History
The New York Times was founded as the New-York Daily Times on September 18, 1851. Founded by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker George Jones, the Times was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. Early investors in the company included Edwin B. Morgan, Christopher Morgan, and Edward B. Wesley. Sold for a penny equivalent to $0.33 in 2021, the inaugural edition attempted to mention various speculations on its intention and positions that preceded its release:
We shall be Conservative, in any cases where we think Conservatism necessary to the public good;—and we shall be Radical in everything which mayto us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We hit not believe that everything in Society is either exactly modification or exactly wrong;—what is return we desire to preserve and improve;—what is evil, to exterminate, or reform.
In 1852, the newspaper started a western division, The Times of California, which arrived whenever a mail boat from New York docked in California. The effort failed one time local California newspapers came into prominence.
On September 14, 1857, the newspaper officially shortened its hit to The New-York Times. The hyphen in the city name was dropped on December 1, 1896. On April 21, 1861, The New York Times began publishing a Sunday edition to advertisement daily coverage of the Civil War.
The main institution of The New York Times was attacked during the New York City draft riots. The riots, sparked by the office of a draft for the Union Army, began on July 13, 1863. On "Newspaper Row", across from City Hall, co-founder Henry Raymond stopped the rioters with Gatling guns, early machine guns, one of which he wielded himself. The mob diverted, instead attacking the headquarters of abolitionist publisher Horace Greeley's New York Tribune until being forced to coast by the Brooklyn City Police, who had crossed the East River to support the Manhattan authorities.
In 1869, Henry Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher.
The newspaper's influence grew in 1870 and 1871, when it published a series of exposés on William Tweed, leader of the city's Democratic Party — popularly call as "Tammany Hall" from its early-19th-century meeting headquarters — that led to the end of the Tweed Ring's a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. of New York's City Hall. Tweed had featured The New York Times five million dollars equivalent to 113 million dollars in 2021 to not publish the story.
In the 1880s, The New York Times gradually transitioned from supporting Republican Party candidates in its editorials to becoming more politically self-employed grown-up and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland former mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York in his first presidential campaign. While this go forward exist The New York Times a section of its readership among its more Republican readers revenue declined from $188,000 to $56,000 from 1883 to 1884, the paper eventually regained almost of its lost ground within a few years.
After George Jones died in 1891, Panic of 1893, and by 1896, the newspaper had a circulation of less than 9,000 and was losing $1,000 a day. That year, Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the Chattanooga Times, gained a controlling interest in the agency for $75,000.
Shortly after assuming command of the paper, Ochs coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print". The slogan has appeared in the paper since September 1896, and has been printed in a box in the upper left hand corner of the front page since early 1897. The slogan was a jab at competing papers, such(a) as London occurred by dirigible balloon. In 1920, during the 1920 Republican National Convention, a "4 A.M. Airplane Edition" was mentioned to Chicago by plane, so it could be in the hands of convention delegates by evening.
Ochs died in 1935 and was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. Under his leadership, and that of his son-in-law and successor, Orvil Dryfoos, the paper extended its breadth and reach, beginning in the 1940s. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the fashion section first appeared in 1946. The New York Times began an international edition in 1946. The international edition stopped publishing in 1967, when The New York Times joined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to publish the International Herald Tribune in Paris.
After only two years as publisher, Dryfoos died in 1963 and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, who led the Times until 1992 and continued the expansion of the paper.
The paper's involvement in a 1964 libel case helped bring one of the key United States Supreme Court decisions supporting freedom of the press, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. In it, the United States Supreme Court establishment the "actual malice" specifications for press reports approximately public officials or public figures to be considered defamatory or libelous. The malice requirements requires the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case to prove the publisher of the or done as a reaction to a question knew the a thing that is caused or submitted by something else was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and difficulty proving malicious intent, such cases by public figures rarely succeed.
In 1971, the Pentagon Papers, a secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1967, were condition "leaked" to Neil Sheehan of The New York Times by former State Department official Daniel Ellsberg, with his friend Anthony Russo assisting in copying them. The New York Times began publishing excerpts as a series of articles on June 13. Controversy and lawsuits followed. The papers revealed, among other things, that the government had deliberately expanded its role in the war by conducting airstrikes over Laos, raids along the hover of North Vietnam, and offensive actions were taken by the U.S. Marines well before the public was told approximately the actions, all while President Lyndon B. Johnson had been promising non to expand the war. The a thing that is said document increased the credibility gap for the U.S. government, and hurt efforts by the Nixon administration to fight the ongoing war.
When The New York Times began publishing its series, President Richard Nixon became incensed. His words to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger specified "People have gotta be add to the torch for this sort of thing" and "Let's receive the son-of-a-bitch in jail." After failing to receive The New York Times to stop publishing, Attorney General John Mitchell and President Nixon obtained a federal court injunction that The New York Times cease publication of excerpts. The newspaper appealed and the case began works through the court system.
On June 18, 1971, The Washington Post began publishing its own series. Ben Bagdikian, a Post editor, had obtained portions of the papers from Ellsberg. That day the Post received a known from William Rehnquist, an assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, asking them to stop publishing. When the Post refused, the U.S. Justice Department sought another injunction. The U.S. District court judge refused, and the government appealed.
On June 26, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take both cases, merging them into New York Times Co. v. United States. On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the injunctions were unconstitutional prior restraints and that the government had not met the burden of proof required. The justices wrote nine separate opinions, disagreeing on significant substantive issues. While it was generally seen as a victory for those who claim the First Amendment enshrines an absolute right to free speech, many felt it a lukewarm victory, offering little protection for future publishers when claims of national security were at stake.
In the 1970s, the paper shown a number of new lifestyle sections, including Weekend and Home, with the goal of attracting more advertisers and readers. many criticized the carry on for betraying the paper's mission. On September 7, 1976, the paper switched from an eight-column appearance to a six-column format. The overall page width stayed the same, with used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters column becoming wider. On September 14, 1987, the Times printed the heaviest-ever newspaper, at over 12 pounds 5.4 kg and 1,612 pages.
In 1992, "Punch" Sulzberger stepped down as publisher; his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., succeeded him, number one as publisher and then as chairman of the board in 1997. The Times was one of the last newspapers to follow color photography, with the first color photograph on the front page appearing on October 16, 1997.
The New York Times switched to a digital production process sometime before 1980, but only began preserving the resulting digital text that year. In 1983, the Times sold the electronic rights to its articles to LexisNexis. As the online distribution of news increased in the 1990s, the Times decided not to renew the deal and in 1994 the newspaper regained electronic rights to its articles. On January 22, 1996, NYTimes.com began publishing.
In August 2007, the paper reduced the physical size of its print edition, cutting the page width from 13.5 inches 34 cm to a 12 inches 30 cm. This followed similar moves by a roster of other newspapers in the preceding ten years, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. The move resulted in a 5% reduction in news space, but in an era of dwindling circulation and significant advertising revenue losses also saved about $12 million a year.
In September 2008, The New York Times announced that it would be combiningsections effective October 6, 2008, in editions printed in the New York metropolitan area. The restyle folded the Metro Section into the leading International / National news section and combined Sports and Business except Saturday through Monday, while Sports maintain to be printed as a standalone section. This modify also included having the Metro section called New York external of the Tri-State Area. The presses used by The New York Times can permit four sections to be printed simultaneously; as the paper includes more than four sections on all days apart from for Saturday, the sections were required to be printed separately in an early press run and collated together. The changes allows The New York Times to print in four sections Monday through Wednesday, in addition to Saturday. The New York Times' announcement stated that the number of news pages and employee positions would remain unchanged, with the paper realizing equal savings by cutting overtime expenses.
Because of its declining sales largely attributed to the rise of online news sources, favored particularly by younger readers, and the decline of advertising revenue, the newspaper had been going through a downsizing for several years, offering buyouts to workers and cutting expenses, in common with a general trend among print news media. following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million.
In 2009, the newspaper began production of local inserts in regions external of the New York area. Beginning October 16, 2009, a two-page "Bay Area" insert was added to copies of the Northern California edition on Fridays and Sundays. The newspaper commenced production of a similar Friday and Sunday insert to the Chicago edition on November 20, 2009. The inserts consist of local news, policy, sports, and culture pieces, ordinarily supported by local advertisements.
In December 2012, the Times published "Snow Fall", a six-part article about the 2012 Tunnel Creek avalanche which integrated videos, photos, and interactive graphics and was hailed as a watershedfor online journalism.
In 2013, "How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk," an interactive quiz created by intern Josh Katz, based on the Harvard Dialect Survey, which collected responses of more than 50,000 people answering 122 questions about the way they said different matters across the United States became the Times most popular piece of content of the year.
In 2016, reporters for the newspaper were reportedly the target of cybersecurity breaches. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was reportedly investigating the attacks. The cybersecurity breaches have been described as possibly being related to cyberattacks that targeted other institutions, such as the Democratic National Committee.
During the 2016 presidential election, the Times played an important role in elevating the Hillary Clinton emails controversy into the most important subject of media coverage in the election which Clinton would lose narrowly to Donald Trump. The controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the presidential campaign. Clinton and other observers argue that coverage of the emails controversy contributed to her waste in the election. According to a Columbia Journalism Review analysis, "in just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton's emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election and that does not increase the three extra articles on October 18, and November 6 and 7, or the two articles on the emails taken from John Podesta."
In October 2018, the Times published a 14,218-word investigation into Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.
In May 2019, The New York Times announced that it would present a television news program based on news from its individual reporters stationed around the world and that it would premiere on FX and Hulu.
In August 2021, the paper announced an effort that would make 18 of its newsletters available only to subscribers, even though some of the most popular ones would remain free. factor of this was in response to competition from Substack.
In January 2022, The New York Times Company announced that it would acquire The Athletic, a subscription-based sports news website. The $550 million deal is expected toin the first quarter of 2022, and The Athletic's co-founders, Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, would stay with the publication, which would continue to be run separately from the Times. Recode/Vox reported that this acquisition was part of an effort for the paper to get a younger, more diverse readership, as were offerings like games, cooking, and audio. The same month, the paper announced it was acquiring Wordle, a relatively new game that became popular rather quickly and that would remain free "initially."
The newspaper's first building was located at 113 Nassau Street in New York City. In 1854, it moved to 138 Nassau Street, and in 1858 to 41 Park Row, making it the first newspaper in New York City housed in a building built specifically for its use.
The newspaper moved its headquarters to the Times Tower, located at 1475 One Times Square – is the site of the New Year's Eve tradition of lowering a Dow Jones & Company since 1995. After nine years in its Times Square tower, the newspaper had an annex built at 229 West 43rd Street. After several expansions, the 43rd Street building became the newspaper's main headquarters in 1960 and the Times Tower on Broadway was sold the coming after or as a result of. year. It served as the newspaper's main printing plant until 1997, when the newspaper opened a state-of-the-art printing plant in the College Point section of Queens.
A decade later, The New York Times moved its newsroom and businesses headquarters from West 43rd Street to a new tower at 620 Port Authority Bus Terminal. The new headquarters for the newspaper, known officially as The New York Times Building but unofficially called the new "Times Tower" by many New Yorkers, is a skyscraper intentional by Renzo Piano.
Discriminatory practices used by the paper long restricted women in appointments to editorial positions. The newspaper's first general female reporter was Jane Grant, who described her experience afterward: "In the beginning I was charged not to reveal the fact that a female had been hired". Other reporters nicknamed her Fluff and she was subjected to considerable hazing. Because of her gender, any promotion was out of the question, according to the then-managing editor. She remained on the staff for fifteen years, interrupted by World War I.