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 TimesNew York Times by the millions. First because we break the story. Secondly beca