A democracy cannot function without a free press. O.K., we know that, and you probably can’t see another word about it. The point of what follows is practical. We’re in this unbelievable business morass, an indescribable battlefield. How do we get out of it? Contributing to this catastrophe has been newspapers’ stubborn refusal to consider any news-gathering and -analysis model other than the one that they were used to, one that, most crucially, relegated consumers to the role of passive readers instead of engaged users. It’s a mistake that happens all over the Big Media Debate: misinterpreting the limitations of our print past as ...
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On Feb. 20, New York Times Company president and chief executive Janet Robinson was standing on the 15th floor of the Times building speaking to a room packed with hackers. About 140 software developers, engineers and miscellaneous geeks were tip-tapping on their laptops and iPhones—some in blazers and jeans, others sporting bedhead and Converse sneakers—while she gave a short speech at Times Open, a "hack day" event which welcomed them to use the New York Times' internal data and brainstorm new ideas for online applications, interfaces and mashups for their Web site. "We are asking you to be part of our future," Ms. Robinson ...
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Niko Pfund, the 43-year-old publisher of Oxford University Press’ academic and trade division, has had one occasion after another during the past few weeks to squeal with delight. First: two Oxford Daily Show appearances, with The Least Worst Place author Karen Greenberg on Feb. 4 and Two Billion Cars author Daniel Sperling a week later. Then: a Lincoln Prize for Craig Symonds’ new book Lincoln and His Admirals, and separately, a full-page rave in the Feb. 22 The New York Times Book Review for Beverly Gage’s The Day Wall Street Exploded, which gave Mr. Pfund such a thrill that he felt compelled, shortly after ...
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Over the past two weeks, the Times public editor Clark Hoyt has taken the Times newsroom to task about a breaking news story in late January that detailed how and why Caroline Kennedy decided to drop out of her pursuit of Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. Mr. Hoyt’s central objection had to do with the headline that The Times placed on its Web site starting at 2:52 p.m. on Jan 22: “Taxes and a Housekeeper Are Said to Derail Kennedy’s Bid.” Within the story, there were nearly no details about the housekeeper, and that headline stayed up all day long, changing only slightly. (“Snags for ...
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As Times metro reporters and editors made their way back to their Eighth Avenue offices after the holiday weekend, a little surprise greeted them in the third-floor newsroom: a brand-new nameplate on the side of an open cubicle that read “Arthur G. Sulzberger.” Mr. Sulzberger, the 28-year-old son of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., will begin a reporting career at The New York Times for the Metro desk starting on Monday, Feb. 23. He’ll write and report for the department’s local blog, City Room. Like his father, who reported for The Raleigh Times and the Associated Press before taking a reporting job in The Times’ ...
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