Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

One year after the New York Times moved into its shimmering new tower, the paper is ready for a dramatic software upgrade. Welcome to Microsoft Office 2003! The brand newish software was installed in the third-floor newsroom last night, and the culture department on the fourth floor is on-deck for tonight. The Times is also finally abandoning the old Eudora e-mail system for the mysterious but apparently very reliable "Outlook" e-mail. Memo, sent last night, after the jump:  read more »

This morning, the New York Times announced the recipients of their 2007 Punch Awards. The awards, named after the nickname of former Times honcho Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, have two categories: "journalistic or editorial excellence" in community service and "business accomplishments."  read more »

The Post's Keith Kelly hears that 70 Times staffers are going to take buyouts, which means that about 30 are on the chopping block and it'll be Joe Sexton's Metro team that'll take the brunt of the hit.  read more »

So while the city's biggest media moguls—and the FCC and Congress—start to sort out who can buy Newsday, some curious analysis of the newspaper's Web site is going around.

Yesterday, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said at the Times Center that newsday.com was its top competition for grown-ups.

"NYTimes.com also ranks No. 1 in coverage of the greater New York market, reaching 28 percent of adults," he said. "Our closest competitor, Newsday.com, reaches 16 percent."  read more »

Lose an editor; gain a media property. John Koblin details every maneuver in one very busy week for Rupert Murdoch. This piece has everything: The Wall Street Journal, Marcus Brauchli, Newsday, The New York Times, and Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.  read more »

Marcus Brauchli’s last supper with The Wall Street Journal had been a good one.

Seated at a table in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on 22nd Street NW in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 21, he’d been offered a roasted red apple stuffed with bleu-cheese mousse; a Vidalia onion-crusted petite filet mignon with baby turnips; a chocolate mousse bombe with a dark chocolate crème brûlée center; and two wines, a 2006 California Chardonnay and a 2006 Pinot Noir.  read more »

The wingnut parade at the 112th annual New York Times stockholder's meeting, held late this morning at the Times' conference room on the other side of a birch-and-moss filled atrium from the Times' newsroom tower, was out of control. And when chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was not being harassed by pesky shareholders, he was being attacked by bugs. (He spent about a minute flailing at an insect that seemed to have emerged from his hair.) Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media was there.  read more »

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., who is speaking right now at the Times Building for the paper's annual shareholders meeting, declared the newspaper is not for sale. Choire Sicha sends in this dispatch, via text:

Sulzberger: "This company is not for sale." Media reports are "ill-informed."

Newsday, which is close to being sold to Rupert Murdoch, is "our closest competitor" on the web.

Newsweek gives big play this week to Rupert Murdoch's early maneuvers at The Wall Street Journal. Point: He's the general who has declared war on The New York Times.

This is something we've been talking about around here for a while now, and rumors of war aside, we haven't quite heard the first shot around here.

That doesn't change much with this week's story, but there's still lots of juice here.

Here are the highlights:  read more »

New York Times CEO Janet Robinson in today's conference call:

From a standpoint of coverage, I think it's clear The Wall Street Journal is positioning quite differently in terms of overall coverage, broadening very much in the international and political arena, and, with the launch of their magazine, entering into broader lifestyle coverage.  read more »

That big Apple ad on nytimes.com is back today! Which is odd. Last Friday that ad appeared as well, which means that's two weeks in a row that Apple has taken over the Times home page.

Back in January, Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis told us that Arthur Sulzberger Jr. had instituted "new rules" regarding ads like that and decided those would be limited to once a month.  read more »

New York Times publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. is not having a bright and shiny day. For one thing, the newspaper's buccaneer shareholder Harbinger Capital increased its pressure on the Sulzberger family's company by formally nominating its own four candidates to the paper's board of directors.

But in Manhattan, boardrooms aren't nearly as important as duplex co-ops. According to a deed filed in city records this afternoon, Mr. Sulzberger transferred ownership of his family's A-line duplex to his wife, the artist Gail Gregg, for $3,255,721. The apartment is in Harperley Hall, a stately pre-war co-op at 64th Street and Central Park West.  read more »

The continuing battle between The New York Times and the paper's Guild over its health-benefit fund just got a lot more intense.

Quick recap: The Guild's health benefits fund is going bankrupt—they're expecting it to run out by the end of the year—and they're negotiating with the paper over how it can help out. According to the paper's assistant managing editor, William Schmdit, talks have "foundered." The Guild wasn't one bit happy about that assessment and they squarely blame his side. (It should be noted that this has nothing to do with the 100 job cuts that we've been talking about over the last two weeks.).

The memos—and the drama!—follow:  read more »

According to internal traffic measures, the Web site of the New York Times broke single-day traffic records this week—then broke them again the very next day.  read more »

It was a live blog! But now it's an account of how the networks, web sites and local papers around the country covered Super Tuesday.

12:59: OK, we're approaching the six-hour mark, so let's wrap a few things up. Chuck Todd just came onto MSNBC, and based on his infinitely magical formulas, has concluded it's looking like a plus-four-delegate night for Obama (that would be 841-837). But: He said that once the superdelegates—who are still skewing towards Clinton—are factored in, she'll be able to say that she has an overall delegate advantage.

The major papers are explaining the split-vote with the same headline.  read more »

Observer alumnus Gabe Sherman has a piece in The New Republic today that pins Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to Bill Kristol's hiring and how lots of current and former Times staffers aren't happy about it.  read more »

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. has been juggling two things when considering ads like the one that dominated the New York Times home page yesterday: good money from advertisers versus frustrated readers. His decision: to limit those ads to once a month.

Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis writes Media Mob:  read more »

One more thing on the plans to build a tower over the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Our fellow Observer blog The Media Mob reports that the plans vindicate New York Times' publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s decision to move the paper's headquarters from 229 West 43rd Street to a new tower at 620 Eighth Avenue.

He sold the old headquarters in 2004, when Eighth Avenue was but the seedy western edge of Times Square.  read more »

The news that Vornado will build a skyscraper on top of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, can only be good for the folks at The Times.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was roundly criticized for selling the old Times headquarters at 229 West 43rd Street too early (he sold it for $175 million in 2004; it sold this year for $525 million). But since then, Eighth Avenue has quickly become the new home of the Manhattan skyscraper.  read more »

At the "glittering" celebration for the opening of the Times building on Monday, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. gave a speech in which he thanked advertisers and the building's architect, Renzo Piano.

Mr. Sulzberger did not, however, mention Bill Keller, The Times' executive editor -- or any other specific person on the paper's editorial staff -- in his speech, according to a person present. Instead he thanked the newsroom sort of generally.

In a way, that omission was fitting, since many members of the newsroom peered down during his speech from their second- and third-floor office windows with their hands and faces pressed against glass, said the source. With the exception of a few stars, the newsroom was shut out from the event.

Since Rupert Murdoch closed the deal to acquire Dow Jones, and with it The Wall Street Journal, he's had no shortage of things to say about the weaknesses of The Journal's biggest competitor, The New York Times. So it's perhaps surprising to learn that he told an Australian paper he'd "thought about" buying The Times. In typical Murdochian fashion, the revelation appears as a kind of casual, off-the-cuff remark in the course of a longer interview.

Newsweek sees the comment as a move by Mr. Murdoch to rattle Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. The magazine, citing a source at The Times, reports that after winning control of the Journal, Mr. Murdoch sent Mr. Sulzberger a note that read "Let the war begin."

Was this the first shot? Guess we'll find out.  read more »

“Other than if you put a ruler on the paper and measure it, I’m kind of hoping it will not be that noticeable,” said Tom Bodkin, design director for The New York Times.  read more »

Now that New York Times staffers are finally moving into the new tower at 620 Eighth Avenue, the gossip mill has started churning over who got the choicest digs.

The latest: Could it be that editorial-page editor Andrew Rosenthal’s new office is just as big as publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s 16th-floor spread?

“Let’s kill that rumor now,” said Mr. Rosenthal. “It’s not. His is a slightly different geometry.”  read more »

That was fast. Less than three weeks after it came on the market, the soon-to-be old headquarters of The New York Times will be sold for $525 million – triple what the New York Times Company sold it for three years ago.

 

Africa Israel, a company owned by the Uzbeki-born Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, is in contract to purchase 229 West 43rd Street from Tishman Speyer, according to reports from GlobeSt.com and The Wall Street Journal.  read more »

The Observer reported earlier this month that New York Times reporter David Dunlap, and a few others, have been scouring the morgue and archives to create a 64-page tabloid keepsake about 229 West 43rd Street.

"Anyone who joined The Times in the past 10 years has never known this building when it trembled from the power of the presses as they began their nightly run," Mr. Dunlap told The Observer at the time. "Part of our decision to use this format was to evoke the paper's industrial heritage. This ought to be on newsprint."

On Monday, copies of "229" will be available in the lobby, and shipped out to the bureaus.  read more »

We’d just like to have more and more and more,” said Andrew Rosenthal, the New York Time  read more »

Remember the good old days of angry email exchanges between Barney Calame and Bill Keller?

Now, award-winning media critic Calame is giving credit to his boss, for deciding to continue on with the public editor position.

Back in January, that was still up for debate. Here's what Keller told The Observer:

"Over the next couple of months, as Barney's term enters the home stretch, I'll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur," meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times' executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

But last month, WWD reported that there would be a third public editor, and (one-time Barney hater) Jack Shafer started naming names.

While Calame didn't get into specifics on who should be the next public editor, he did heap praise on the "big shots" at the Times in yesterday's column:

Mr. Keller is now seeking someone to continue the public editor function when my fixed two-year term ends next month.... So if sometime next year the public editor describes in this space a journalistic lapse at the paper, readers would be wise to remember that Mr. Keller deserves some of the credit for sticking with the process that brought it to light.

--Michael Calderone