The New York Times is the epitome of journalistic excellence.
The New York Times Company is the essence of a successful media business.
That business success was built upon the integrity and excellence of the newspaper, so the recent credibility scandals and Thursday’s resignations of the paper’s top editors raise again questions of how journalism impacts the business of newspapering.
Sure, we see separate news and business departments. And we work hard to keep a wall between the financial-side decisions and the journalistic coverage. But today’s media landscape makes it difficult at times to separate the impact one has on the other.
Juan Luis Cebrián, the CEO of Spain’s Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais), believes that the heart of any newspaper’s success is a virtuous circle:
“To survive as a respected newspaper, you need credibility and independence,” says Cebrián as quoted in a website report by the World Association of Newspapers from its 2001 convention. “To be truly independent, you need to be profitable. But the profitability of your publication rests on a foundation of credibility.”
Given the importance of credibility to the brand that is The New York Times, this must have been a rough period for those on the business side of the paper as well as those journalists in the newsroom.Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger’s memo to the staff announcing the resignations of Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd said the paper would be “focused on the goal of creating a work environment that is commensurate with the quality of our journalism and the esteem with which our brand, The New York Times, is held.”
It must have been hard on the ego for The Times to be the butt of monologues and Top Ten lists on Jay Leno and David Lettermen. And the editorial cartoonists have had a field day with the paper’s motto of “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”
Jeff Greenfield, CNN’s senior political analyst, put it this way during a Thursday morning broadcast:
For a paper like The New York Times in particular, that is about as devastating an atmosphere, as devastating a comment as you can get, not just to be criticized but to be laughed at. I think you add all that together and I think it became for Howell Raines simply an impossible situation.
Was there a reason to worry about the business of The Times’ brand? The resignation and the scandals that led to them, raise interesting questions:
- What impact do editorial leadership issues have on the financial side of a newspaper?
- How much attention do advertisers pay to what some might argue are internal issues?
- How does ongoing controversy involving journalistic practices affect advertisers’ perceptions of the paper? Or its readership?
John Morton, president of Morton Research, Inc., a media consulting firm, who also writes a column about the newspaper business for American Journalism Review, doesn’t think the leadership issues at The Times have had a financial impact.
“For that to happen,” he said in an e-mail interview, “there would have to be significant impact on advertising revenue, and advertisers make their spending choices on the number and kinds of readers a newspaper has. I doubt that this controversy will have an impact on these two factors.
“Indeed, the way The Times has handled this — full disclosure of Jayson Blair’s misdeeds, correcting in almost agonizing detail his mistakes, full disclosure on the Rick Bragg affair, and, now, the falling on their swords of the two top news executives — if anything would tend to enhance The Times’ reputation.”
Lauren Fine, an analyst who covers the media industry for Merrill Lynch (and a member of Poynter’s National Advisory Board), believes that the furor leading up to the resignations didn’t matter much to the business community.
“So far I think it has been contained to an internal issue, and I don’t think advertisers have been concerned,” she said in an e-mail interview.
“From a Wall Street perspective, I believe it has been ignored until now given the management changes. Don’t know Joe [Joseph Lelyveld who was appointed interim executive editor], so I don’t know whether journalists are happier.
“Quick decisive action is good at a time like this,” she said.
