, 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.
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.
The New York Times reduced its page width to from on August 6, 2007, adopting the width that has become the U.S. newspaper industry standard.
Times 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.
The United States Supreme Court established the
actual malice standard for press reports 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 against public figures rarely succeed .
The 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 war.
When the
Times began publishing its series, President
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." 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 U.S. 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 hadn't 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.
Pulitzer Prizes
.
The
Times has won 98
Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.
Historical controversies
The paper, like many news organizations, has often been accused of giving too little or too much coverage to events for reasons not related to objective journalism. One of these allegations is that before and during
World War II, the newspaper downplayed accusations that the
Third Reich had targeted
Jews for
expulsion and
genocide, in part because the publisher, who was Jewish, feared the taint of taking on any "Jewish cause."
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 genocide by
Josef Stalin in the 1930s.
In 1965, the
Times published a story about a Jewish man turned neo-Nazi,
Dan Burros. Burros killed himself minutes after the paper came out with the story.
The
Times has been accused by
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting of giving partial coverage of events in the 1980s in Central America, in particular by insisting on human rights violations committed in
Nicaragua, to the detriment of other abuses during the
Salvadoran Civil War, the
Guatemalan Civil War or under the
dictatorship in Honduras.
Until 2004, the
Times had a policy of not using the term
Armenian Genocide. Despite publishing dozens of articles about the Armenian Genocide, the
Times shied away from using the term in its articles as part of its editorial policy. The
Turkish Government denies
genocide occurred.
Times columnist and former reporter
Nicholas D. Kristof, who is of Armenian descent, has criticized in his
Times column the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government.
The Times today
The New York Times trails in circulation only to
USA Today and
The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is currently owned by
The New York Times Company, in which descendants of
Adolph Ochs, principally the
Sulzberger family, maintain a dominant role.
The
Times has been going through a downsizing for several years, offering buyouts to workers and cutting expenses, in common with a general trend among print newsmedia. At the end of 2005 it had over 350 full time reporters and about 40 photographers, in addition to hundreds of free-lance contributors who work for the paper more occasionally.
In addition to its New York City headquarters, the
Times has 16 news bureaux in New York State, 11 national news bureaux and 26 foreign news bureaux. It has sought to strengthen its status as a national newspaper by increasing printing locations to 20, allowing early morning distribution in additional markets.
In March 2007, the paper reported a circulation of 1,120,420
copies on weekdays and 1,627,062 copies on Sundays. In the
New York City metropolitan area, the paper costs $1.25 Monday through Saturday and $4 on Sunday. Elsewhere the Sunday edition costs $5. New home delivery subscribers receive a discount.
The newspaper continues to own the classical music radio station
WQXR (96.3 FM) and formerly owned its AM sister,
WQEW (1560 AM). 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. By the beginning of the 21st century, the
Times had begun leasing WQEW to
ABC Radio for its
Radio Disney format, which continues on 1560 AM.
Disney became the owner of WQEW in 2007.
The
Times had a separate television guide from March 1988 to April 2006. It was the last major newspaper to outsource its television guide's editorial to a
syndication service such as Tribune Media Services, though the latter company compiled the guide's TV grids. Blurbs (short, haiku-like summaries) for the listings of theatrical and television movies were based on the opinions of
Times critics but edited to succinct form by the former film critic
Howard Thompson 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.
A new headquarters for the newspaper,
New York Times Tower, is a
skyscraper designed by
Renzo Piano. It was occupied in June 2007 and is at 620
Eighth Avenue, between West 40th and 41st Streets, in
Manhattan.
Modern controversies
Jayson Blair was a
New York Times reporter who was forced to resign from the newspaper in May 2003, after he was caught
plagiarizing and fabricating elements of his stories. Critics point that Blair's race was the motivating reason for the Times initial reluctance to fire him.
The
Times has been accused of having a liberal or a conservative bias. According to a 2007 survey of public perceptions of major media outlets, 40% believe the
Times has a liberal slant and 11% believe it has a conservative slant.
In summer 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,
gay marriage being the example he used. 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 didn't comment at length on the issue of bias in coverage of "hard news," such as fiscal policy, foreign policy, or civil liberties. Okrent noted that the paper's coverage of the
Iraq war was, among other things, insufficiently critical of the George W. Bush administration. The paper was also widely criticized in 2008 for suggesting John McCain was unfaithful to his wife, the paper's ombudsman criticized the story as being printed without evidence.
Web presence
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. The website had 555 million pageviews in March 2005.
The domain
nytimes.com attracted at least 146 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a
Compete.com study. NYT Company consolidation (which includes
About.com) is the 12th most-visited parent company, with 37.7 million unique visitors as of March 2006.
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, though it was free for print copy subscribers and university students and faculty. To work around this, bloggers often reposted TimesSelect material, and at least one site once compiled links of reprinted material.
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 can't outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site. In addition to opening 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.
Times columnists including
Nicholas Kristof and
Thomas Friedman had criticized
TimesSelect, 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've a lot of people reading me overseas, like in India ... I feel totally cut off from my audience."
The
Times is also the first newspaper to offer a
video game as part of its editorial content,
Food Import Folly by
Persuasive Games.
The
Times Reader is a digital version of the
Times. It was created via a collaboration between the newspaper and
Microsoft. Times Reader is at the forefront of digital newspapers, taking the principles of print journalism and applying them to the technique of online reporting. Times Reader uses a series of important new 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.
Major sections
The newspaper is organized in three sections including the magazine, some like the Metro Section, 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:
1. News : Includes International, National, Washington, Business, Technology, Science, Health, Sports, The Metro Section (almost always section B), Education, Weather, and Obituaries.
;2. Opinion : Includes Editorials, Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor.
3. Features : Includes Arts, Movies, Theater, Travel, NYC Guide, Dining & Wine, Home & Garden, Fashion & Style, Crossword, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, and Week in Review
Style
When referring to people, the
Times generally uses
honorifics, rather than unadorned last names (except in the sports pages). The newspaper's headlines tend to be verbose, and, for major stories, come with subheadings giving further details, although it's moving away from this style. It stayed with an eight column format years after other papers had switched to six, 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. 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.
Comics
Aside from a weekly roundup of reprints of
editorial cartoons from other newspapers, the
Times doesn't have its own staff editorial cartoonist, nor does it feature a comics page or Sunday
comics section.
The New York Times is printed at the following sites:
College Point, N.Y.; Edison, N.J.; Billerica, Mass.; Canton, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Chicago, Ill.; Columbia, Mo.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Springfield, Va.; Gastonia, N.C.; Spartanburg, S.C.; Atlanta, Ga.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Lakeland, Fla.; Austin, Tex.; Kent, Wash.; Concord, Calif.; Torrance, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Toronto, Ontario.
The Ochs-Sulzberger family trust controls roughly 88 percent of the company's class B shares.===
Publisher
Masthead
| The News Sections
Bill Keller, Executive Editor (2003- )
Jill Abramson, Managing Editor (News)
John M. Geddes, Managing Editor (Production)
Jonathan Landman, Deputy Managing Editor
Dean Baquet, Assistant Managing Editor
Richard L. Berke, Assistant Managing Editor
Tom Bodkin, Assistant Managing Editor
Susan Edgerley, Assistant Managing Editor
Glenn Kramon, Assistant Managing Editor
Gerald Marzorati, Assistant Managing Editor
Michele McNally, Assistant Managing Editor
William E. Schmidt, Assistant Managing Editor
Craig R. Whitney, Assistant Managing Editor
Clark Hoyt, Public Editor
|
|
Business Management
Janet L. Robinson, Chief Executive Officer, The New York Times Company
Scott H. Heekin-Canedy, President, General Manager
Dennis L. Stern, Senior V.P., Deputy General Manager
Denise F. Warren, Senior V.P., Chief Advertising Officer
Alexis Buryk, Senior V.P., Advertising
Thomas K. Carley, Senior V.P., Planning
Yasmin Namini, Senior V.P., Circulation and Marketing
David A. Thurm, Senior V.P., Chief Information Officer
Roland A. Caputo, V.P., Chief Financial Officer
Terry L. Hayes, V.P., Labor Relations
Thomas P. Lombardo, V.P., Production
Muriel Watkins, V.P., Human Resources
Christian L. Edwards, President, News Services
Vivian Schiller, Senior V.P., General Manager, Nytimes.Com
Michael Oreskes, Editor, International Herald Tribune
|
Department heads
| Laura Chang, science news editor
Susan Chira, foreign news editor
Suzanne Daley, national news editor
Trip Gabriel, style editor
Lawrence Ingrassia, financial news editor
Tom Jolly, Sports editor
Scott Veale, Arts and Leisure editor
William McDonald, obituaries editor
Alison Mitchell, education editor
Katherine J. Roberts, editor, The Week in Review
|
|
Joseph Sexton, metropolitan news editor
Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor
Sam Sifton, cultural news editor
Pete Wells, dining editor
Robert Woletz, society news editor
house and home editor (TK)
Stuart Emmrich, travel editor
Gerald Marzorati, editor, The New York Times Magazine
Sam Tanenhaus, editor, The New York Times Book Review
|
Bureau chiefs
| Domestic bureaus
Dean Baquet, Washington, D.C.
Abby Goodnough, Boston
Monica Davey, Chicago
Jennifer Steinhauer, Los Angeles
Kirk Johnson, Denver
Kirk Semple, Miami
Jesse McKinley, San Francisco
William Yardley, Seattle
Sewel Chan, City Room
|
|
Foreign bureaus
Warren Hoge. United Nations
James C. McKinley, Jr., Mexico City
Simon Romero, Caracas
Alexei Barrionuevo, Rio de Janeiro
John F. Burns, London
Steven Erlanger, Paris
Nicholas Kulish, Berlin
Simon Romero, Bogotá
Howard W. French, Shanghai
Mark Landler, Frankfurt
|
|
Foreign bureaus (cont.)
Ian Fisher, Rome
Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem
Michael Slackman, Cairo
James Glanz, Baghdad
Sabrina Tavernise, Istanbul
Somini Sengupta, South Asia, based in New Delhi, India
Lydia Polgreen, West Africa, based in Dakar, Senegal
Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa, based in Nairobi
Celia W. Dugger & Barry Bearak, Johannesburg, South Africa
C. J. Chivers, Moscow
Joe Kahn, Beijing
Norimitsu Onishi, Tokyo
Keith Bradsher, Hong Kong
|
Columnists
| Op-Ed Columnists
David Brooks, Thursday, Sunday
Gail Collins, Thursday, Saturday
Maureen Dowd, Wednesday, Sunday
Thomas L. Friedman, Wednesday, Sunday
Bob Herbert, Monday, Thursday
Nicholas D. Kristof, Tuesday, Sunday
William Kristol, Monday
Paul Krugman, Monday, Friday
Frank Rich, Sunday
Business Columnists
Floyd Norris, Friday
Gretchen Morgenson, Sunday
Joseph Nocera, Saturday
|
|
News Columnists
Dave Anderson, Weekly
Peter Applebome Wednesday, Sunday
Harvey Araton, Weekly
Dan Barry, Wednesday, Saturday
Roger Cohen, Wednesday, Saturday
Clyde Haberman, Tuesday, Friday
Adam Liptak, Monday
William C. Rhoden, Weekly
George Vecsey, Weekly
John Vinocur, Tuesday
Science Columnists
Henry Fountain, Tuesday
John Tierney, Tuesday
|
Other notable personnel
Dith Pran - photojournalist
Sydney Schanberg - Pulitzer Prize winner, twice winner of George Polk Award
Linda Greenhouse - Pulitzer Prize winning U.S. Supreme Court correspondent
Michiko Kakutani - Book Reviewer
Christopher Lehman-Haupt - Book Reviewer
Sia Michel - pop music editor
Jon Pareles - pop music critic
Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, authors of The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.
Neil Strauss - freelance music writer
Philip Taubman - national security correspondent
David E. Sanger - current White House correspondent
Don Van Natta, Jr. - investigative correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner
Sheryl WuDunn - industry and international business editor and Pulitzer Prize winner
Frank Bruni - chief restaurant critic
Eric Asimov - chief wine critic
David Pogue - personal technology columnist, blogger
A.O. Scott - film critic
Manohla Dargis - film critic
Stephen Holden - film critic
Patrick Tyler - chief correspondent
Former management and employees
Publishers
Adolph Ochs (1896-1935)
Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1935-1961)
Orvil Dryfoos (1961-1963)
Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger (1963-1992)
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. (1992-present)
Executive editors
Turner Catledge (1964-1968)
James Reston (1968-1969)
position vacant (1969-1976)
A.M. Rosenthal (1977-1986)
Max Frankel (1986-1994)
Joseph Lelyveld (1994-2001)
Howell Raines (2001-2003)
Other personnel
Kurt Eichenwald - former business reporter
John Bertram Oakes - former editor of the editorial page (1961-1976), credited with creating the modern op-ed page
Howard Thompson - former film critic
Adam Clymer, former correspondent in Washington, D.C.
Thomas Lask, former book reviewer and culture editor
Carr Van Anda, managing editor, 1904-1924Further Information
Get more info on 'New York Times'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://the_new_york_times.totallyexplained.com">The New York Times Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
