3 ms·

Inaugurating the New York Times Deathwatch

20 points by drm237 19y ago

gojomo 19y ago
The rundown of the 13 mostly-inappropriate board members is the best part. But would a good board even be possible and effective given the Sulzberger family control, through a dual-class voting structure? Do the Sulzbergers really want the NYTimes to be a profit-making enterprise, or do they get enough satisfaction out of it being the de facto mouthpiece of the bien-pensant establishment? And might Google someday become ossified in the same way, given that it has a similar dual-class voting structure?
robg 19y ago
Agreed, the rundown of the board is hilarious. And that criticism is spot on. Amazing really when their future will make or break based on their digital transformation. As my main news source, I'm mostly satisfied by the coverage. While the Sulzbergers may get the most from the editorial mouthpiece, I don't see their influence on the main stories of the day. As the coverage tilts toward politics, I assume a bias, but the columnists help a bit there. Safire has essentially been replaced by Kristol though that to me seems to be more a sad reflection on the current status of American conservatism than on "The Paper of Record".
mynameishere 19y ago
He criticizes them for not having internet-savvy people on the board, but the nytimes has a perfectly good, very popular website. I forget the statistics, but it gets something like 50x as many readers as the paper, and about 1/50th the revenue. The internet isn't going to save the print business.
- SwellJoe 19y ago
  "50x as many readers as the paper, and about 1/50th the revenue" The question, of course, is how do they fix this problem...not "How do we continue to pretend that the print business will always be there?" They've got a great technology team on the ground--see some of the recent Open Source announcements from them. But, obviously, they don't know how to make money on those 50x readers. I don't either...but they're going to have to figure it out, or die a slow death.
  - apathy 19y ago
    > they're going to have to figure it out Or be acquired by someone who has. This is not rocket surgery.
patrickg-zill 19y ago
He's kind of late to the party, given that others have been pointing out the various problems with the NYT for years. The main problem they have is that they can no longer truly frame themselves as the "newspaper of record". They have been too partisan for too long on the political front, and the quality of their writing has declined too far, to be taken seriously as the "best" newspaper. The purple prose, the injection of the writer's too-cute witticisms and observations into what should be factual reporting, and their sometimes quite odd choices of what to run on the front page, have finally caught up with them.

20 points by drm237 19y ago

The rundown of the 13 mostly-inappropriate board members is the best part. But would a good board even be possible and effective given the Sulzberger family control, through a dual-class voting structure? Do the Sulzbergers really want the NYTimes to be a profit-making enterprise, or do they get enough satisfaction out of it being the de facto mouthpiece of the bien-pensant establishment? And might Google someday become ossified in the same way, given that it has a similar dual-class voting structure?

robg 19y ago

Agreed, the rundown of the board is hilarious. And that criticism is spot on. Amazing really when their future will make or break based on their digital transformation. As my main news source, I'm mostly satisfied by the coverage. While the Sulzbergers may get the most from the editorial mouthpiece, I don't see their influence on the main stories of the day. As the coverage tilts toward politics, I assume a bias, but the columnists help a bit there. Safire has essentially been replaced by Kristol though that to me seems to be more a sad reflection on the current status of American conservatism than on "The Paper of Record".

mynameishere 19y ago

He criticizes them for not having internet-savvy people on the board, but the nytimes has a perfectly good, very popular website. I forget the statistics, but it gets something like 50x as many readers as the paper, and about 1/50th the revenue. The internet isn't going to save the print business.

SwellJoe 19y ago
"50x as many readers as the paper, and about 1/50th the revenue" The question, of course, is how do they fix this problem...not "How do we continue to pretend that the print business will always be there?" They've got a great technology team on the ground--see some of the recent Open Source announcements from them. But, obviously, they don't know how to make money on those 50x readers. I don't either...but they're going to have to figure it out, or die a slow death.
- apathy 19y ago
  > they're going to have to figure it out Or be acquired by someone who has. This is not rocket surgery.

patrickg-zill 19y ago

He's kind of late to the party, given that others have been pointing out the various problems with the NYT for years. The main problem they have is that they can no longer truly frame themselves as the "newspaper of record". They have been too partisan for too long on the political front, and the quality of their writing has declined too far, to be taken seriously as the "best" newspaper. The purple prose, the injection of the writer's too-cute witticisms and observations into what should be factual reporting, and their sometimes quite odd choices of what to run on the front page, have finally caught up with them.