The Sulzberger-Ochs family has controlled what is arguably America’s most influential newspaper since 1896. Next month outside investors will try to make the family loosen its grip. It is shaping up to be a spectacular battle.
Of course the reason is that the NYT is lagging too far behind in their attention to the Internet. Some of you may recall the abject failure the paper's premium content program was, this being an example of its failed Internet ideas. As the Telegraph reports: "Dissident shareholders and other critics say Sulzberger is moving too slowly into the digital age and putting one of the world’s great news brands in jeopardy."
The Telegraph also reports that one former NYT executive said, "The prevailing philosophy of the place is that we are the Times and as long as we carry on doing what we do, the money will come." This arrogant, short-sighted assumption held by the NYT rings a death knell if there ever was one.
Jeff Jarvis, an Internet analyst, warned the Telegraph that the NYT better act to change their business model... and quick.
“The New York Times thinks it’s a temple - and in some senses it is. But it needs to radically rethink how it does business,” said Jarvis. He said Gannett, owner of USA Today and chains of local papers, had been more proactive in its online strategy.
The Telegraph report also said something else that is very interesting:
"That place is more like a government agency or a tenured university system than a business,” said one former employee. “Their opposition is the government, not other media companies."
Now this comment rings entirely true. The NYT imagines itself somehow guaranteed its spot as the highest profile newspaper in the country, if not the world. It assumes such an air of entitlement that it seems to imagine that profit is unimportant. And it certainly has no interest in serving the public -- only in engaging in it's ideological warfare with traditional America.
Of course, we have all seen this coming, haven’t we? As the NYT drifts further off the cliff of liberal dogma and shows its disdain for American values more every day, who could bet surprised that the NYT is beginning to find its once grand status starting to crumble?
The Times is still making good money, of course. But revenues have been falling and growth has absolutely stopped. If the Times expects to stay on the top of the heap in the world of information, it had better follow the sage advice it is offered by these "outside investors." Or else the gray lady will soon enough become the dead lady.
