Meet the Young Heirs to The Times
In this week's New York, Joe Hagan writes a portrait of the 27 members of the fifth-generation of Sulzberger-Ochs family, the part of the family who will someday run The New York Times.
The stakes are high, and these kids started the family business from an early age. Mr. Hagan writes:
Sulzberger has said that his clan starts going to family meetings when they’re 10 years old and by 15 they understand their roles as caretakers of the New York Times. There’s also a one-day orientation session for kids turning 18 or 21—or people marrying into the family—to learn about the legacy of the Ochs-Sulzbergers.
The biggest question Mr. Hagan asks: How engaged are they? And how long will they sit around and watch their inheritance disappear as The Times' market value continues to drop?
Early in the story, Mr. Hagan makes the argument that these kids could be like the Bancrofts—the family members who let The Wall Street Journal fall out of family control and into the hands of Rupert Murdoch. It's a handy but complicated comparison, and late in the story, Mr. Hagan acknowledges this.
"It is significant that none of the members of the fifth generation of the Sulzberger family, given the chance, chose to express even a sliver of unhappiness with the company’s management," he writes. "The reaction is very different from that of the fifth generation of Bancrofts, many of whom were happy to stoke conversations about a sale of the Journal in the press."
No one from the family went on the record for Mr. Hagan's story other than Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s cousin, Stephen Golden, who said it was a "dangerous assumption" if Mr. Hagan argued that "everyone who is not engaged in the paper is unconcerned."
The piece also looks into some of the fifth-generation family members, including potential candidates to succeed Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Here are some of them:
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger (a.k.a. Arthur III)
Who Is He: Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s 28-year-old son, currently a reporter at The Oregonian.
Reason He Might Take Over: He's the intuitive and obvious pick. Like his father before him, Arthur III is breaking his way into newspapers by starting as a reporter.
Reason He Might Not: He's really close to his mom, Gail Gregg, and his parents' recent separation has caused the family some pain—leading to some speculation that it might be a problem for Arthur III to work right by dad's side.
David Perpich
Who Is He: Son of Arthur’s sister Cathy.
What We Know: Hagan reports he's regarded as one of the bright ones in the family. He writes, "A Harvard M.B.A. who helped run a D.J.-training school called Scratch D.J. Academy (it’s still in business), Perpich applied to work at the paper in 2007 after an internship at Times-owned About.com. But he was conflicted over whether to join the Times or pursue a career in consulting. In the end, he decided against the paper and took a job at technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton."
Michael Greenspon, James Dryfoos, Rachel Golden
Who Are They: The only fifth-generation family members at the paper now.
What We Know: Greenspon, 38, works in strategic planning and is "quietly competent but not an obvious candidate to lead the paper" and is aligned to Michael Golden, the cousin who has a tense relationship with Pinch; Dryfoos is a systems analyst; Golden, 29, works in digital marketing.
Other Less-Engaged Fifth Generation Cousins:
Dave Golden: son of Stephen Golden and a folk singer. He wrote a song called "All I Never Wanted," which includes lyrics "I coulda been a CEO, they told me / If I could just stop holdin’ on to this ol’ dream."
Hays Golden: son of Arthur Golden, is an economist seeking a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
Ben Dolnick: the 26-year-old son of Lynn Dolnick, Michael Golden’s sister; he's a fiction writer.
Victoria Dryfoos: daughter of Katie, lives in Martha’s Vineyard and is an activist for Native-American rights and lighthouses.
Sarah Perpich: David’s 28-year-old sister and Sulzberger’s niece is a fashion writer, stylist and personal shopper.
Alex Cohen: Dan Cohen's son, a student at N.Y.U., plays in a band. His Facebook status message: “Alex Thinks Sarah Palin Can Suck A Dick And Leave Us All Alone.”
It's not likely any of the 5th will get to run the Times. It will all be gone when Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. (Pinch) gets done.
He has literally stunk up every rose garden he's planted in. His pushing the super liberal agenda has little relevance in today's world and his paper's wasting of our natural resources by just printing the paper they do everyday is a sin of biblical proportions.
Good riddance to it all. They got what they wrought.
That's right........you reap what you sow, you arrogant fucks at The Times! Flaming, biased liberal sheet that you are - you and your left-wing columnists have destroyed a once great newspaper. The Future Generation mentioned above would be smart if they realized that the party is over - print media continues in a downward spiral and advertisers are fleeing in droves, especially from the NY Times. It's days are numbered. I give this paper another few years then it's over.
I don't know any of these people so I reserve comment about them specifically and individually. It will be an interesting, historic turn of events no matter what happens at the NY Times. They made a wise move early on to get involved with the internet.
As I recall on 9/11 while on the internet, it was the New York Times that informed me of the attacks going on all around me. My radio was not on, my television was not on. So I asked myself, "How do I know of these horrors?" I turned on my television, looked at the blank screen and waited to be advised by the now absent "emergency broadcasting system" when it sunk in... The NY Times, on the internet. Go back to the internet.
While we may not agree that all the stuff that's fit to print gets printed or accurately represented in the New York Times, I suggest that we don't count them out so quickly. Change is coming and there is a great deal of advertising revenue to be generated on the internet! Even the New York Times has been known to change with the times!
Cinti Laird
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