The woes of Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
April 04, 2009 12:59 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
There was lots of chatter this week surrounding Mark Bowden's piece in Vanity Fair. It's a rather epic take-down of the Times' beleaguered publisher; the daunting task he faces trying to save the legendary daily, as well as the many, many well-chronicled missteps Sulzberger's made at the helm of the newspaper empire. (Judy Miller, Jayson Blair, etc.) They're mistakes that have only been exacerbated by the daily's increasingly thin financial footing. The Vanity Fair take-away is that Sulzberger, the latest in a line of Sulzberger men to steer the newspaper, is in over his head.
The whole situation's a mess. I have certainly been a vocal critic of the paper over the years, but I'm in the same boat as Eric Alterman, who wrote at The Daily Beast this week:
Most of us senior citizens of Mediaworld—that is, people out of the "desirable" 18-to-29 demo—have a love-hate relationship with the Times, much as we do with our own families. It drives us crazy on a daily basis but we wouldn’t want to live without it and prefer not to imagine a world in which we might have to.
I remember as a young media reporter being told by my boss, on a very cold January day in 1992, to go up to the New York Times to cover a press conference announcing Arthur Sulzberger's promotion to publisher. It wasn't a press conference in the traditional sense. Instead, a couple dozen reporters were ushered into the Times' august, wood paneled boardroom where we sat around an epically long conference table surrounded by portraits of long-gone Sulzbergers who had run the newspaper since Arthur's great-grandfather saved it from the brink of bankruptcy by purchasing it for $75,000 in 1896.
At the head of the dark wooden table that day, the boyish looking Sulzberger (aka "Pinch") and his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (aka "Punch"), fielded questions about the carefully orchestrated plans of succession. The sense of history was palpable. And the power the two men enjoyed, as the stewards of the Times in the pre-Internet world of 1992, really could not be overstated.
For me, covering the event was like being ushered into the bullpen at Yankee Stadium, or being waved backstage at a Springsteen show. I certainly revered the newspaper growing up. In fact, I had been completely stunned just two years earlier when the Times published an unsolicited Op-ed column I had written up on my typewriter and mailed in to W. 43rd Street. (Or maybe I hand-delivered it?) It was about the press coverage of the U.S. invasion of Panama. (Hint: I didn't think it was very good.) I'm not sure why I ever thought the Times would publish it, but a few days later as I sat at my $16,000-a-year job, two years out of college, I got a call from an assistant on the Times' editorial page informing me the paper was going to run the column.
I didn't even tell anyone prior to publication because I wasn't really sure it was going to happen. But I sure remember, to this day, walking to my local subway station, buying the Times and reading my column, which was placed right beneath Russell Baker's. Friends and family were fairly flabbergasted, since I'd never really been published anywhere before the Times column ran. And I remember my boss had a sort of stunned look on his face when he saw the Op-ed page that day. (Not that it helped; a few weeks later I was out of a job.)
All of which is a rather round-about and self-involved way of say that watching Sulzberger's woes mount is depressing, especially for fans of the newspaper and for people who've had a small, up-close taste of the Times' mystique over years.
Why does rupert murdoch, a man who does absolutely nothing for our American Democracy (nothing other than work day and night at influencing and manipulating the political opinions of the American People), why does his News Corporation control so much of our Public Airwaves, as the holder of FCC Licenses or otherwise in a contractual agreement with other FCC Licensees, why does he possess the extraordinary and lucrative revenue engine (advertising revenues) of broadcasting on the Public's Airwaves, and the New York Times Company does not?
Not only will rupert murdoch's worthless Wall Street Journal, and his other worthless rags, survive the financial threat of the new media (the Internet Wire), but they will and have made the transisition over to our Public Airwaves, on FNC and FBN (the WSJ being a frequent sub-title to their broadcast propaganda), while the New York Times is completely shut out of any such opportunity, and shut out of the lucrative and valuable ad revenues that broadcasting on the American People's Public Airwaves brings...
Why?
For that matter, you might also noodle over the riddle of why you and I and everybody you and I know, American People all, are also completely shut out of the Public Airwaves, while rupert murdoch and his News Corporation broadcast 24/7 on those Airwaves, their propaganda whose sole intention is to influence and manipulate the political opinions of the American People, us, on our own Public Airwaves...
Why are we shut out also?
But the question of the moment is about the New York Times Company: why are they shut out ot the Public Airwaves, but rupert murdoch is not?
Not only might the lucrative ad revenues that come from holding FCC Licenses and broadcasting on the Public Airwaves, keep the New York Times solvent and afloat (and many local papers too, if they were to have access to their local cable television audiences), but it might also serve us the American People greatly, were we to have a New York Times Channel to watch, in addition to (or instead of) Fox News.
Who owns the Public Airwaves anyway?
(It's a no-brainer: the answer is actually contained in the question.)
I'd add: where I wrote that we the American People might be greatly served to have access to the New York Times, as a cable channel whose ad revenues could and would keep them afloat, and that we'd be greatly served to have that channel, in addition to or instead of, Fox News Channel... I should have also invoked our Democracy, as the thing that keeps us from slavery and oppression: our American Democracy would be served greatly, to have the New York Times on our cable spectrum, to watch in addition to or instead of, the anti-Democratic and intellectually oppressive (and dishonest) Fox News Channel.
Also, where I invoked rupert murdoch, I'd add: the old coot is sure to die any year now, but die he will sometime, in some number of years. Then all of this broadcast control over our Public Airwaves (a control I cannot say I give him, and am at a loss to say just who it is that does), this power and control over our Public Airwaves will then, upon the old coot's death, fall to his children, and other stockholders great and small (saudis included) of News Corporation.
Now isn't that a pleasant thought: the New York Times dies, while rupert murdoch lives on, through his children, to control our Public Airwaves, and spend day and night influencing and manipulating the political opinions of the American People.
I think somebody around here needs to wake up and smell the authority, of the Public Airwaves and the FCC who Regulates them, in our name the American People, as our agents in this matter, and as overseers of our property, the Public Airwaves.
Sad.
I remember the days out here on the West Coast when we would subscribe to three things: the Village Voice, the New Yorker, and the daily New York Times. You'd get those blow cards in the college bookstore.
Or we'd grab the last copy of the sunday NYT at Trader Joe's for $2.50.
I think we were better educated about things back then, too.