Corporate annual meetings are generally drowsy affairs—a pep talk by management, some PowerPoint graphics, a little predetermined voting, all topped off by a parade of cranks to the microphones to excoriate management about their pet causes. April’s annual gathering of shareholders in The New York Times Company certainly featured all of those ingredients, down to the codger who shuffled in late, grabbed the seat next to mine, and promptly dozed off.
But beneath the surface routine there was an undercurrent of tension. Shareholders in the Times Company have been taking it on the chin recently, to say the least. In the five years between 2003 and the end of 2007, the Times’s stock lost about two-thirds of its value before rebounding slightly this year. As with most newspapers, daily circulation has been steadily eroding for years, dropping about 4 percent in the six months before the meeting. Sunday circulation has done even worse, declining almost 10 percent in those same six months.
The company’s “challenging” (to use CEO Janet Robinson’s word) first quarter of 2008 pointed to an even bumpier road ahead as the economy softens. Some bright spots poke through the gloom, but company-wide revenue was down about 9 percent year-over-year, with newspaper classifieds free-falling almost 23 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007. Despite the steep decline in the Times’s stock, an April report by media analyst Paul Ginocchio at Deutsche Bank concluded it was still overpriced: “We believe NYT’s valuation has been inflated well above fundamental levels, and continue to see a near-term selling opportunity,” his report said.
As a result of these difficulties the company has taken some aggressive steps, notably cutting the newsroom head count at the flagship paper, a move that Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher and chairman, had long sought to...
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"Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is racing to transform the embattled New York Times for the digital age. Is he up to the job?"
I'm curious. Why didn't CJR try to answer the question? And if you cannot answer it, why ask it?
Posted by Jay Rosen
on Thu 17 Jul 2008 at 07:03 PM
The times commitment to quality may have made it the Newspaper of record in the U.S., and seen it through some tough times, but Quality & the NYT have ceased to go together for some time. Quality at the NYT is not just dead, but dead and stinking to high heaven! You no longer turn to the NYT for news, you turn to its front page to be outraged or titilated, depending on our viewpoint, with the latest Bush derangement editorial, Obamamania propaganda, or unsubstantiated slur against former favorite McCain. The NYT may find a financial niche that will let it survive on the left wing fringes...but other than that its time to throw on the dirt.
Posted by valwayne on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 04:19 PM
I have never seen so many words used to say so little.
Posted by Emmett Wright Jr, on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 04:52 PM
Maybe they can get the 'World Workers Party' to pass out their anti American and anti Christian values gibberish to the fish mongers and owners of birds? -- Or maybe they could reduce their carbon footprint and just go away
Posted by charles higgins on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 05:20 PM
what bothers me is that the NYT that i grew up with no longer exists. my NYT was known for attempting to provide its readers with ALL sides of an issue with little or no pre-emphasis or bias, leaving it up to the reader to formulate his or her own opinions based on the facts presented by the reporter(s). in this new "internet age" of advocacy journalism, fueled by innumerable blogs and cable news channels, all vying for my undivided attention, i don't feel that the Times should have given up its earlier attempts to be a reasonably objective arbiter of the news. it's a real mistake to try and compete (either by being more "focused" or more "confrontational" than your competition only compromises and devalues the excellence that the NYT was once known for. to my mind, this constricting of "all the news that [was once] fit to print" into what i call "point-of-view" reporting is a bigger factor in the Times' slide into a discouraging and all too often nondescript irrelevance than anything described in this article.
Posted by Detmar Finke on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 05:23 PM
Despite a lot of recent coverage of the Times story, what I have not seen is a detailed examination of their online efforts. They receive mention above, but there is more to be said.
The Times produced some pioneering, amazing interactive graphics during the primaries. They produce slide shows, videos, journalist backstories on video, blogs, commenting, e-mail newsletters. There are a lot of subtleties to getting these features right. The Times does great work in all these areas.
Clearly they are pumping a lot of resources into these efforts. This kind of innovation does not come cheap. I think the Times' online efforts deserve closer examination, and credit, than I am seeing in the press. Perhaps the press is more inclined to look at the content of the traditional journalism than the innovations in presentation and visualization that the Times is bringing about.
Posted by Kelsey on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 06:04 PM
I, as well as many of my friends and co-workers, have stopped our subscriptions and reading of the times mainly because it has become an opinion sheet in just about every facet of its coverage. If one needs info hard and clear, we must go elsewhere.
This piece doesn't address the issue at all. Odd (hello?)
Posted by Tor Lars on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 07:25 PM
An article about the NYTimes which makes no mention of its contemporary savior, Abe Rosenthal, is woefully incomplete or uninformed.
Posted by Arnold Beichman on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 08:19 PM
I hope this article was not written by a Columbia J-school student. If so, one need look no further than our college campuses for a root cause.
Posted by T Taylor on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 08:36 PM
The basic model for the Times changed a long time ago. When you move the editorial page to page 1 and push stories like why women can't play Augusta, you tend to lose a lot of credibility.
Crappy journalism + fewer readers =
decreasing ad revenues
Posted by Elroy Jetson on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 08:41 PM
I used to be a NYT reader, along with a couple of other papers. Like many people, years ago I started to migrate to the Internet for my news, as it was easier to read several sources in one setting.
The NYT went far-leftist in it's reporting several years ago and I simply do not trust it's "journalism". The paper lies. I hope it goes out of business. And, I advise my friends and associates that way.
If the paper wants to declare it 'solidarity' with moveon.org, or kos, that would be acceptable, but to pretend to be a world-class newspaper is adding to the lies it publishes.
Posted by BillSanford on Sun 20 Jul 2008 at 10:06 PM
So will democrats criticize their flagship propaganda medium for "outsourcing" and sending operations overseas????
Posted by Tai Pan 91021 on Mon 21 Jul 2008 at 01:17 AM
...because of its commitment to quality journalism...
LOL.
Posted by iykwimaityd on Mon 21 Jul 2008 at 02:52 AM
Not to pile on, but a BBB- rating from Standard & Poor's is not "one notch above junk-bond status," it is junk bond status.
Posted by Anna Turtle on Wed 6 Aug 2008 at 05:03 PM