Transcripts For CSPAN Future Of The New York Times 20240622

Bulletproof glass. The more the members talked about that, they said that is a bad idea. This is the peoples house. The people cannot be walled off from the floor. The Capitol Building is a symbol, and that makes it a target. The british burned the building in 1814. There was a bombing in world war i. There was the shooting in 1954. What happened in 1971 with the bomb set up from the Weather Underground opposed to the vietnam war. There was another bomb from people opposed to reagans foreign policy. In 1980 eight, to es were shot and killed. There have been those instances over time. Yet, the capital has remained remarkably open building. The history of the house and senate. Its leaders, characters, and prominent events. Tonight at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Now, New York Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger junior and dean baquet discuss the future of the New York Times. This is one hour and 25 minutes. Good evening. I am jennifer raab, and i have the great privilege of being the president of his extraordinary and attrition, hundred college. This event is hosted by the rows of a house, the Public Policy institute. More people rsvped that we could handle, so we moved the event. When he was in the white house Franco Roosevelt began each day by reading five newspapers. The first one he usually picked up was the New York Times. The times is largely supportive of his program, especially during the early years, and strongly endorsed him in 1932 and again in 1936. It turned against him though in 1940, endorsing his opponent. The times have become increasingly critical of roosevelt especially over his deficit spending and his probusiness policies. The last issue irritated fdr. He offered what was, as far as our researchers could determine his only published critic of the paper. In 1944, while the endorsement did not back off, it did offer an eloquent assessment of what the new deal had meant to america. These measures were aimed at reviving the hopes of millions of people, so out of work, for no fault of their own, and establishing a larger amount of social justice. Fdr was one of a long line of president to have had their ups and downs with the New York Times. This extraordinary history would make the future of a discussion of the future of the paper such a powerful draw. I would w want to express our gratitude to the underwriters of this program. While we are expressing gratitude, i want to say a special thanks to our moderator , jack rosenthal, who has done a superb job in the last year as the interim director of roosevelt house. This Evenings Program is special for jack because he spent 40 years at the New York Times, winning a portal to prize, and serving as editor. In 1987, when arthur sold their arthur soldulzberger was editor to his enduring credit, arthur resisted scorn, took the committees advice, and becam the newspaper has become excellent digital. It is not digital or print, it is, did we get the story right . The questions before us this evening of how they will carry on the mission in the future. Be are here with a real affinity to this question. Our motto is the care of the future is mine. We are try to do what is around the corner and the apparent the next generation of leaders for it. Fortunately, there cannot be a better team to lead the times than arthur and dean. All of us are interested in their success because we know our nation cannot be successful and did a democracy without having a strong press. Our gratitude to you for doing all the you do to protect our democracy. To jack rosenthal, a hearty thank you. Welcome, jack, arthur, and dean. [applause] jack let me begin by thank you both for accepting this invitation. Arthur youre welcome. Jack i want to recall one evening around 1980 when i encountered arthur in the times lobby way a Leather Jacket and carrying a lunch pail. He was headed downstairs on his way to work. As a fourthgeneration member of the sulzberger family, he did not have to work his way up the ladder, but he did work in every part of the times. He sold ads, worked on the desk and eventually became deputy publisher, then publisher, and then chairman of the Times Company in 1997. In that time, as jennifer mentioned, he was determined to make the digital times as excellent as it had been in print for more than one century. You, in our audience, reflect that concern for excellence. This program sold out overnight. Dean baquet, the executive editor of the times, did work his way up the ladder, twice. After winning a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in chicago, he came to the times in 1990 as a reporter, became deputy editor, national editor, and then was hired by the Los Angeles Times , where he served as editor. He came back to the New York Times as Washington Bureau chief, managing editor, and in may of last year, executive editor. That means he is the number one amongst some 1200 jobs in the newsroom, where he is known for his approachability and personal interest in staff members. Our topic tonight is the future of the New York Times. For many in this audience, i think the concern about the future of the times in print. Lets start with some facts. How do circulation breakdown between digital and print . How much revenue now comes from advertising and how much from circulation . And my right to believe that prints assertions print subscriptions are dropping 4 5 per year . Arthur thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be in this auditorium. Thank you, also, for starting off with such a nice and easy question. Jack has always been good at that. Let me take those in pieces. I will start with what i think is most interesting. When you and i were in our positions, earlier life, deputy publisher, that period of time roughly the Revenue Breakdown of the times was 90 advertising, 10 circulation. Now, because of print and digital, it is more 60 40 . 60 circulation. 40 on advertising. That is actually a strength. I know it sounds i get is not, but the strength is the stability of the circulation revenue. It gives us a firmer footing on which to build our future than many of our traditional, and even nontraditional, competitors have. So few of them have had a digital subscription plan that has exceeded to the extreme the ours has. When i say succeed, we are somewhere around 950,000 digital paid digital subscribers. Jack compared to what in print . Arthur im struggling with the numbers. There is Public Information on this. I think it is about 800,000 daily. Dean that sounds right, and more than that on the weekend. Arthur what is interesting is when you see circulation decline print circulation decline where we take the hit is on street sales. Not Home Delivery. What we have seen over the last 1015 years, Home Delivery is strikingly stable. If you have to your subscribers or more, so getting people to subscribe for two years, im including weekend as well as weekday you find people stay for a significant period of time. We have them or less for life. That is a great base. Now, the digital revolution continues. People are moving they moved to the website the screen. Jack the website . The homepage . Arthur they moved from the desktop what im trying to say and now they are moving increasingly to the mobile. People have come to a variety of devices over a period of time. They will see is on the smartphone first thing in the morning. It will see is on the desktop at lunchtime. They will see is on their ipod later at night. Print is woven into all of that. People are across multiple platforms now. That is the future. Jack that raises a question for dean. With such a large proportion of younger readers, especially online can the times display its traditional high quality on the tiny screen of a smartphone without dumbing down . Dean yes. Can i back up one second . At the heart of the question, which is a question i have been asked a lot before, is what is the lifespan of the print New York Times. The question of print versus digital has become a distraction from the fundamental questions about journalism. I think the fundamental question about journalism is what great journalistic institutions will survive . How will they survive . I guess i do not buy, at all, that the phone means that readers of the New York Times want to read something lesser or dumber. All evidence suggests that people read wrong articles long articles on their phone. If the goal of the newsroom is to be read, which has to be my fundamental goal, then the number of readers we have in the digital era is astounding. It is unimaginable. If you take the story that we did a few weeks ago on the conditions at now salons nail salons across new york 5 Million People read that story. That is astounding. If you go back to the print era when you only have the readers of the print paper, that would have been unimaginable. I think people want to read smart, sophisticated stories in every format. My job as editor of the new times is to figure out ways to make stories in every format as smart and hard as possible. All evidence shows that we can do that on the phone. Jack one year ago, you received a report from the Innovation Committee that called for many changes. One point was to stopping so complacent about your readership. Over decades, the times has provided quality coverage, but that is no longer good enough in the internet era. The innovations report urged what is called audience development. Finding a variety of ways to reach out to potential readers. How have you responded . In business terms and in the newsroom. Arthur that is a great question for both of us. I want to go back one second, when i gave the hundred thousand 800,000, i want to clear that up. It is over one million when you include the weekend. I want to get that number back to where belongs. The innovation report was a wonderful wakeup call in many ways. As you might recall, it was written at the behest of dean and jill. They empowered a team of some of our best journalist to look deep at ourselves, and that it was leaked. It was never been to be leaked. At first we thought, that is awful. It was only a few days later that we realize the power of what had just happened. People around the world embraced the fact that the times had the courage to do a deep journalistic dive on itself which we have done and to say here is what we have done right, here is what we must improve on. I have to say, within one month i can not tell you how many calls i received from other Newspaper Publishers around the world asking for to come and meet with the people who had done the innovation report. It was a wonderful week of call. When dean became executive editor, one of his first steps was to reach to our business side and take a woman and make her an editor on the new site in charge of audience development. One of the great findings was the journalist must take greater responsibility for building their audience. Welcome to the world of social media. As fewer people come to a homepage and want to engage with our journalism on facebook and other platforms, how do we get people to engage in that way with us . I dare you to name the last business person who became a masthead executive on the new site. It isnt any. It was a really bold move. It has worked extremely well. We have done subsequent work, of course, to say, here is what we are doing right, here is what we need to push harder. There is a lot of work ahead. As soon as you catch up with what has been going on, the universe shifts. You have to say, it is not so much about search as it used to be, it is more about social. How to be adapt . Jack the audience of the dean the audience of the New York Times has increased about 25 and is increasing. I do not want to do big lush and investigate stories and have them go into vacuum where no one reads them. I think that suddenly we have tools to make sure more people read the stuff that we do. I think that is terrific. Arthur and when you look at the reach globally, youre talking about 75 million users. Jack let me get back to the relationship between business and news. Jennifer spoke about public trust in the times. Traditionally, the times has tried to maintain that trust by scrupulously maintaining a chinese wall between the new site and business side. Now they are not just two sides there are three. News, business, and technology. A recent example is the wonderful series on the front workers on nail salon workers. In my day, when the times would launch a big investigative series a splash on page one on sunday. If this one was launched online on thursday, it lets him to complain, why are you giving us the stale stuff on sunday . Arthur actually very few print users complain. That is important. We are in a mood of testing, learning, and adapting. If you do not have the courage to try new things and grow youre going to fail. That is the reality of the world beerd we are in. I have fraud what dean and his colleagues did which is to increasingly say, lets put the story out when the story is ready. There are some people who will read it then. Other people will be the later read it later in prints. It is not about the device. When i say device, i mean print as well. As you so eloquently stated some decades ago, we must be platform agnostic. Go to where the people are. Increasingly that means mobile. We are doing a fun test right now at the New York Times. Do you want to talk about that . Dean i will. First, there is a myth of how ignorant we are of the history when i read the l. A. Times if i had a big project that was going to run about Orange County government Orange County was the giant place next l. A. We were in a lifeanddeath cup edition with Orange County. If i was going to run a story on Orange County, i would go to the circulation director and say please tell me which day you will have the most papers distributed in Orange County. If they said monday, i would run it on monday. To me, the question that i asked myself is i want a story to be read, i wanted to have impact , im still fundamentally an idealist about journalism the idealist in me says, i want as many people to read it, i was investigative stories to have impact i want things to change as a result of hardhitting stuff. The only way you can do that is if things are widely read. The experiment the arthur is referring to is to make sure everybody in the building knows how many of our readers are on the phone. We have made it to where if you type in your laptop, it takes you automatically to the phone app. Arthur my view, part of it lies on my side. Probably a little bit of it lies in advertising. Can i just backup one thing . The chinese wall has never been in newspapers between newsrooms and the entire business side. It was never the case. There has always been promotion. Arthur that wall has existed between newsrooms and advertising dean that wall has existed between newsrooms and advertising. That has always been the case. Jack talking about audience development. Whats new forms lie ahead . I would be especially interested to know in your experiments with distant articles on facebook and the and apples new news app. Arthur you mean, what kinds of stories and . I can make it a complicated story. Jack you are risking giving a lot of these articles away for free. Dean here, to me, is the biggest risk. And i keep coming back to want to be read because that is what all journalists want, the biggest risk is to not go where your readers are. The biggest risk is to not go to places where there are millions and millions of people who want to read you. The biggest risk is to sort of stay out of that world and i think that is why we feel we have to experiment with people like facebook and apple. Jack you have to experiment with not making any money. [laughter] we are good at bat. [laughter] arthur no, i think the point is that as the world is evolving if you dont have the courage to risk knowing that sometimes are going to fail, you will fail automatically. If you just say, no, you know what . I dont need to you know what was the im sorry, im blocking on the name. You know the titanic fallacy . The titanic fallacy is a question that says what was the fatal flaw of the titanic . Some people will say well, the captain was trying to set a world speed record through icefield. Some people will note that they didnt have enough lifeboats. Some people will note that they didnt build the walls high enough to ensure that it was unsinkable. And the answer is none of that. Even if it to attend tickets if we made it to new york harbor, it was still doomed. Because a few years earlier, two brothers had invented the airplane. [laughter] arthur so, we are in a world where we must shift. Boats are great. There are still there. We have boats for all of you that we must become an airplane company, too. And that means trying things testing, having the courage to invest in things. Not just financially. And then say, ok, that works. Nope, that didnt work. Next. That is a lot of what we are trying to do. Dean the key point arthur the key point, you have to go of what the audience wants. Delivery school on small devices is totally a different expense than what you have on laptops. Jack on your airplane metaphor there are a lot of other airplanes in the air now. And they are faster and more nimble startups. But they are not better. [laughter] jack but you always follow the times careful tradition of editing. Going way until the latenight deadlines. There are a lot of of nimble startup sites including what could honestly be called parasites. [laughter] jack how do you compete . Dean whenever is there there is a big new story, if you want to use the plane crash in the alps, people come to the New York Times New York Times by the millions. First because we break the story. Secondly because we dont make mistakes. [crosstalk] [laughter] we are, indeed, a human enterprise, so we do make mistakes. But keep going. Dean anyway, the New York Times is full at the fully edited. And people still come to us for news. I dont if you ask me who my biggest competitors are, largely they are the same competitors we had in the predigital area. Largely, the News Organizations that i would add other european newspapers. The guardian, the Washington Post other ones that keep me up now and are the ones that keep you up kept me up 20 years ago. My guess is the one as they are the ones that kept you up. Arthur what dean is saying is really important in this sense. That we have all seen speed to market being such a critical element in the digital age. More so than an hour earlier print error alone. Because, you know, Everyone Wants to be first. So all of a sudden you have competitors throwing up photos of the boston bombers. Oops. Turns out they were not the boston bombers. People saying, oh, the Supreme Court just ruled on the health care bill. And then going out with the wrong rulings. You know. What dean is time to say is we pride accuracy so much that we are prepared we are not prepared to be first and wrong. We are prepared to be second third, fourth, fifth, and right. That is a core value. Jack let me arthur let me inject a little bit of humility into my answer. Dean let me inject a little bit of humility into my answer. The Supreme Court issues its ruling on the obama Administrations Health Care plan. We know it would be this huge, get it rolling. We knew that if we cut to assess it quickly in realtime, we would get it wrong. We wrote a memo and we put it up on the website and we said that. We said, please indulge us. Give us time. What other News Organizations did was they read the first half as you recall from the ruling it sort of flipped in the middle. And we didnt. We waited until as we sweated through the day said it now i understand it enough to write it. My main point is that we work really, really hard not to make mistakes. And we dont let speed i understand that the greatest currency we have is that we work hard to be accurate, edit it, and be as truthful as possible. I understand i cannot squander that. Jack acknowledging that, i have talked to some talented tech people who said they left the times because the News Department people patronize them as service assistance. Rather than recognizing them as innovative partners. Is that fair criticism . Dean i bets that is fair criticism. Im going to hope the assessment would be different now, but i bet you people would have said for a long time in the life of the New York Times that we didnt quite understand how much the Technology People in the news, and the whole times had to offer. Arthur i think dean made another important higher in mckenzie wilson. Dean hired a new head of digital she used to be at npr before that. And she came to the times, it seems like only a nano second ago, but what interestingly happened is that after she settled himself in the newsroom our new ceo not so new anymore, but three years or so recognized yes, that is who we need on the business side, as well. So wilson is now a joint report. To our to dean to dean and her head of technology. And that is a critical connection because what we need to do is we need to be faster and we need to be more nimble. We need to make decisions less complex. I dont have to have seven bosses, each of whom have three. That speed to market issue is a critical one. Enter your point of the critics who you spoke with, it does empower our digital teams on news and business to feel equal. Jack you have mentioned to different people. What is the relationship and do they have revenue obligations . Dean alex does not have direct revenue obligations. Hopefully you increase the number of subscribers and if you increase the size of your audience, you get more advertisers. Kinsey does because he oversees technology and he oversees product. Product is the part of the business side largely, though the newsroom has a window into it that tries to design stuff for the future. In the world of print, products would have been the group of people who wouldve created the the food is section. But now i likely to create essentially products out of the journalism reproduced. He has revenue responsibilities. Arthur and to the point lets not pretend that when they started to rethink the paper back in the 70s 1970s that there wasnt a fundamental need for revenue that they recognize they had to meet. They did. So this is not unique. This is just transferring that to a digital era. Jack what papers do you read in the morning . [laughter] jack to the editor. [laughter] dean i start out by looking at the New York Times to get a sense of experience. I read the journal, the post, the guardian. By the way, when he says the post dean the Washington Post. [applause] dean then on the subway, i read the new york post. I dont pretend i read every word. I spin through some other sites that have specific stuff. I look at, you know, courts for some media stuff for business stuff. A lot of it depends on jack do you read buzz feed or other sites . Dean no. I look at facebook pretty regularly, which also gives me a glance into a whole another realm. Jack do you tweet . Dean i have tweeted once. [laughter] dean but a poster facebook often. Jack arthur, do you tweet . Arthur no, i dont. And you remember the famous quote i think it was from sally, who famously said, you can work for the times or you can read it. But you cant do both. [laughter] arthur and i sometimes feel you know unlike dean, i go to it first on my phone. That is how, you know, i will catch up on some of the the morning reading stuff. Nyt now is engaging. I go to a lot of the pieces that our journalists suggest we go to. Jack i want to ask another business question. Why is Digital Advertising so cheap when it is produced has produced so relatively that all revenue compared to its twin, even though it reaches many more readers . Arthur that is a great question asker google. Quite frankly, a variety of reasons. The first is the cost is much less. The cost of producing is much less. Obviously, there is no paper, no trucks, no mailers and drivers. So the cost of getting Digital Advertising is significantly less than print. So that is one reason. The second, obviously, is there is so many places to go. And what, of course, we are learning over time is how little affects some of those places really have on affecting actual purchasing. But it is a constantly evolving process. Many of our advertisers, of course, have recognized the value of both. That there are times you want to be in print because it does have a much greater sale possibility people will actually focus on it and make a purchase decision. And there are other times you want to be if youre telling a story, digital is a remarkable tool. One of the great creations of our head of revenue, our new chief revenue officer, meredith, is the creation of an inhouse in effect Storytelling Lab for advertisers to use. And that has been that branded content has really become a great tool for advertisers. And that is just not, you know a little popup ad. That is an immersive experience. And what we are seeing is that people really do gravitate towards that. So there are lots of new Digital Tools that we are using and Getting Better at. Jack that leaves just the ultimate financial question. Arthur ultimate financial question. How is your pension doing . [laughter] jack about the same as yours. [laughter] arthur that might be the question. Jack even assuming that you succeed in developing a large and larger digital audience, given how cheaply can you generate the revenue that is necessary to pay for quality journalism . 200 million a year . Arthur yes. The answer is yes. And the answer is we have to do that. Look, the mission of the times has not changed since it was founded in 1851, since fox spotted in bought it, and that mission has to be fronted. And that is to produce the quality journalism that attracts a quality audience that we in turn sell to quality advertisers. The digital subscription plan has made it such that it is much much it is as much up to getting the readers to engage with us in such a way that they say, yes, the subscription is worth it. As it is to build that advertising base. Both are critical, but if we go back to those original numbers the subscription value the value of a lifetime subscriber of print or digital is one of the core that is going to give us the ability to support that journalism, that dean and his colleagues are doing so extraordinarily well. Again, dean, congratulations on your three Pulitzer Prizes. Jack the short answer is that digital for ever. Arthur and advertising. It is increasingly accommodation of the two. And the final thought i have is as we continue to grow and continue to grow our our base of readers, that advertisers advertising is going to play a deeper and deeper role. Digital advertising is an evolving picture and it is Getting Better. Jack dean, i want to ask you a question as a sometime victim. Dean you or me . [laughter] jack you. How is the public editors job working out . Dean you know, it is interesting. If you had i used to think when i was at the l. A. Times, we had a discussion on whether or not we should have a public editor. The late john carroll, who was the editor and i was the managing editor, we decided not to. I have to say, i think having a public editor is a great thing. And im surprised that i feel that way. [laughter] [no audio] [applause] dean i think it is great for a bunch of reasons. First off, i do think it gives people even though in the digital area, many people can criticize, it is not hard to get to us. It does give people a sense that the institution is listening. Even though i have no power over her. She can criticize me and she often does. She i think people feel like there is someplace they can go in the institution. I think she is often right. When she beat us up. I think even when she is wrong, she is reasonable and fair. It is probably not a bad idea for newspaper editors to understand what it is like to be on the end of criticism and questions. So even though there are times when when i would like to sort of lock her inner office and unplug in her office and unplug her computer, i think in the long run, she and im speaking of market largely margaret largely, i think it has been helpful for the paper. And it has just been something i have supported now. Jack let me ask one more question and then we will turn to the audience. Arthur critics sometimes cry and nepotism the fact that you and your sons and half a dozen other family members arthur i thought you were going to be attacking my father. [laughter] arthur you are going to Say Something nasty about punch . Jack let me enlarge the question then. [laughter] jack the fact is that that kind of criticism is our seem to me to be really misguided. It ignores the fact that other famous journalism families, like the chandlers in los angeles the binghams in louisville, it gets into second, let alone third, generation, they get greedy. Or some members of the family start wanting to sell shares. And the paper is consequently [no audio] arthur sorry. And we are now looking at the transition they are working in the newsroom, they are working on the business and and doing amazing work. So the family has a fundamental commitment. We have this wonderful trust created by our greatgrandfather thats lays out the mission of the company and the mission of the company is to protect the true quality of the journalism at the New York Times. It makes no mention of profitability. So there is eight family trustees and we are responsible as trustees to the shares. The shares are simple, they elect the majority of the board of directors. That is it. We meet as a family at least twice a year. Once for a twoday meeting at the times to learn about how the business is going and engage with andy rosenthal, your successor, dean, and their news and business side colleagues. And they here how the business is going. And then we have a meeting, a family reunion, just to remind ourselves we are a family. And that we just have a great love for each other. So it is something we have invested in a no less amount of time and effort in, in making those connections deeper as the family grows is something we all take extremely seriously. Jack so, for another generation . Arthur oh, there is no question about that at all. There is no question about that. Jack lets turn to the audience. You will observe that there are microphones on both sides. Let me ask that you number one, keep questions short because there are going to be a lot of people with questions. And number two, in order to maximize the number of questions, please lets take three questions at once and will answer them successively. On the left side . My name is hauser. Im a member of the community. I started reading the New York Times in high school when they used to give us very discounted copies that i brought home. Then i started working and i started reading the wall street journal. I read them every day. My impression and every year i read that the New York Times is doing buyouts. That the headcount is going down. I know sections have disappeared. The metro folded into the first part. Chess is gone. I think bridges gone. Culture seems not as deep as it once was. The journal, on the other hand, since it is no longer family owned, is growing. They have added a new york section. They have added [indiscernible] it seems some of the names i used to read in the times are going over there. They seem to be increasing their coverage. Why the difference . Jack and we are holding off for three questions. Sir . Jack, i used to work for some of you. [laughter] i thought i heard and the course of this discussion, some kind of emotional commitment to the print paper, other than the business this and that. I desperately want to keep a printed paper. I would like to be assured that the digital paper the one on the screen et al. Will look like it does the one on the screen at home, will look like it does now. So the paper that we start with. Jack ok, that is the second. Yes, i would like to know why the New York Times signed an agreement with to promote his book. And i would like to know why amy, who is another rightwinger who used to work for rupert murdoch, i thought the New York Times was supposed to be fair and balanced. Exley, that is fox news. [laughter] dean can i start with that one . As amy shows, she is not a rightwinger. She is a reporter. She worked for the wall street journal. [indiscernible] dean i actually would disagree with you, with all due respect. She was a reporter for the wall street journal. We did not sign an agreement. That has been mischaracterized. We took information. [indiscernible] [laughter] dean i think i think we take information from all kinds of crackpots. [laughter] dean that is called reporting. When i spent my time as an investigative reporter, you take information, you check it, you use it, any use what is accurate. But i really think that is an in a critical trail. Jack would you like to respond to the wall street journal questions echo questions . Arthur i would love to respond. I think the journal is, generally speaking, a good institution. The nyt is better, but that is just a personal point of view. I had lunch today a meeting, actually, with about a dozen of our new hires. Three of whom were from the journal originally. And they had come to us. At least two, but i think maybe three. Look, we used lose people sometimes and they go to bloomberg or the general or elsewhere. But remember, this is a circle. We get people also from the journal, as well as others. But the quality of the journalism and their integrity is the critical part of their being hired. Can i say that to the first question yes, we have made a lot of adaptations to the times in the last 15 years. And we have been forced to. Sometimes it has been cut because the financial pressures we are under as we adapt to a new era. But lets also note people dont know this we have more foreign journalists today than ever in our history. All right . We are investing in our journalism. There have been cuts in the newsroom as well on the business side. Absolutely. Have we been hiring back . Yes. We had the same number of journalists in the newsroom the more than when you were there. Dean right. Arthur we have more National Correspondent than ever in our history. I dont know the number in my head. Dean 18 national bureaus, 30 some foreign . Arthur so, at a time as so many of our competitors like the Washington Post, which i love, have really cut back on their foreign and national, you know, having people there, we have been investing in that. We have created new sections. We have created magazine. More recently we did dean mens fashion. Arthur mens fashion. So we are finding ways, but it is a bit of a change. And change can sometimes be tough. Dean and im not quick to say anything critical of the News Coverage of the journal. Those are good, worthy competitors. But i think youll find, to be honest, that they have also had the cut. They have also had to close sections. This is a really difficult time in the life of newspapers. And i think the core of what we try to do is to hold on to the stuff that defines us. And the stuff that i suspect most people in this room care most about. And that stuff we havent cut it all. But but i think every News Organization is headed rethink how it does business a little bit. But we protect mightily the core of the coverage of the New York Times. Jack now we can go to the print. Lets agree that there are many people in this audience who adore print. And it is our responsibility to keep print going. [applause] arthur for as long as we can. Print will not be going away anytime soon. Pleased walkway thinking that. But obviously, the degree to which people subscribe to print and get Home Delivery really matters. So if you people want to keep print alive, get more of your friends and family to subscribe. Home delivery. Thank you so much. [applause] jack i thought you were going to see the number, one800 [laughter] jack maam . Just very quickly, im former u. S. Department of state foreign service. I live in harlem. Im a home subscriber. And for a while, i was writing letters to please get to the fivews in the first five ws in the first paragraph. The who what, where, why, just so we are clear. Thank you. First, thank you for the nice stories on my law enforcement, nypd. And second of all, thanks for giving me more stories in the travel section on america. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very sweet. Jack maam . During fleet week, i had a conversation with a press representative from the marine corps who had traveled to the middle east with secretary gates. And he was very candid in saying that the military has and will ask the National Press to hold stories because of the sensitivity of the u. S. Relations with other countries. And i wondered what kind of criteria the times would apply to holding of stories . And secondly, how high up in the organization does the decision go . Very good question. Dean can i take that one . Only because i keep forgetting them. None of the question so far have really addressed the last one. The future of journalism at the New York Times. And i wondered what your thoughts about that are. That is the constitution of news going to be different 10 years from now and what role do you see the times playing in that new constitution . Jack that is a good question. Dean can i take a cut at that one . The way it works is that anytime anybody from the government wants to ask that a story be held or that anything be taken out of a store, it has to come directly to me. A story, it has to come directly to me. There are times that all the organizations dont publish things, and that is what i wonder if that is what your friend was talking about. If you are embedded with the military group and they are about to do a land invasion at 6 00 p. M. , nobody is going to put in the newspaper, land invasion expected in three hours. Keep an eye out. [laughter] dean that has been a basic tenant of journalism for as long as journalists have covered war. But when some but he was to ask national security, it always has to come to me. I would say 95 of the time i say no. I can think of a couple of times when i have said yes. In fact, i can think of at least one time when i said yes and came to regret it. Because it was a mistake because i think i think i did a consult enough reporters and just didnt there was a very tiny, tiny number of instances in which it is very, very clear that it would jeopardize life. And that is pretty much my criteria. I dont buy the argument that it is going to jeopardize relationships with a foreign government. In every instance, you know, in every instance where that has where that is the reason, i always say no. And the times i have said yes which would have been years ago i have come to regret them. So my rule is you really have to make the case that they would put somebodys life in danger. And there are a very small number of cases in which i have said yes as a result. But the decisions come directly to me. They are very i think there is a mythology that somehow the government comes in and wields its muscle with us. These are really really difficult decisions. Jack arthur, would you like to tell stories about being summoned to the white house . [laughter] arthur no, not particularly. Although it has happened, yes. You know, most obviously with president bush. Herbert walker. George w. And they this was a case of of internal wiretapping, in effect. And we had held off on that story for a while. And for a think good reason. But over time, we saw that the reasons they have had given us to hold back on the Stories National security, a serious issue, those those reasons seems to have less and less value. We got to the point where we were readied to finally go with the stories. That is when the president called and we had a good discussion and wonder ran the story. But that happens on a case in on occasion. The famous jack kennedy discussion with the publisher in 1961 we knew that the bay of pigs was being planned. And the president asked us not to print the story. In fact, to be fair, we printed the fact that we were training. That there was a training process going on, but we did it say, and by the way, we are going to be invading the bay of pigs. When we failed, of course, we all know it was a terrible failure. He then yelled at the event publisher, if only you printed that story, you would have saved me from this. [laughter] arthur occasionally that happened too. Jack i want to give a dean i want to give a specific example because this is one of the questions that its really important, especially in the post9 11 era. And i think there is a mythology that that big News Organizations like mine to that stuff all the time. Let me give you a real example of when we held that later came out. I think it is appointed to understand the context. I led our wikileaks coverage when we and the New York Times and the guardian got together working with drilling the size, by the way and we got the assumption that the New York Times which the lead and go to the government so the government could make their case , if there was a case to be made, that someone could be killed. And there was one particular cable that i thought was which is one of the most remarkable cables ever. It was a cable that described qadhafis visit to the united states. And it was this richly detailed portrait of what his requirements would be in his hotel. He wanted a tent on the ground. But it was really richly detailed. Who he traveled with. He traveled with three female nurses. How he was in such bad physical shape that please dont give him a hotel room with stairs because he would get out of breath. Really richly detailed. And we were about to put that whole cable in the New York Times. The guardian was going to use it. And then the government called up and said, ok, take a look closely at that cable. Do you see the names at the bottom that describes the people, the various people who are accompanying qadhafi on this trip . Who do you think give us all that information . And what you think is going to happen to them when qadhafi sees that cable in the new york New York Times with the description of how he is in horrible shape, is a little bit of a netapp, etc. Nut job etc. Not only did i agree to hold that cable back, julian agreed to hold it back, and the guardian agreed to hold it back. That is the kind of stuff that you wrestle with. To the future of journalism question, i think, honestly, that journalism will look profoundly better 10 years from now than it looks today. I think as you look at the coverage i will use ours, not to be arrogant but because it is what i most intimate with if you look at the coverage of ebola and you think about what the coverage would have looked like in a predigital era, it would have been fabulous. You would have had great newspaper stories. You would have had great photography. You would have had great a journalist, all this stuff. But you wouldnt have had videos on the New York Times website that described, for instance, one young man arriving outside the hospital with his parents screaming because there wasnt room for him in the hospital. You wouldnt have had the video in the New York Times website produced by us in which an ambulance driver drove through the streets looking for victims whose families did want to touch them so he could pile them in the back of his truck and try to find a hospital that would take them. Lets lets lets put over here the debate of print and digital. Journalism is better today than it ever was because there are many more tools. I mean, i grew up in new orleans. I grew up reading afternoon newspapers. And i only had access to one newspaper. The same kid who grows up in new orleans in a workingclass family now has access to as many newspapers as he can push a button four. He has access to video, he has access to the whole world. We shouldnt get so caught up in the debates over the form and some of the romantic aspects of journalism, which, believe me, i grew up in. It is better and it is going to be that are 10 years from now. [applause] jack lets meet at a p. S. To that. Could you talk about the influence of future journalism on future journalism of iphone cameras . Dean you mean the fact that journalist can take their own pictures now . Jack well, anybody can. Dean i am passionate about the future of journalism. I mean, my god, we are now seeing in a people and the Way Police Department are covered. We are seeing cases that we would never have seen. Just just for those who are interested in history, just imagine if iphone cameras had existed during the civil rights movement. Just imagine what we would have seen, how that would have changed the course of history. This stuff is better for us. It may be hard, it may give me a headache, and may give us all headaches about how we are going to finance it, but this stuff is better for the country and it is better for society. Jack so say a little bit more about the times and video. Dean i think we turned the corner this year. When did it was first introduced into the newsroom, if you go back and look at those videos, it was almost like waynes world. It was heartbreakingly bad. Not not because of the videographer, it is because we didnt know what to do with it, right . We put two not particularly attractive reporters or editors, i will include myself in that, to sit at a table and talk for a little bit as they looked at their watches. Arthur by the way, one of those was david carr. It did work for a well. Dean that is true. I was speaking of myself. The video for ebola, you are allowed to submit 10 things for pulitzer. At least two, possibly three, of the stories we submitted were videos. So i think they New York Times the New York Times has cracked the code of video and journalism and not just us, but others. Arthur if i could quickly note that our editorial side has also done extraordinarily well. And there are other elements that we make use of now that are also fabulous. The one that went up today on transgender. I mean, there is a really there is really insightful pieces that engage the audiences and advertisers also love that experience. Jack next question. Im a student at columbia university. Going back to the nail salon story, that story was available and more languages than english. It was to target, most likely the audience affected by the subject matter. I wanted to do no what extent multilingualism might become a part of the New York Times . Sir jekyll i may sir . Im a writer at what role do you think the New York Times will play in the future . And how is it different this time around then when your father was controlling the paper and your rising . Jack ok, thank you. That was the second question. Now looking to a third and maybe even a fourth. Thank you to all three of you for your work over your career. As you start to have your journalists become a social media brand, is there any risk of diluting the brand of the New York Times, particularly when they go elsewhere . Three good questions. Arthur multilingual. We translated that particular story into four languages. Dean right. Arthur korean it did extraordinarily well. And we also do a lot of translating in other, you know, specific stories. But you are going to see more and more of that. We have a chinese like which website that has been up for a number of years. It has been blocked by the Chinese Government ever since we did this wonderful story deck won a Pulitzer Prize. That won a Pulitzer Prize. But this is a great opportunity for us. Obviously, we are already a global News Organization. Not only digitally, but in print. As part of our offerings. But global is the next great step for us. And it is one that we have news and business colleagues working very diligently on. So, that would be that question. Dean could i add to that question because i can detect that this is an audience that cares deeply. As well as the economic mission. Part of the reason you translate a story like the nail story into other languages is because, to me, it would be heartbreaking to do a major investigative piece about people who you think were being abused and it wasnt available to them. So for my money, translating wasnt just an Audience Growth effort. It was a, my god, if we can figure out a way so that the people who are most impacted by the story can read it, too, i feel like my obligation is to make that happen. [applause] jack so, two games question. Arthur arthur so, to gabes question. It is not to give them any specific job, but to give them careers. Also, we have created a process. A very well thought through process to begin thinking about how to rebuild a successful career in such a way that, you know, in the time comes for me to announce a successor which by the way, is not tonight, so put down your pants pens that we have a process that involves our board of directors. The family, because obviously they have a stake in it. And management, because they have a stake in this. And we have created part of a process to do just that and begin to help build careers and then guide those who wish to take a more senior position into into that process in a more thoughtful way. And the very core of it is process. And that is what perhaps was most missing in the previous generational shift, was a clearly defined, understood laid out process that all the members of the fifth generation understand and get and work on. So thats and then there was a big question. Jack the third question, which i didnt register. Did you, dean . Social media branding of your [indiscernible] jack oh, right. Dean tell me if i got this right. By putting our journalism on facebook and other third parties, do we risk was it diluting the brand . Arthur i remember david dean i remember david carr once speaking to us about that particular subject. So that she or he and the answer is, yeah. And by the way, was there a band brand called bill safire . So, you know, we have had great journalists who then left and made successful, even greater careers. Right . So, again, you cant let fear get in the way of moving forward. And, yes, we do have journalistic brands, like david carr. God bless that wonderful man who, you know, saw something bigger than the times, but decided this day. That has been the case for a long time, right . Jack and it also works both ways. It lends authority to his columns. Arthur or david brooks. Jack number one on the bestseller list. The same for paul. Same even more so for nick and his wife. Arthur making sure, amazing. My name is blake and i blog at the huffington post. I think the times, as we know, is the greatest newspaper that has ever existed. I particularly am fond of the series justice series in the bronx that your son edited. I think that was of happiness series there. But is that where your audience is . And you always want to go where the audience is . Sometimes you have to leave the audience to where they dont lead the audience to where they dont want to go, which is the bronx. [laughter] and im a little bit nervous about the emphasis on the video. Is the times becoming another form of television . And is that a danger . All right, a number of questions there. Hi. You have talked a lot about the use of technology as a presentation tool. My question is, what is your vision of how to Leverage Technology as an investigative tool using data science and that sort of . Arthur first of all, thank you for that kind comment. First of all, i dont know why you dont will think people want to go to the bronx. I love the bronx myself. Look, there doesnt matter how many people are going to any story we write about the war in afghanistan or the situation in iraq. Are we going to cover that . Yes. Because that is our commitment. And we will not be driven to say, no, well, nobody really cares anymore about that. That is not the way it is going to go. So there is a commitment we have to the core of journalism that is fundamental. An investigative series, some of them do spectacularly. Quite frankly, some of them dont do quite as well. But they are Still Critical to meeting our mission of quality journalism. So that is a commitment that is fundamental to our core purpose. And to our brand identity. And if we lose that, sir, then we will lose our reason for being, we will lose the audience that values the times, and that is the end of our ability to translate our financial future. So there is a correlation there that is critical. Does that mean we have to have great restaurant reviews fashion coverage . Of course. Although things are true all those things are true. But how many people read the Rikers Island series that we did . I cant tell you the answer to that and i dont care, because that was fundamental. Can i turn this over to you . Dean i think i would say if you looked at, lets say, the last 50 investigative projects the New York Times did, which would include rikers, the peas we did about three weeks ago about three quarters houses, a nail salon series, this past weekend story about the death of air gunner, you said something important that one of our jobs is to sort of show people world that they might not have otherwise seen. And i think that fits perfectly into the mission. What i would say to the question about the commitment to use technology in newsgathering, i dont know how many of you follow the upshot. The upshot, which i think will i did not create it. One of the creators of the upshot is in the audience there. The upshot is largely a journalistic institution, i would call it, that is built on data journalism. David runs it, and davids goal is to look at ways to use data to jump on big stories of the day. Jack how big is that does upshot have . Dean 17 people. He thinks that is not big enough. [laughter] arthur and it is a mix of graphics people, editors writers, people that are good with data dean and their goal is to come in every day and look at stories with data. And, boy, are they good at. Jack 538, which largely flourished during the Campaign Dean 538, which largely flourished during the campaign i cannot remember the guy who ran it. Im kidding. [laughter] anyway, his goal