5 ms·

The New York Times Claws Its Way into the Future

56 points by donohoe 10y ago

sharkjacobs 10y ago
I like the NYT because they feel comfortable and trustworthy insofar as I know what to expect from them and understand the context of their work. I hope I still like whatever they become after this pivot. I do hope they succeed even if I don't like their new form, as I wish the best for any attempt to make journalism less dependent on advertising.
pdog 10y ago
There's Netflix for television and Spotify for music, so it's almost inevitable there's going to be a "Netflix for journalism." (Even with competitors offering news supported by advertising for free, it's still a billion dollar market.) But... why would it be the Times? Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts.
- whorleater 10y ago
  > Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts. Because journalism is hard. Actual journalism requires boots on the ground, reporters, photographers, contacts in foreign governments, press infrastructure, etc. Netflix and Spotify didn't start out making music, they started out as a delivery platform for it. The NY Times owns the entire integration, from creation to delivery, which puts them in different position than say, music labels for Spotify or movie studios for Netflix.
- owebmaster 10y ago
  Facebook & Twitter are the popcorntime of journalism, better then netflix.
- f_allwein 10y ago
  Well, there is https://www.pressreader.com https://www.pressreader.com , which has the potential to be Netflix for journalism. Would be great if more publishers worked with them.
  - svachalek 10y ago
    This looks like Yet Another News Aggregator. Google and Yahoo have had them for years (decades?) among many others. A true game changer would have to be one that people paid money for, and served ultimately to pay for real journalism. That has also been tried many times, with no success that I'm aware of. I don't mind paying for news, but most newspapers charge in the range of $20-$40 a month for digital subscriptions which just seems outrageous to me. I can listen to a bottomless well of music for $10/mo on Spotify, watch a huge catalog of shows and movies on Netflix for roughly $10/mo, or subscribe to a handful of newspapers for $200/mo. Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment?
    - PlaceFan 10y ago
      > Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment? There's a temporal component here that's much more important for journalism than it is for those other two forms of entertainment. For example, The Shawshank Redemption was made 23 years ago and is still a fantastic movie: People will still pay to watch that movie. In contrast, very few people will pay money to read a news article from even two days ago (let alone 23 years ago). Sony could never produce another movie again and have a sizable revenue stream just from distribution rights on their existing film catalog. The NYT can't really do that, the demand for old news articles just isn't that great. The equivalent of a news subscription then isn't really Netflix or Spotify: It's going to the movies, or going to a concert, or buying an album. All of which are notoriously considered to be expensive affairs. I'd even go so far as to say the NYT would probably absolutely let you read older articles for cheap (a few $ a month), but the demand for that is non-existent so it's silly to even offer.
    - f_allwein 10y ago
      Oh dear - just realized pressreader does not make it clear at all what they do on their website. They give online access to 5.000 print publications from all over the world and charge either per single issue (0.99£ in my case), or 29.99£ per month to access all of it. So it seems to be pretty close to what you are looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PressReader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PressReader Downside: A lot of the publications are insignificant/ very similar to each other. They do have some good ones like the Guardian, but I'm still missing some personal favourites, so haven't joined yet.
- eternalban 10y ago
  Because NYT actually invested in building an ecommerce system for the publishing vertical.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  There is already a Netflix for journalism: it's called Facebook. Like Netflix, they do not produce content, but have amassed a huge, loyal audience by doing a great job of aggregating and distributing it. Netflix eventually realized that it would get cut out of the distribution business--that's why they started making their own content. So far, Facebook shows no interest in making their own news content, probably because news companies show no sign that they are capable of beating Facebook at anything.
stephancoral 10y ago
As someone who worked for the NYT until recently, I can tell you a major thing holding the Times back is the sheer amount of bloat and middle management in the business, especially tech, side of things. Useful, even revenue-generating projects are sidelined for political reasons (such as encroaching on another manager's 'territory') and months of work had been negated because a higher level 'architect' decided that only three languages can be used internally. Legacy projects are held on way past their sunset - that means literally months of dev time devoted to projects used by maybe a dozen people. Don't even get me started on the architectural inefficiencies that rack up tens of thousands of dollars a week to AWS (soon to be Google because the tech org loves to switch providers every year, also resulting in massive amounts of redundant work). The NYT online search is one area that is just bleeding cash - it requires a lot of machinery for very little. That's money that could be used to hire journalists and finance deep investigative dives. The NYT does incredible work. It just needs to take a hard look at it's digital side and trim a lot of the fat. There's a lot of churn and little long term vision. Unfortunately layoffs / firings are rare in the tech org but buyouts and their ilk are widespread in the newsroom.
- hackuser 10y ago
  Thanks for the input. What did you do at the Times?
  - stephancoral 10y ago
    I worked on cross platform services, essentially building out APIs and data delivery for both the newsroom and other tech orgs. I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about the Times - it's an interesting place to work (socially speaking, I found their tech to be pretty boring).
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about the Times You asked for it. :) If any of these are inappropriate for you to answer, I understand. Thanks much in advance: 1) The Innovation Report came out in 2014. Per the article (and corroborated by other things I've read), it changed attitudes at the Times because "You couldn’t read that report and think that the status quo was an option." People there still thought the status quo was an option as late as 2014! Is it just standard incumbency psychology - where the incumbent power in an industry lives in an echo chamber, is tied down by vested interests, and can't see change coming - or is something else going on? 2) I've read a few internal reports, leaked and released. All repeat how great the NY Times is -'the best in the world', 'the greatest', etc. - over and over. It was in the Innovation Report, which was supposed to be only for top management to read. These reports aren't marketing to the public (and NYT marketing doesn't use that message nearly as much as the internal reports I saw) and these aren't stated missions ('our goal is to be the world leader in ...'); it looks like flattery in internal communications. It seems like an odd bit of narcissism. What about the culture requires them to tell themselves how great they are? Are they that insecure? Usually highly successful organizations don't need to say that to each other; they know. OTOH, maybe my sample size is too small and it's not really an issue. 3) It still seems to me that they are still a newspaper (emphasis on that old medium, paper) making accommodations to the electronic medium, rather than a news publication on the Internet. Stories still are told almost entirely in text, which was a limitation of the old medium but not the new, and images and video usually are decoration rather than a primary means of story-telling. Even two-bit bloggers will, rather than describing something, just show it to the reader: 'The building is rundown: <img>'. I read a story that described how some innovative high school dance program started class each day with (a dance and song?) - why not just show me a video? Occasionally they have helpful graphics, but they talk like that's a special event rather than a norm of the medium and usually it's a separate story - 'the graphics story' - they can't seem to tell a story integrating different mediums as needed. What is going on? Are they just stuck? Will they let go of the old medium before it's too late? EDIT: A few edits
hackuser 10y ago
The main problem, IMHO, is that they are trying to make this massive, expensive transition under an artificial constraint: That the Sulzbergers retain control of the organization: 1) They lack capital (AFAICT) and have to desperately worry about getting the subscription model to work and soon. The Washington Post was sold to Jeff Bezos; from what I've read, Bezos encourages them to experiment, and pointed out that he could lose $100 million on the Post per year for 100 years (or something like that), and he'd still be one of the wealthiest people in the world. The NY Times is not just a family business, it's an institution that is extremely important to the public welfare. To hold onto it and risk its future when it would be safe in others' hands is very selfish. Of course they shouldn't sell it to just anyone, but there are plenty out there who would be responsible owners. 2) Last names and genetic inheritance are a very poor way to select business leaders, especially at a time that requires an extraordinary one. What an incredible opportunity for a brilliant person - if only they would stand back, sit on the board, and let a professional run the show. EDIT: From the article: "Family control is one of the competitive advantages of The New York Times—there is no plan B for Sulzberger or his family."
gumby 10y ago
This part was fascinating: > [The innovation report was leaked to BuzzFeed] The BuzzFeed leak was devastating for Sulzberger—“a moment of panic,” he says. “We had written a pretty frank and candid document expressly for a small group of leaders... it felt like our dirty laundry was being aired.” ...he realized within a few days that the public scrutiny had turned an administrative white paper into a media rallying cry. They never would have gotten the change they need without the leak! It's like WH staffers leaking to Fox to get the president's attention. When I read the NYT online I feel like they still can't decide whether to stick with the legacy structure (most articles can't be commented on, still the newspapery structure) or go 100% the other way (the big, technically-complex, unreadable "snow" piece). The Economist has the same problem.

56 points by donohoe 10y ago

I like the NYT because they feel comfortable and trustworthy insofar as I know what to expect from them and understand the context of their work. I hope I still like whatever they become after this pivot. I do hope they succeed even if I don't like their new form, as I wish the best for any attempt to make journalism less dependent on advertising.

pdog 10y ago

There's Netflix for television and Spotify for music, so it's almost inevitable there's going to be a "Netflix for journalism." (Even with competitors offering news supported by advertising for free, it's still a billion dollar market.) But... why would it be the Times? Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts.

whorleater 10y ago
> Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts. Because journalism is hard. Actual journalism requires boots on the ground, reporters, photographers, contacts in foreign governments, press infrastructure, etc. Netflix and Spotify didn't start out making music, they started out as a delivery platform for it. The NY Times owns the entire integration, from creation to delivery, which puts them in different position than say, music labels for Spotify or movie studios for Netflix.
owebmaster 10y ago
Facebook & Twitter are the popcorntime of journalism, better then netflix.
f_allwein 10y ago
Well, there is https://www.pressreader.com https://www.pressreader.com , which has the potential to be Netflix for journalism. Would be great if more publishers worked with them.
- svachalek 10y ago
  This looks like Yet Another News Aggregator. Google and Yahoo have had them for years (decades?) among many others. A true game changer would have to be one that people paid money for, and served ultimately to pay for real journalism. That has also been tried many times, with no success that I'm aware of. I don't mind paying for news, but most newspapers charge in the range of $20-$40 a month for digital subscriptions which just seems outrageous to me. I can listen to a bottomless well of music for $10/mo on Spotify, watch a huge catalog of shows and movies on Netflix for roughly $10/mo, or subscribe to a handful of newspapers for $200/mo. Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment?
  - PlaceFan 10y ago
    > Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment? There's a temporal component here that's much more important for journalism than it is for those other two forms of entertainment. For example, The Shawshank Redemption was made 23 years ago and is still a fantastic movie: People will still pay to watch that movie. In contrast, very few people will pay money to read a news article from even two days ago (let alone 23 years ago). Sony could never produce another movie again and have a sizable revenue stream just from distribution rights on their existing film catalog. The NYT can't really do that, the demand for old news articles just isn't that great. The equivalent of a news subscription then isn't really Netflix or Spotify: It's going to the movies, or going to a concert, or buying an album. All of which are notoriously considered to be expensive affairs. I'd even go so far as to say the NYT would probably absolutely let you read older articles for cheap (a few $ a month), but the demand for that is non-existent so it's silly to even offer.
  - f_allwein 10y ago
    Oh dear - just realized pressreader does not make it clear at all what they do on their website. They give online access to 5.000 print publications from all over the world and charge either per single issue (0.99£ in my case), or 29.99£ per month to access all of it. So it seems to be pretty close to what you are looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PressReader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PressReader Downside: A lot of the publications are insignificant/ very similar to each other. They do have some good ones like the Guardian, but I'm still missing some personal favourites, so haven't joined yet.
eternalban 10y ago
Because NYT actually invested in building an ecommerce system for the publishing vertical.
snowwrestler 10y ago
There is already a Netflix for journalism: it's called Facebook. Like Netflix, they do not produce content, but have amassed a huge, loyal audience by doing a great job of aggregating and distributing it. Netflix eventually realized that it would get cut out of the distribution business--that's why they started making their own content. So far, Facebook shows no interest in making their own news content, probably because news companies show no sign that they are capable of beating Facebook at anything.

stephancoral 10y ago

As someone who worked for the NYT until recently, I can tell you a major thing holding the Times back is the sheer amount of bloat and middle management in the business, especially tech, side of things. Useful, even revenue-generating projects are sidelined for political reasons (such as encroaching on another manager's 'territory') and months of work had been negated because a higher level 'architect' decided that only three languages can be used internally. Legacy projects are held on way past their sunset - that means literally months of dev time devoted to projects used by maybe a dozen people. Don't even get me started on the architectural inefficiencies that rack up tens of thousands of dollars a week to AWS (soon to be Google because the tech org loves to switch providers every year, also resulting in massive amounts of redundant work). The NYT online search is one area that is just bleeding cash - it requires a lot of machinery for very little. That's money that could be used to hire journalists and finance deep investigative dives. The NYT does incredible work. It just needs to take a hard look at it's digital side and trim a lot of the fat. There's a lot of churn and little long term vision. Unfortunately layoffs / firings are rare in the tech org but buyouts and their ilk are widespread in the newsroom.

hackuser 10y ago
Thanks for the input. What did you do at the Times?
- stephancoral 10y ago
  I worked on cross platform services, essentially building out APIs and data delivery for both the newsroom and other tech orgs. I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about the Times - it's an interesting place to work (socially speaking, I found their tech to be pretty boring).
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about the Times You asked for it. :) If any of these are inappropriate for you to answer, I understand. Thanks much in advance: 1) The Innovation Report came out in 2014. Per the article (and corroborated by other things I've read), it changed attitudes at the Times because "You couldn’t read that report and think that the status quo was an option." People there still thought the status quo was an option as late as 2014! Is it just standard incumbency psychology - where the incumbent power in an industry lives in an echo chamber, is tied down by vested interests, and can't see change coming - or is something else going on? 2) I've read a few internal reports, leaked and released. All repeat how great the NY Times is -'the best in the world', 'the greatest', etc. - over and over. It was in the Innovation Report, which was supposed to be only for top management to read. These reports aren't marketing to the public (and NYT marketing doesn't use that message nearly as much as the internal reports I saw) and these aren't stated missions ('our goal is to be the world leader in ...'); it looks like flattery in internal communications. It seems like an odd bit of narcissism. What about the culture requires them to tell themselves how great they are? Are they that insecure? Usually highly successful organizations don't need to say that to each other; they know. OTOH, maybe my sample size is too small and it's not really an issue. 3) It still seems to me that they are still a newspaper (emphasis on that old medium, paper) making accommodations to the electronic medium, rather than a news publication on the Internet. Stories still are told almost entirely in text, which was a limitation of the old medium but not the new, and images and video usually are decoration rather than a primary means of story-telling. Even two-bit bloggers will, rather than describing something, just show it to the reader: 'The building is rundown: <img>'. I read a story that described how some innovative high school dance program started class each day with (a dance and song?) - why not just show me a video? Occasionally they have helpful graphics, but they talk like that's a special event rather than a norm of the medium and usually it's a separate story - 'the graphics story' - they can't seem to tell a story integrating different mediums as needed. What is going on? Are they just stuck? Will they let go of the old medium before it's too late? EDIT: A few edits

hackuser 10y ago

The main problem, IMHO, is that they are trying to make this massive, expensive transition under an artificial constraint: That the Sulzbergers retain control of the organization: 1) They lack capital (AFAICT) and have to desperately worry about getting the subscription model to work and soon. The Washington Post was sold to Jeff Bezos; from what I've read, Bezos encourages them to experiment, and pointed out that he could lose $100 million on the Post per year for 100 years (or something like that), and he'd still be one of the wealthiest people in the world. The NY Times is not just a family business, it's an institution that is extremely important to the public welfare. To hold onto it and risk its future when it would be safe in others' hands is very selfish. Of course they shouldn't sell it to just anyone, but there are plenty out there who would be responsible owners. 2) Last names and genetic inheritance are a very poor way to select business leaders, especially at a time that requires an extraordinary one. What an incredible opportunity for a brilliant person - if only they would stand back, sit on the board, and let a professional run the show. EDIT: From the article: "Family control is one of the competitive advantages of The New York Times—there is no plan B for Sulzberger or his family."

gumby 10y ago

This part was fascinating: > [The innovation report was leaked to BuzzFeed] The BuzzFeed leak was devastating for Sulzberger—“a moment of panic,” he says. “We had written a pretty frank and candid document expressly for a small group of leaders... it felt like our dirty laundry was being aired.” ...he realized within a few days that the public scrutiny had turned an administrative white paper into a media rallying cry. They never would have gotten the change they need without the leak! It's like WH staffers leaking to Fox to get the president's attention. When I read the NYT online I feel like they still can't decide whether to stick with the legacy structure (most articles can't be commented on, still the newspapery structure) or go 100% the other way (the big, technically-complex, unreadable "snow" piece). The Economist has the same problem.