Transcripts For CSPAN Future Of The New York Times 20150907

I think the number they were talking about was 41. They just need a couple more. Our Democratic Leaders in the senate indicating that they will be able to stop that from coming to a final vote. Guest because they are so close to the 41 number, which, as you said, it will be interesting to see if they decide to do that. People in senator durbins have notid that they. Ecided if they will filibuster undecided, and they may not end up getting the vote. Att read more huffingtonpost. Com. Thanks for the update. Now, remarks from the chair and publisher of the New York Times on the future of the papers future in the digital age. About half of the subscriptions are for Digital Content only, a shift for the organization. He is joined by the executive editor at this event held in new york. It is one hour and a half. Good evening. I have the great privilege of being the president of this extraordinary institution. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this discussion on the future of the New York Times. This event is hosted by the roosevelt house. Thegs to the power of executive, more people are cp then we could handle. The times strongly endorsed roosevelt. It turned against him though, andsing his opponent became increasingly critical. Irritated fdr. 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 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 Sulzberger was editor. To his enduring credit, arthur resisted scorn, took the committees advice, and 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 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 thanking 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 wearing 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. His first job was in the Washington Bureau in 1978. Later 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 does circulation breakdown between digital and print . How much revenue now comes from advertising and how much from circulation . Am i right to believe that 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 in 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 like it 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 subscribers or more, so getting people to subscribe for two year, 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 come to a variety of devices over a period of time. They will see is on the smartphone first thing in the morning. Say will see us on the desktop at lunchtime. They will see us on their ipad 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 York 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 stop being 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 then it was leaked. It was never written to be leaked. At first we thought, that is awful. It was only a few days later that we realized 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. Wake up 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 s side. There 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, the digital universe shifts. You have to start saying, it is not as much about the search as he used to be. It is now more about social. How do we adapt . Dean the audience of the New York Times has risen by 25 . I am an editor who wants the journalism of the New York Times to have impact. I do not want to do big, lush investigative stories and have them going to vacuum were nobody reads it down. We have tools to make sure more people read. That is terrific. Arthur when you look at the times globally, almost 75 million users. Jack let me head back to the relationship with business and news side. Jennifer spoke about trust in the times. Traditionally the time to try to maintain the trust by scrupulously maintaining a chinese wall between new side and business side. Now, they are not just two sides, there are the three sides print news, business, and technology. An example was the wonderful work on nail salon workers. In my day, the times the times when launched a series, it would be a splash on page one on sunday. This one was launched online and on thursday. It led some print subscribe that why are we getting the stale stuff on sunday. Arthur to be clear, very few complained. We are learning and adapting. If you do not have the courage to try new things and grow, you are going to fail. That is the reality of the world we are in. I applaud what the 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 are going to read it then and others will read it later on a different in print. Not about the device. When i say device, i mean print as well. As you so eloquently stated from decades ago, we must of the platform agnostic. Go to where the people are. And increasingly that means mobile. And as you probably know, we are doing a test right now at the New York Times. Dean there is a myth, is remarkable to me as much as people look at journalism and journalists and newspaper so closely how ignorant we are of the history. Act as l. A. Times if i had a big project that was going to run about Orange County government, that was the giant next to l. A. , next to a life and death competition. If i had a big story that was going to run about Orange County, i would go to the circulation director and say please tell me which today you will have the most papers distributed in Orange County. If they said to me, monday, i would run it on monday. To me, the question i asked myself, i want a story to be read. I wanted to have impact. I am fundamentally an idealist about journalism and the idea i want as many people to read it. I want it to have impact. I wanted things to change as result of hardhitting stuff. The only way you could do it is to be widely read. This permits arthur is referring to is to make sure everybody in the building knows how many of our readers are on the phone. We made it so if you type onto your laptop, it takes you to the phone app. Jack which side of the chinese wall is Audience Development lie on . Dean my view is it lies, part on my side. Probably a little bit in advertising. Can i back of one thing . The chinese wall has never been in newspapers between newsrooms and the entire business side. That was never the case. There is always been promotion. The wall of existence between newsrooms and advertising. Not a newsrooms and technology. Not newsrooms and circulation. Not newsrooms and promotion. That has always been the case. Jack talking about Audience Development, what new forums lie ahead . I would be interested in your experiments with instant articles on facebook and apples new news app. Dean what kind of stories are we doing . Jack i can make a complicated question. Risking a lot when you give these articles out for free. Dean here to me is the risk. I keep going back to wanting to be read. The biggest risk is not the goal where your readers are area the biggest risk is to not to go to places where there are millions and millions of people who want to read. The biggest risk is to stay out of that world. That is why we felt we had to experiment with people like facebook and apple. Jack if the experiment is not making any money . Arthur that is not the case. If you do not risk knowing you will not fail, you will fail automatically. You know the famous case. Umm what was the . The titanic fallacy. The titanic fallacy is the question, what was the fatal flaw of the titanic . Some people will say, you know, the captain trying to set a worlds speed record. Some people note they do not have enough lifeboats. Some they do not build the walls high a note to ensure it was unsinkable. The answer is none of that. Even if the tide has safely made it to new york harbor, it was still doomed. Because a few years earlier, two brothers had invented the airplane. So, we are in the world where we must shift the industry is great and it is there and we have boats for all of you. We must become an airplane company, too. That means trying things, testing, having the courage to invest and not just financially. And say, that work on how do we build on it . And that did not work, next. Thats what were trying to do. The key point, you have to increasingly go where the audience is. That does not mean our journalism is going to change but our presentation may change. The way we scroll on the small devices is totally different experience than on a laptop. We have to adapt. Jack let me ask dean a question. A lot of airplanes in the air now and they are faster and more nimble. Dean but they are not better. Jack the tradition of careful editing, going way into latenight deadlines. A lot of nimble startup sites, including welcome honestly be called parasites. [laughter] jack how do you compete . Dean whenever theres a big news story, if you want to use the example of the plane crash in the alps. People go to the New York Times by the millions. First, we break the story is pretty secondly, we do not make mistakes. Certainly because i will get to those. We are indeed a human enterprise. We do make mistakes. Lets keep going. Anyway, the New York Times is fully edited as it was in print. People still come to us for news. If you ask me, who my biggest competitors are, largely the same competitors we had in the predigital era. The News Organizations, and some european papers. The guardian, the wall street journal, they keep me up at night and they kept me up and i 20 years ago. Arthur i want to go back to mistakes. Ive said, we make mistakes. What the dean is saying its really important in this sense. We are both seen the being such a critical element in digital age more so than earlier print era. Everyone wants to be first. All of a sudden, competitors and throwing up photos of the boston bombers. Oops. Turnout they were not the boston bombers. They were innocent kids. People were saying the Supreme Court has ruled on the health care bill. And then, going out with the wrong ruling. We what dean is trying 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 fourth, fifth and right. That is a core value. Dean let me inject some humility into my answer. Here is what we try to do im not the Supreme Court issues its ruling on the obama Administrations Health Care plan. We knew it would be this huge, complicated ruling. We knew if we tried to assess it quickly in realtime we would get it wrong. We wrote a memo on our website and said that. Please indulge us. Give us time to read it. What other organizations did, they read the first half the ruling flipped in the middle. We did not. We waited as adam said there was enough time to write it. We work really hard not to make mistakes. We dont let speed i understand that the greatest currency we have is that we work hard to be accurate, edited and truthful as possible. I understand i cannot squander that. Jack ive talked to some talented tech people who said they left the times because the News Department people patronized them as Service Assistance rather than recognizing them as innovative partners. Is that a fair criticism . Dean i bet you that is a fair criticism. I bet there was a period i will hope that the assessments would be different now, but i bet people would have said for a long time that we did not quite understand how Much Technology people in the whole of the New York Times had to offer. Arthur dean made another important hire in kinzie wilson. Dean hired a new head of digital who used to be at npr. Kinzie came to the times, but what happened is after he settled in the newsroom as the head of digital, our new ceo mark thompson, recognized yes, that is who we need on the business side as well. Kinzie wilson is a joint report to dean and our ceo with Technology Reporting to him across. That is critical because what we need to do is be faster and be more nimble. We need to make decisions less complex. In other words, i dont have to have seven bosses, each of whom have three. That speed to market issue is a critical one and, to your point of critics you have spoke with, it does empower our digital team, news and business, to feel equal. Jack two different people. Mccallum and kinzie wilson, do they have revenue obligations . Dean direct revenue obligations . If you increase the size of the audience, you increase the number of subscribers. You get more advertisers. Does she have any direct revenue obligations . She does. It is part of the business side largely. It tries to design stuff for the future. In the world of print, it wouldve been the group of people who created the food section. But now, we are likely to take products out of the journalism we produce. Arthur lets not pretend they started to rethink the paper back in the 1970s that there was not fundamental need for revenue. They recognized they had to meet that. This is not unique. This is just transferring that to a digital era. Jack what papers do you read in the morning . [laughter] dean i start out by looking at the New York Times on the phone to find out what i missed at night. Partly to get a sense of experience. I read the New York Times pretty thoroughly in print. I read the journal, the post, the guardian. The Washington Post. [laughter] arthur no, but then i read the New York Post on the subway. I dont pretend i read every word. Dean i spin through other sites that have specific stuff. I look at courts for business stuff and media stuff. If a lot of it depends on the big news story of the day is. We look at buzzfeed or reddit. I look at facebook pretty regularly which gives me a glimpse into old another realm into a whole other realm. Jack do you tweet . Arthur i dont. Dean there was a famous quote from sally who said you could work for the times or you could read it. But you cannot do both. I sometimes feel unlike dean, i go to it first on my phone. That is how i will catch up on the morning reading stuff. Nyc is engaging. What i have learned is i go to the pieces that we suggest we go to. Jack i want to ask a business question. Why is Digital Advertising so cheap when it produces relatively little revenue compared to print even though it has many more readers . Arthur that is a great question to ask google. The first reason is the cost is much less. The cost of producing Digital Advertising is less. Obviously, there is no paper, no trucks, no mailers and drivers. The cost of getting Digital Advertising is significantly less than print. That is one reason. The second is there are so many places to go. What we are learning over time is how little affect some of those places really have on affecting actual purchasing. But, it is a evolving process. Many of our advertisers recognize the value of both. There are times you want to be in print because it has a much greater sale possibility. People will actually focus on it and make a purchase decision. If you are telling a story, digital is a remarkable tool. One of the great creations of our head of revenue is the creation of an inhouse Storytelling Lab for advertisers to use. That has been, that branded content has become a great tool for advertisers. That is not a little popup ad, that is an immersive experience. People really do gravitate to that. There are lots of new Digital Tools we are using and Getting Better at. Dean that leads to the ultimate financial question. Jack even assuming, how is your pension doing . [laughter] jack not the same as yours. Even assuming you succeed in developing a larger digital audience, given how cheaply people can buy Digital Advertising, can you generate the serious revenue necessary to pay for quality journalism . 200 million a year. Arthur the answer is yes. Him we have to do that. The mission of the times has not changed since it was founded in 1851, since 1896. That mission has to be funded. That is to produce the quality journalism that attracts a quality audience that we in turn sell to quality advertisers. But, the value of our subscription plan, digital subscription plan has made it such that it is much it is as much getting the readers to engage with us in such a way that they say yes, this subscription is worth it as it is to build that advertising base, also critical. As we go back to those original numbers, the subscription value print or digital is one of the core that will give us the ability to support that journalism that they are doing so well. Again, dean, congratulations on your Pulitzer Prizes. Lets not pretend advertising is not a critical part of the picture. Jack understood. Arthur it is a combination of the two. The final thought i have is as we continue to grow and continue to grow our base of readers that advertiser will play a deeper role. It 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 . Jack you. How are the public editors jobs working out . Dean i used to think when i was at the l. A. Times, we had a discussion about whether we should have a public editor. The late john carroll and i decided not to. I have to say i think having a public editor is a great thing. Im surprised i feel that way. [applause] dean i think it is a great thing for budget reasons. First off, i think it gives people even though in the digital era, 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 some place they can go in the institution. I think she is often right when she beats 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 other end of criticism and question even though there are times when i would like to sort of lock her in her office and unplug her computer, in the long run, it is good im speaking of margaret largely because she has been editor in my time it is a good institution. It has been helpful for the paper. I support it now. Jack let me ask one more question and well turned to the audience. Arthur, critics sometimes cry nepotism about the fact that you [laughter] jack and your son and half a dozen other family members arthur i thought you would be attacking my father. [laughter] arthur Say Something nasty about punch . Jack let me in large the question then. [laughter] jack the fact is that kind of criticism has seemed to be misguided. It ignores the fact that other famous journalism families like the chandlers in los angeles, the binghams in louisville, the cancrofts. It goes into secondgeneration. They get greedy or some members of the family want to sell shares and the papers subsequently lose the determination to put out a quality product. How does the family, now into a fifthgeneration, managed to assure the same thing does not happen to the New York Times . Arthur that is a good question and one my family has been working on for many years. There was a story in the paper yesterday that noted that only the number of Family Businesses that can move from thirdgeneration to fourthgeneration is 3 . Only 3 . Jack not just newspapers. Arthur all Family Businesses. We are now looking at the transition to a fifth generation where there are six members currently working at the New York Times which is very exciting. They are working in the newsroom, the business side. And doing amazing work. The family has a fundamental commitment. We have this wonderful trust created by our greatgrandfather that lays out the mission of the company and the mission of the company is to protect the quality journalism. The mission makes no mention of profitability. There are eight family trustees. We are responsible to the bshares. They elect the majority of the board of directors. We meet as a family at least twice a year. Once for a twoday meeting to learn about how the business is going and engage with andy rosenthal, your successor, dean and their news and business colleagues. And hear how the business is going. Then, we have a meeting, a Family Reunion to remind ourselves we are a family and that we just have a great love for each other. It is something we have invested an enormous amount of time and effort in and making those connections deeper as the family grows is something we take seriously. Jack another generation . Arthur no question at all. There is no question about that. Jack lets turn to the audience. There are microphones on both sides. Let me ask that you, number one, keep questions short because they will be a lot of people who want to ask questions. Number two, in order to maximize the number of questions, please lets take three questions at once and we will answer those successively. The left side . My name is victor. I started reading in Junior High School when they gave us a discounted copy i would bring home and you suckered me in. [laughter] i started working and reading the wall street journal. I also read the financial times. My impression is that i know the New York Times is doing buyouts. The headcount is going down. I know sections have disappeared. The style section is gone. Metro is folded into the first part. Chess is gone, bridge is gone. Culture seems not as deep as it was. The journal on the other hand is no longer familyowned they have added a new york section. They have added a section my wife likes to read. Some of the names i read in the times are going over there. It seems to be increasing their coverage. Why the difference . Jack we are holding off for three questions. Sir . I used to work for some of you. [laughter] i thought i was here for part of the discussion some kind of emotional commitment to the print paper other than the kind of business this is. I desperately want to keep the printed paper. I would like to be assured that the digital paper, the one on a screen, will look like it does now like a newspaper on the web so that the model is the paper, the paper we started with. Jack ok. I would like to know why the New York Times signed an agreement with peter to promote his book. I would like to know why amy, another rightwinger, covers hillary clinton. I thought the New York Times was posted be fair and balanced. [laughter] [indiscernible] dean that is not accurate. Amy and he was a reporter who covered media. She worked for the wall street journal. There is rightwing bias. Dean i actually would disagree with you. She was a reporter for the wall street journal. We did not sign an agreement. That has been mischaracterized. We took information from him as we take information from any other service. [indiscernible] [laughter] dean 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 checked it and you use it accurately. I think that is an inaccurate portrayal of amy. Arthur i would love to respond to the wall street journal question. There were a lot of editorials i think it is a good journalistic institution. There are better in covering business but that is your personal point of view. I had a meeting today with about a dozen of our new hires, three of whom were from the journal. So, at least two, maybe three. We lose people sometimes and they go to bloomberg or the journal or elsewhere, but this is a circle and we get people from the journal as well as others. The quality of the journalism and their integrity is the critical part of their being hired. Can i say the first question yes, we have made a lot of adaptations for the times in the last 15 years. We have been forced to. Sometimes it was cut because of the financial pressures we were under. We adapted to a new era. Lets also note we have more foreign journalists today than ever in our history. All right . We are investing in our journalism. Has there been cuts . Absolutely. Have we been hiring back . Yes. We have the same number of journalists in the New York Times as we had 5, 10 years ago . More than when you were there. We had more National Correspondents than ever. We have created new sections. How many bureaus . Dean 40. 18 professional bureaus and 32 national bureaus. Arthur at the time when so many of our competitors at the Washington Post and the l. A. Times have really cut back on their foreign and national having people there we have been investing. We created new sections. T magazine was a famous section we launched. Mens fashion more recently. We are finding more ways but it is a bit of a change. Change can sometimes be tough. Dean for one not say anything critical of the News Coverage of the journal or ft, those are good competitors. I think you will find they also had to cut. I think you will find they had to close sections. This is a really difficult time in the life of newspapers. 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. That stuff we have not cut at all. I think every News Organization has had to rethink how it does business in little bit, but we will protect mightily the core of the coverage. Jack lets agree there are many people in this audience who adore print. It is our responsibility to keep print going. [applause] arthur for as long as we can. It could be going away anytime soon so please do not walk away thinking that. Obviously, the degree to which people subscribe to print and get Home Delivery really matters. If you people want to keep print alive, get more of your friends and family to subscribe. Home delivery. Thank you so much. Jack i thought you were going to say the number. 1800 maam . Im a former employee of the u. S. Department of state for foreign service. I live in harlem. Im a home subscriber. I was writing letters to you to get to the five ws in the first paragraph please. Thank you. Now, i just want to say two conversations one is thank you for the nice stories on my law enforcement, nypd. Second of all, thanks for giving me more stories in the travel section on america. Thank you. [applause] arthur thank you. Jack maam . During sweeps week, i had a conversation with a press representative from the marine corps who had traveled through the middle east with secretary gates. He was very candid in saying the military will ask a National Press to cold stories because of the sensitivity of the u. S. Relations with arab countries. I wonder what kind of criteria the times would apply holding a story . How high up in the organization does the decision go . Jack very good question. Dean can i take that one . Im a professor at political theory here. None of the questions so far have really addressed in the future of journalism at the New York Times. I wondered what your thoughts are about that. That is to say 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 good question. Dean can i take a cut at that one . The way it works is anytime anybody from the government wants to ask that a story be held or that anything be taken out of a story, it has to come directly to me. Sometimes there are obvious cases where all of News Organizations do not publish things and i wonder if that is what your friend was talking about. That is the basic stuff like if you are embedded with a military group because you are covering the war and they are about to do a land invasion on tuesday at 6 p. M. Nobody will put that in the newspaper. Land invasion expected in three hours, keep an eye out. That is a basic tenet of journalism. What you are talking about is when somebody wants to ask National Security it 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 said yes. I can think of at least one time when i said yes and came to regret it because it was a mistake. I think i did not consult enough reporters. There is a very tiny, tiny number of instances in which it is very, very clear it would jeopardize a life and thats pretty much my criteria. I dont buy the argument that its going to jeopardize relationships with a foreign country, foreign government. In every instance, pretty, you know, in every instance when thats become the reason, i always say no. And the times ive said yes which would have been years ago ive come to regret them. My rule is you really got to make the case that it would put somebodys life in danger. And there are a very small number of cases in which ive said yes as a result. I always insist they come directly to me. Theyre very, just, i think there is a mythology that somehow the government comes in and wields its muscle with us. These are really, really difficult decisions. Would you like to tell stories about being summoned to the white house . No, not really. Although it has happened. Most obviously with president bush. Not herbert walker. George w. This was the case of internal wiretapping in effect. We held off on that story for a while and for i think good reason but over time we saw the reasons they had given us to hold back on those stories, the National Security, its a serious issue. Lets not pretend its not. And those reasons seemed to have less value and as we got to the point where we were ready to finally go with the story, thats when the president called and we had a good discussion and ran the story. But that happens on occasion and its happened on occasion weve held off on a story. The famous jack kennedy discussion. The bay of pigs. We knew that it was being planned. The president asked us not to print the story. To be fair, we printed the fact that we were training, that there was a training process going on but we did not say, by the way, we will be invading the bay of pigs. Course, weailed, of know it was a failure, and then he yelled at the then publisher afterwards. If only you printed that story, you wouldve saved me from this cases like that happen, too. I want to give a specific example, because this is one of those questions that is really important, especially in the post9 11 era. There is a mythology that date News Organizations like mine sit on stuff all the time. Let me give you an example of something that later came out. Its important to understand the context. I lead our wikileaks coverage when the New York Times and the guardian got together working with Julian Assange. And we had was that the New York Times would take the lead in going to the government to show them stuff that was sensitive, so the government could make their case, if there was a case to be made, that someone could get killed. ,here was one particular cable one of the most remarkable cables ever. It described omar qaddafis visit to the united states, and it was a richly detailed portrait of what his requirements would be in his hotel. He wanted a tent on the grounds. It was really richly detailed. Who he traveled with. He traveled with three female nurses. How he was in such bad physical shape please do not give him a hotel room with stairs because he would get out of breath richly detailed. We were about to put that whole cable in the New York Times and the guardian was going to use it, Julian Assange used it, and then the government called and said, take a closer look at the cable. Do you see the names of the bottom that describes the various people accompanying qaddafi . Who do you think it was that information and what you think will happen to them when qaddafi sees that cable in the New York Times with a description of how he is in horrible shape, is a little bit of a nut job, etc. Not only did i agree to hold that cable back until later, when qaddafi died. Julian assange agreed to hold it back and the guardian held it back. To the future of journalism journalismonestly, will look profoundly better 10 years from now than it looks today. Iu look at the coverage will use ours, not to be arrogant, but because it is one of the 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. Great newspaper stories, great photography, courageous journalists. All the stuff. But you would not have had the videos on the New York Times website that describes, for ridinge, one young man outside the hospital with his parents screaming because there was not room in the hospital. You would not have had the video in which anus ambulance driver drove through the streets in monrovia looking for ebola victims whose family did not want to touch them, so they could pile in the back of his truck to find the hospital that would take them. Let us put over here the debate of print versus digital. Journalism is better today than it ever was because there are many more tools. Orleans, i grew up reading afternoon newspapers. 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. Access to video, access to the whole world. Not get so caught up in the debate over the form and we should not get so caught up in some of the romantic aspects of journalism. Forget it is better. Well be better 10 years from now. [applause] let me add a ps2 that. Could you talk about the influence on the future of journalism of iphone cameras . You mean of the fact that reporters can take their own pictures now . Anybody can. To be frank, i am passionate about the future of journalism. Seeing and a people in the way Police Departments are covered. We are seeing cases that we would have never seen. History, interested in just imagine if iphone cameras had existed during the civil rights movement. Imagine what we would have seen, how that wouldve changed the course of history. This stuff is better for us. It may be hard. It may give me a headache, give us all headaches about how we will finance it, but this stuff is better for the country and better for society. Say a word for the times and video. I think we turned a corner this year on video. Bruce, the editor of video, pulled it off. When video was first introduced into the newsroom, if you look at them, it was like waynes world. Heartbreakingly bad. Not because of the videographer, but we did not know what to do with it. We would put two not particularly attractive reporters and editors together at a table and talked for a little bit, some silly at their watches. By the way, if one of those was david carr, it did work well. That is true. I was speaking for myself. The video for ebola, you are allowed to submit 10 things for a pulitzer. Least two, possibly three, of the stories we submitted were videos. I think the New York Times has cracked the code of journalism and video. Not just us, by the way. It has enhanced us, made us better. Our editorial side has also done extraordinarily well under andy. There are other elements that we make use of now that are also fabulous. The retro report, the one that went up today. Really insightful pieces that really engage an audience. Advertisers also love the experience. That is good for us. I am a student at columbia university. Going back to the nail salon story, that was available in. Ore languages than english target likely to the audience touched by the subject matter, to what degree does multilingual is and become a future of the New York Times, going to target likely international New York Times . This is for arthur. Im a writer and new york magazine. What role do you hope your son will play at the New York Times in the future and how is succession different this time around then when your father was running the paper and you were rising . International new york looking for a third question and maybe even a fourth. I am paul. Thank you for your careers. It has been a big part of my life. You talk about building an audience. As you start to have your journalists become a social media brand, is there a risk of diluting the brand when they take their audience with them . Three good questions. Multilingual. When we translated that particular story, if im not mistaken, four languages. Korean did extraordinarily well. We have also do a lot of translating in specific stories. You are going to see more and more of that. We have a chinese language website that has been up for a number of years, blocked by the Chinese Government ever since we did a story that won a Pulitzer Prize about the wealth and some of the corruption of chinese leader families. This is a great opportunity for us. Obviously, we are already a global News Organization, not only digitally but in print. Part of ourwas offering. Global is the next, great step for us, one that we have news and business colleagues working very diligently on to find the right way to make things happen. That would be that question. Can i add one thing . I can detect this is an audience that cares deeply about the Public Service mission of journalism and not just the economic mission. Translatee reason you a story like the nail salon story into other languages, to me, it would be heartbreaking to a major investigative piece about people who you think are being abused and it was not available to them. For my money, translating it was not just an Audience Growth effort. It was a my god, if we can figure out a way to see how the people most impacted by the series can read it, too, that is my obligation to make that happen. [applause] is with members of the family that want to come and work at the New York Times and have the skill set necessary to be part of it. To give them any specific job, but careers. Process, a created a well thoughtout process, to begin thinking about how we build a successful career for individual family members, in such a way that when the time comes for me to announce a successor, which by the way is not tonight, soap and i your pens. That we have a process that involves the board of directors. They have a stake in this. The family. Obviously, the trustees, who represents the family and a context like this. And management. They have a stake in this. And we have created part of our process to do just that, too old careers and guide those who wish to take more senior positions into that process in a more thoughtful way. And the very core of it is process. That is perhaps what is most missing in the previous generational shift, a clearly defined, understood laid out process that all of the members of the fifthgeneration understand and get in work on. And work on. Then there was the third question. I did not register did you tell me if i got this right. By putting journalism on facebook, is that diluting the brand . Is that the question. The journalism social media brand. I totally get that. I remember david carr was speaking to us about that very subject. Do we risk building the brand of the journalist out separate from the New York Times brand . And the answer is, yeah. By the way, was there a brand called study rest and . Was there a brand called bill safire . We have had journalists to have gone out and made successful careers. So, you cant let fear get in the way of moving forward, and yet, we do have journalistic brands like david carr, god bless that wonderful man. So, they would say we are committed to the mission. Do we lose talented journalists, yes, but that has been true for a long time, right . It works both ways. It sells his column on the editorial age. Arthur oh, yes, nick and cheryl, amazing. I blog at the huffington post. I think we know the times is the greatest newspaper that has ever existed and i still applaud a lot of your series. I particularly applaud the justice series in the bronx that your son did. And i think that was a fabulous series. But is that where your audiences . And do you always want to go where the audiences . Sometimes you have to lead to where they dont want to go the bronx. [laughter] and im a little nervous about the emphasis on the video. Is the times becoming another form of television . Is that a danger . Where has television let us . Led us . Theres a number of questions hello. You have talked about the use of technology is a presentation tool. My question is, what is your vision of how to Leverage Technology as a datagathering tool . First of all, thank you for that kind comment. By the way, i do not know what you feel that people do not naturally want to go to the bronx. I am sorry you have that bias. I like the bronx myself. It does not matter how many people are going to come to a 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 would not be driven to say, well, nobody cares anymore about that. Thats not the way its going to go. So, there is a commitment we have to the core journalism that is fundamental. An investigative series. Some do spectacularly. Some do not do as well. This is a commitment that is fundamental to our core purpose. 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. There is a correlation that is critical. Does that mean we also need to have great restaurant reviews, have great fashion coverage . Of course. Those things are also 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. Do i turn this over to you . Yes. I would say if you looked at lets say the last 15 investigative projects the New York Times did, which would include rikers, the piece we did about three weeks ago about three quarters housing, which would include the nail salon series, the story about the death of eric garner. I do think you said something important, that one of our jobs is to show people a world they might not have otherwise have seen. That fits perfectly into the mission. What i would say to the question about the commitment to use technology and newsgathering, i do not know how many of you follow the upshot. The upshot, i did not create it, so i can say jenna elder, the creator of one of the creators of the upshot is in the audience. Davids goal is to look for ways to use data to jump on big stories of the day. Short how many are on staff of the short . 17 people. He thinks that that is not big enough. And it is a mix of graphics people, writers, editors, and their goal relate that to 538. 538 was its predecessor. 538 largely flourished in the campaign. It was part of the New York Times i cant remember the name of the guy who ran it. I am kidding. Silver . There we go. Arthur anyway, he left and he took 538 with him