Sunday Column: A Milestone Behind, a Mountain Ahead

A Milestone Behind, a Mountain Ahead

A NOTE to Times readers: You matter. And you matter now more than ever before.

In 2012, something remarkable happened at The Times. It was the year that circulation revenue â€" money made from people buying the paper or access to its digital edition â€" surpassed advertising revenue. That’s an upside-down and through-the-looking-glass situation for newspaper economics. For many decades, print advertising has been the big moneymaker.

When that milestone was reached last summer, Jodi Kantor, a reporter, celebrated it on Twitter: “For years folks have asked who will save the N.Y. Times. Now we know: our beloved readers. Thank you from one reporter.”

And there was cause for celebration. Digital subscriptions, begun the previous year, were looking like a success story; print circulation losses had slowed. But there was a dark side, too: the continued loss of crucial print advertising. In last year’s third quarter, operating profit was down by 60 percent from a year earlier in The New York Times Company’s newspaper group, which also includes The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune. The culprit Print advertising continued its downward spiral, dropping by 11 percent, and nothing in the digital world â€" neither advertising nor subscriptions â€" was coming close to making up the difference.

If 2012 was a milestone year, this year â€" given The Times’s new chief executive and that far-from-rosy financial picture â€" promises to be every bit as important. And it is important not only in a business sense but also for the profound effect that the business of The Times will have on its journalism and its readership.

Here are some of the business issues at hand:

¶How to deal with the cash that the Times Company gained in selling off some of its properties.

¶How to best capture the global market, including plans for a second foreign-language Web site. The future of the Times-owned International Herald Tribune is one significant piece of that puzzle.

¶How to fend off vigorous competition from The Wall Street Journal.

¶How to shore up print circulation and advertising, which still provide most of the company’s revenue.

¶How to use data analytics to the company’s best advantage and capitalize on the monumental growth of mobile devices.

But as remote as some of that may sound, the reader will remain front and center. Much of The Times’s future is tied to readers’ willingness to keep paying for its offerings in print, and for more readers to be willing to pay for digital access.

Last week, I talked to Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, and Mark Thompson, the new chief executive, about their plans. Because they are not ready to unveil their overall strategy for the company â€" and, in fact, are still working on it â€" they spoke only in general terms.

“The strategic challenge is, given the amazing asset of our formidable journalism, to make the connection between that and those willing to pay,” Mr. Thompson said. Deciding how to develop the successful digital subscription model and how to further The Times as a global brand are among his highest priorities, he said. Cutting expenses â€" often in the form of employee head count â€" is an already declared necessity.

Jill Abramson, in her second year as executive editor, is performing a tricky balancing act. She must make the paper’s news content stronger than ever and quickly develop its digital offerings, all while reducing costs in her newsroom â€" the nation’s largest, with about 1,150 employees and a budget of about $200 million.

It is a tumultuous time, not made easier by the public scrutiny of everything that happens at The Times. Last week, a huge headline in The Huffington Post proclaimed, “The Ax Approaches,” atop an article about management buyouts and possible layoffs in the Times newsroom. That report was prompted by an earlier one in New York magazine.

Meanwhile, The Times dismantled the environmental reporting team for what it said were both financial and strategic reasons, moved some senior editors to new roles, and saw two respected newsroom leaders, John Geddes and Jonathan Landman, accept buyouts.

Ms. Abramson told me in an interview that she was confident all would turn out well for The Times and its readers. She acknowledged that there was anxiety in the newsroom and said she was doing her best to quell that.

Her top priority as editor in 2013, she said, is “to continue and deepen something that we made great strides on in 2012: the global investigative reporting that I don’t think anyone else is doing.” She also sees expansion of The Times’s multimedia journalism as a high priority.

The stakes are high. Although I’ve sometimes been critical of The Times, I also believe it is irreplaceable as a news organization. Consider the stunning articles last year about Wal-Mart’s business abuses in Mexico, and the Chinese prime minister’s family wealth. Consider The Times’s rich offerings on books and the arts, its deep Washington reporting, its wide-ranging national report (including the moving “Donna’s Diner” series), its coverage of Hurricane Sandy.

The challenges are complex but, in the end, a newspaper company’s success still comes down to the reader:  the person who chooses to subscribe, who clicks on the advertising or buys the Tiffany bracelet, who finds the reporting impossible â€" or quite possible â€" to do without.

“The reader has always been the most critical element,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “The idea is that quality journalism produces a quality reader who attracts quality advertising. That hasn’t changed.”

My former boss, Warren Buffett, is fond of saying that newspapers, if they are to survive, must make themselves indispensable. That was easier before the Internet came along, providing a host of attractive new options for readers and advertisers alike.

Despite its declining fortunes, The Times is still indispensable to its readers. In a fast-changing world, it urgently needs to stay that way, and to make the economics work too. That will require agility, the ability to innovate and the willingness to take risks.

Newspaper people aren’t especially known for this kind of behavior. But they are going to need big doses of it in 2013, and beyond.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 20, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: A Milestone Behind, a Mountain Ahead.

Sunday Column: A Milestone Behind, a Mountain Ahead

A Milestone Behind, a Mountain Ahead

A NOTE to Times readers: You matter. And you matter now more than ever before.

In 2012, something remarkable happened at The Times. It was the year that circulation revenue â€" money made from people buying the paper or access to its digital edition â€" surpassed advertising revenue. That’s an upside-down and through-the-looking-glass situation for newspaper economics. For many decades, print advertising has been the big moneymaker.

When that milestone was reached last summer, Jodi Kantor, a reporter, celebrated it on Twitter: “For years folks have asked who will save the N.Y. Times. Now we know: our beloved readers. Thank you from one reporter.”

And there was cause for celebration. Digital subscriptions, begun the previous year, were looking like a success story; print circulation losses had slowed. But there was a dark side, too: the continued loss of crucial print advertising. In last year’s third quarter, operating profit was down by 60 percent from a year earlier in The New York Times Company’s newspaper group, which also includes The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune. The culprit Print advertising continued its downward spiral, dropping by 11 percent, and nothing in the digital world â€" neither advertising nor subscriptions â€" was coming close to making up the difference.

If 2012 was a milestone year, this year â€" given The Times’s new chief executive and that far-from-rosy financial picture â€" promises to be every bit as important. And it is important not only in a business sense but also for the profound effect that the business of The Times will have on its journalism and its readership.

Here are some of the business issues at hand:

¶How to deal with the cash that the Times Company gained in selling off some of its properties.

¶How to best capture the global market, including plans for a second foreign-language Web site. The future of the Times-owned International Herald Tribune is one significant piece of that puzzle.

¶How to fend off vigorous competition from The Wall Street Journal.

¶How to shore up print circulation and advertising, which still provide most of the company’s revenue.

¶How to use data analytics to the company’s best advantage and capitalize on the monumental growth of mobile devices.

But as remote as some of that may sound, the reader will remain front and center. Much of The Times’s future is tied to readers’ willingness to keep paying for its offerings in print, and for more readers to be willing to pay for digital access.

Last week, I talked to Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, and Mark Thompson, the new chief executive, about their plans. Because they are not ready to unveil their overall strategy for the company â€" and, in fact, are still working on it â€" they spoke only in general terms.

“The strategic challenge is, given the amazing asset of our formidable journalism, to make the connection between that and those willing to pay,” Mr. Thompson said. Deciding how to develop the successful digital subscription model and how to further The Times as a global brand are among his highest priorities, he said. Cutting expenses â€" often in the form of employee head count â€" is an already declared necessity.

Jill Abramson, in her second year as executive editor, is performing a tricky balancing act. She must make the paper’s news content stronger than ever and quickly develop its digital offerings, all while reducing costs in her newsroom â€" the nation’s largest, with about 1,150 employees and a budget of about $200 million.

It is a tumultuous time, not made easier by the public scrutiny of everything that happens at The Times. Last week, a huge headline in The Huffington Post proclaimed, “The Ax Approaches,” atop an article about management buyouts and possible layoffs in the Times newsroom. That report was prompted by an earlier one in New York magazine.

Meanwhile, The Times dismantled the environmental reporting team for what it said were both financial and strategic reasons, moved some senior editors to new roles, and saw two respected newsroom leaders, John Geddes and Jonathan Landman, accept buyouts.

Ms. Abramson told me in an interview that she was confident all would turn out well for The Times and its readers. She acknowledged that there was anxiety in the newsroom and said she was doing her best to quell that.

Her top priority as editor in 2013, she said, is “to continue and deepen something that we made great strides on in 2012: the global investigative reporting that I don’t think anyone else is doing.” She also sees expansion of The Times’s multimedia journalism as a high priority.

The stakes are high. Although I’ve sometimes been critical of The Times, I also believe it is irreplaceable as a news organization. Consider the stunning articles last year about Wal-Mart’s business abuses in Mexico, and the Chinese prime minister’s family wealth. Consider The Times’s rich offerings on books and the arts, its deep Washington reporting, its wide-ranging national report (including the moving “Donna’s Diner” series), its coverage of Hurricane Sandy.

The challenges are complex but, in the end, a newspaper company’s success still comes down to the reader:  the person who chooses to subscribe, who clicks on the advertising or buys the Tiffany bracelet, who finds the reporting impossible â€" or quite possible â€" to do without.

“The reader has always been the most critical element,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “The idea is that quality journalism produces a quality reader who attracts quality advertising. That hasn’t changed.”

My former boss, Warren Buffett, is fond of saying that newspapers, if they are to survive, must make themselves indispensable. That was easier before the Internet came along, providing a host of attractive new options for readers and advertisers alike.

Despite its declining fortunes, The Times is still indispensable to its readers. In a fast-changing world, it urgently needs to stay that way, and to make the economics work too. That will require agility, the ability to innovate and the willingness to take risks.

Newspaper people aren’t especially known for this kind of behavior. But they are going to need big doses of it in 2013, and beyond.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 20, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: A Milestone Behind, a Mountain Ahead.

What\'s an \'Islamist\' An \'Extremist\' Trying Not to Blur Language Lines

Times coverage of the hostage crisis in Northern Africa has brought up some questions on the use of language.

A Manhattan reader, Moshe Adler, wrote to me questioning the use of the terms “Islamists” and “extremists” in an article on Jan. 15 by the reporters Adam Nossiter and Eric Schmitt.

He wrote: “I do not understand what either term means and the authors do not explain. These terms, while meaningless, sound ominous and lull the reader into thinking that the war by the French government against the rebels and the support by the U.S. of this war are justified. These terms should not be used.”

I agree with the reader that it is important to use such terms carefully and not interchangeably. I disagree, though, that the terms are meaningless. In fact, that is the crucial element here - each of these words has a specific meaning, as do words like “militant” ad “terrorist.” The words do not, by any stretch of the imagination, all mean the same thing.

I asked Philip B. Corbett, associate managing editor for standards, to describe the way The Times uses each of these words.

“People seem to think we should have a long list of approved words and another one of banned words,” he said. “We don’t. For the most part, we use the dictionary like everyone else, and try to use language that is clear and accurate.”

Mr. Corbett noted that the newsroom dictionary (Webster’s New World College) defines Islamist as “an advocate or supporter of Islamic, esp. orthodox Islamic, political rule.” And that, he said, reflects how it is typically used in The Times.

As for extremist, he said, “opinions might differ on where exactly it applies, but I doubt many of our readers would object to applying it to people who kidnap and kill civilians, carry out public amputations, order floggings for smoking and pla! ying music, stone people for sex outside marriage, etc.

“As for ‘militant,’ I think we use it pretty literally, to describe fighters in an insurgency, etc.”

The terms have not been treated interchangeably, and editors acknowledge that it is good to be on guard against doing so. Some Islamists are extremists, as has been the case with those most recently in the news; other are not.

I appreciate Mr. Adler’s e-mail because â€" although I find no fault with The Times’s usage that I have seen in recent days â€" it serves as a good reminder that these kinds of distinctions matter.

Those who are interested in language issues might enjoy Mr. Corbett’s “After Deadline” blog, his weekly critique of grammar, usage and style in The Times.

As one Times reader, Meghan Frick, noted on Twitter last week, “There are few things I love more than the New York Times’ weekly nitpick of its own grammar and style.”

There are few things I love more than the New York Times’ weekly nitpick of its own grammar and style. http://t.co/NhxRPfsy #missediting

â€" Meghan Frick (@MeghanFrickASU) 17 Jan 13

Trapped Between Africa and Saudi Arabia

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From dusty villages overrun by poverty and violence to modern cities where jobs and hope are scarce, Samuel Aranda has been photographing African migrants who take to the sea, desperate to remake their lives. For nearly 10 years, h has seen how Somali and Ethiopian immigrants have gone from looking for a new start in an unwelcoming Europe to, more recently, Yemen, where their basic needs are met.

Granted, it is hardly ideal. Though the  government in Yemen - itself facing economic difficulties after political turmoil - has welcomed them, many of the Africans live in a sort of limbo as they wait for smugglers to get them into Saudi Arabia and beyond, where they can find backbreaking - but paying - jobs.

“The Yemeni people are hospitable and help them,” Mr. Aranda said. “When the Africans step on the ground, they are given refugee status. They can rest easy without being persecuted by the police. That’s not what happens in Europe like in Spain, where they are persecuted. But what crime is it to look for the best for your family”

Samuel Aranda for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees A young girl was among hundreds of children living in the Kharaz refugee camp, Yemen’s largest.

He can relate. Though he was born in Andalusia in southern Spain,  a bad economy forced his parents to move north in 1976 to Catalonia, where his father found work at a trucking company. Given Spain’s current economic crisis, the future was not as rosy as they had hoped for, but Mr. Aranda said it was better than it would have been had they stayed in Andalusia.

“I saw how my family had to go from one place to another looking for work,” he said. “You can’t compare what we did to what the Africans go through. We did not have to take a boat or die. But the feeling is there.”

Feeling is a word that easily comes to mind in his work. An image he took during the ppular protests in Yemen - of a mother cradling her injured son - became a modern-day Pieta and was selected as the World Press photo of the year in 2012. He remains in touch with the woman and her son, too, having been reunited with them last June in an emotional encounter.

It was while he was on assignment for The New York Times in fall 2011 that Mr. Aranda first tried to seek out where the African refugees had settled in Yemen. They had been put in three locations, one close to the southern coast, another north by the Saudi border and also in the capital, Riyadh. But access was impossible, he learned.

“There were a lot of Somalis, but the majority of them were in places where shooting was prohibited,” he said. “You needed permission from the government. I tried, but it was impossible, because the military did not permit it. Along the border with Saudi Arabia, the roads were cut off. In the! south, i! t was the same thing, you can’t get out of the city.”

Though that first trip produced his prize-winning photo, it left him with an unfulfilled desire to get into the camps. A few months later Mr. Aranda met someone who worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which helped him get access. Though he had never worked with a nongovernmental organization before, he took a chance, because it seemed like the only way in.

“It was crazy what we saw,” he said of the camp by the Saudi border. “There were thousands of people trapped. They had no money to return to Somalia. They didn’t even have passports. They can’t get close to the fence because it’s guarded.”

Samuel Aranda for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees African refugees gthering in northern Yemen, waiting for safety near the Yemeni-Saudi border.

As he worked in the other areas, he learned that the Yemeni government helped these refugees whom other countries shunned. But with little work for them locally, those who had the strength and money to do so paid smugglers to get them over the border and eventually to Dubai or Qatar, where they could find construction work.

“Sometimes the smugglers rob them,” Mr. Aranda said. “When they go over the fence, there are still mines. There are also tunnels the smugglers use.”

Those left behind - the weak, the elderly and children - have few prospects.

It’s horrible,” Mr. Aranda said. “In Kharaz there is a zone where there is nothing. It’s desert. There’s almost no water, extreme weather and with little chance of a decent life.”

Mr. Aranda hopes to return to Yemen. And he still stays in touch with Fatima and Zayed, the mother and son immortalized in his photo. The young man! has reco! vered and is active with youth organizations.

“Things are better,” Mr. Aranda said. “Whenever there is good news from Yemen, that’s a good sign.”

The same cannot be said for the Africans he is intent on following.

“I’m lucky to have the passport I have,” said Mr. Aranda, who lives in Crespia, a village near the French border. “Though I have to work for the American media because there is no work in Spain, I am very lucky. What I saw with the refugees were a lot of young men with the same motivation. We liked the same things. We liked music and football. Then I saw how they were trapped in a refugee’s hell because they were born in the wrong place. That is the frustrating thing: how someone is marked for life simply because of where they were born.”

Follow @dgbxny and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.