Tag Archives: New York Times
NYTimes exploring all technologies, not worried about Google or WSJ
by
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The New York Times is not worried about what technology it uses to reach its readers as long as it reaches them, Arthur Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of the Times, said on Saturday.
Sulzberger said he had no problem using Apple, Google, Microsoft and other software companies despite complaints from other media executives about their control of content.
“I am not that other guy who rails against Google,” said Sulzberger, referring to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and Marketwatch.com. “Railing against Google is sort of railing against oxygen.”
Sulzberger was speaking Saturday at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers annual conference in Phoenix.
Explaining the changing economics of journalism, Sulzberger said he is perfectly happy purchasing at U2 song from Apple’s iTunes because he knows that he will listen to it 628 times. And then looking into the audience at Times business journalist Diana Henriques, he said, “As much as I like your work, Diana, I am probably not going to read that story more than twice.”
When asked about competing against The Wall Street Journal, which is planning to launch a New York edition next month, Sulzberger said “The New York Times has been in existence since 1851, and it has seen a lot of competition, and a lot of excellent competition. We don’t shy away from competition.
“The challenge we face is to translate our brand into a digital era,” he added. “The challenge that the Journal is taking on, and mazel tov as we say in journalism, is to change its brand as it adapts to the digital era. I’m not saying they can’t succeed, but that’s no small feat.”
After being asked how the Times business news coverage addresses current complicated topics in a way its readers can understand, the paper’s business editor Larry Ingrassia replied.
“This is particularly challenging time to cover the world, particularly the financial world,” said Ingrassia.
“We want to say who is it affecting and how is it affecting them,” added Ingrassia. “Whenever we are going into these stories, that’s my mantra.”
Developing and working with sources in business journalism
by
New York Times senior financial reporter Diana Henriques talked Saturday at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers about developing sources.
Henriques has worked at the Times since 1989. She previously worked at Barron’s.
NYTimes to launch personal finance effort
by
The New York Times announced Thursday that it will begin a week-long emphasis on personal finance journalism beginning next week.
The special news section, called Your Money: A Financial Tune-Up, will be accompanied by online features and a live panel discussion.
The week will offer advice and tips across a variety of platforms from three of The Times’s financial journalists: Ron Lieber, the Your Money columnist and overseer of the content at nytimes.com/yourmoney; Tara Siegel Bernard, a personal finance reporter; and Jennifer Saranow Schultz, a featured contributor to Bucks, a daily blog at nytimes.com/bucks.
These Times journalists will be the crux of the week-long program. The special edition of Your Money will feature important information on topics including dissecting tax returns, changing banks for the best results, planning for retirement, conducting your own financial check up using the same questions that financial planners use, and learning the key strategies and shortcuts for making the most of your money.
In one of his past columns, “A Day to Tackle the Financial To-Do List,” Lieber noted that it was worth setting aside time to catch up on personal finances, and a day was scarcely enough. Thus was born Your Money: A Financial Tune-Up.
Read more here.
New deputy biz editor named at NYTimes
by
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
New York Times business editor Larry Ingrassia sent out the following announcement to the staff on Monday:
“Many swaps in the financial world have gotten a bad rap of late. But then there are swaps that not only make great sense, but are brilliant – like Dean Murphy moving to Bizday as a deputy business editor as Adam Bryant moves to National.
“I am very excited to announce we have landed Dean, an editor par excellence with a great range of experience as a reporter, to partner with Bizday deputy Winnie O’Kelley and me, along with the rest of our backfield, to help direct coverage during these most turbulent and important times.
“Like Winnie and Adam here in Bizday, Dean has legions of fans among National reporters, who have the highest regard for his ability to elevate stories both conceptually and stylistically. With all the moves going on in Bizday, we’ll let him get settled a bit before working out the details of his portfolio.
“In the past four years, as the deputy National editor, Dean oversaw broad topics such as the West, immigration and politics, and played a major role in conceiving and editing enterprise and projects. He worked with Glenn Kramon on the inter-desk immigration series, oversaw the ‘Beth Court’ foreclosure project by Jennifer Steinhauer and ran such developing news stories as the impeachment of the Illinois governor and the budget meltdown in California.
“Dean is cool-headed, creative and collegial, qualities he has brought to a number of assignments during a distinguished career in which he has demonstrated an intellectual curiosity for a range of subjects. Before coming to The Times in 2000, he worked for the Los Angeles Times for 15 years, including stints as a foreign correspondent in South Africa and Poland. At The Times he first worked on the metro desk and then became the paper’s National correspondent in San Francisco in 2002 before becoming National’s deputy editor in late 2005.
“While the National-Bizday editor swap was not originally conceived as one, but happened serendipitously, I feel very fortunate to get someone of Dean’s editing talent to team up with Winnie and me, as well as our other two deputies, Kevin McKenna and David Gillen, and Sunday Business editor Tim O’Brien, and the rest of the Bizday staff. We are on a great and highly competitive story, and I am confident that Dean will bring a smart perspective from the outside to help raise our coverage to new heights.”
NYT ad campaign attacks WSJ
by
The New York Times launched an advertising campaign Monday that touts its loyal readership compared to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal is expected to launch a New York edition next month.
“Numbers” showcases The Times’s size and strength among women, business professionals and art enthusiasts in the New York market while citing The Times’s expansive reach online.
“‘The New York Times has a very loyal and influential audience in New York, and this campaign demonstrates that strength across various categories,’ said Yasmin Namini, senior vice president, marketing and circulation, The New York Times, in a statement. ‘The numbers tell the story.’
“The campaign will launch in print across targeted trade publications including Advertising Age and Women’s Wear Daily. Rich media ad units will appear online at AdAge.com, Adweek.com, Brandweek.com, Mediaweek.com, Variety.com, WWD.com and Mediabistro.com.”
Read more here.
NYT staffer moving to biz desk
by
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
New York Times business editor Larry Ingrassia made the following announcement to the staff on Friday:
“I am pleased to announced that David K – as in David Kocieniewski, not THE David Cay (Johnston) – will move to Business Day to cover taxes.
“We are expecting that our new David K. will bring the same insight and enterprise to covering the tax system and how it works – as well as how it doesn’t – as did the original David Cay, whose stellar reporting on taxes helped define how this critical beat should be covered.
“Covering the nation’s tax system – who pays, who doesn’t, who evades (legally and illegally), how the I.R.S. works – is especially important now, at a time when national, state and municipal government find their expenses rising and their revenue pinched.
“David K., who has been a reporter on the Times Metro desk since 1995 and has focused on law enforcement, corruption and its offshoot, the New Jersey government, has shown the ability since he arrived to dig up difficult-to-get stories and tell them in a compelling way.
“Most recently, of course, he broke stories about Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel accepting four rent-controlled apartments and using his position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to preserve a billion-dollar tax loophole for a company that pledged $1 million to build a college in the Congressman’s honor.
“David K. also has written many other notable stories since he began covering New Jersey in 1998, when he transferred to the Trenton bureau and where he worked as a reporter and bureau chief and on special projects.”
We are expecting that our new David K. will bring the same insight and enterprise to covering the tax system and how it works – as well as how it doesn’t – as did the original David Cay, whose stellar reporting on taxes helped define how this critical beat should be covered.
Covering the nation’s tax system – who pays, who doesn’t, who evades (legally and illegally), how the I.R.S. works – is especially important now, at a time when national, state and municipal government find their expenses rising and their revenue pinched.
David K., who has been a reporter on the Times Metro desk since 1995 and has focused on law enforcement, corruption and its offshoot, the New Jersey government, has shown the ability since he arrived to dig up difficult-to-get stories and tell them in a compelling way.
Most recently, of course, he broke stories about Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel accepting four rent-controlled apartments and using his position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to preserve a billion-dollar tax loophole for a company that pledged $1 million to build a college in the Congressman’s honor.
David K. also has written many other notable stories since he began covering New Jersey in 1998, when he transferred to the Trenton bureau and where he worked as a reporter and bureau chief and on special projects. Among them:
— An investigation of Senator Robert Torricelli, and the political favors he did for a donor who showered him with expensive gifts, which resulted in his departure from office.
— The fall of New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, coverage that Metro editor Joe Sexton applauds as a “bravura bit of deadline and exclusive reporting by a statehouse bureau chief.”
— Disclosures of how the New Jersey State Police for years trained officers – and hotel/motel clerks – to illegally and systemically discriminate against black and Hispanic drivers.
— An examination of how lax security at chemical plants and refineries surrounding New York City - “The Most Dangerous Two Miles in America” – left millions vulnerable to a terror attack.
— His “Scared Silent” series that showed how witness intimidation by street gangs had undermined New Jersey’s criminal justice system.
He also was part of the Metro team awarded the Pulitzer for the prostitution scandal that led to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation.
Sexton says, “I first came to know David K. when he spent a couple of weeks kicking my ass on a police shooting story. Then he joined The Times, and I was free to stop hating him and begin loving him. There was always lots to love — his forensic reporting ability, his team spirit, his impeccable mix of aggressiveness and fairness, his sense of responsibility and his willingness to go anywhere at any hour to chase even just the whiff of something good and important. He has my thanks, admiration and encouragement.”
Before joining The Times, David K. worked for five years as a police reporter for New York Newsday, where he wrote a series about systemic corruption in Internal Affairs unit that led to a Mayoral Commission on Police Misconduct and an overhaul of the unit. He also covered the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and co-authored a book, “Two Seconds Under the World,” about the FBI’s mishandling of the case.
It adds up to an impressive range and body of work. Now comes taxes, an important and challenging topic, one worthy of a reporter of David K.’s passion end enterprise.
He’ll be joining Bizday as soon as the latest contretemps in Albany permits.
WaPo biz reporter leaving for NYT
by
Binyamin Appelbaum, a business reporter for The Washington Post, is leaving the paper to join the business news desk at the New York Times, reports Erik Wemple at Washington City Paper.
Appelbaum previously worked on the business desks of the Boston Globe and the Charlotte Observer.
Wemple writes, “Speaking of his soon-to-be employer, Appelbaum notes: ‘It’s a phenomenal paper and and incredible audience and I’m really excited about working there. It’s just a great opportunity.’
“When asked if his decision was motivated solely by the pull of the Times, the 31-year-old Appelbaum responded, ‘I have loved working here. It’s been a tremendous place to work. It’s incredible in one journalism life to work at both places.’
“Appelbaum got a plum of a job at the Times. He’ll be working an enterprise post on business and economics, from which he’ll be able to ‘dig in deeply’ on lots of issues. Not that the Post didn’t afford him some enterprise moments as well: ‘I’ve had some enterprise opportunities here,’ he said.”
Read more here. And here is a 2008 interview Talking Biz News conducted with Appelbaum about a Loeb Award-winning story.
Dow Jones PR head leaving for NYTimes
by
Robert Christie, the chief spokesman for Dow Jones & Co. for the past seven years, is leaving the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Marketwatch.com to work for the New York Times Co.
Christie, who was a vice president at Dow Jones, will be senior vice president of corporate communications at the New York Times. He starts March 22.
Christie was responsible for brand, executive and crisis communications for Dow Jones’ businesses worldwide.
He directed the communications campaigns for the launches of The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition in 2005, the redesigned Journal in 2007 and the acquisition of CBSMarketWatch.com.
In an e-mail to the Journal staff sent Tuesday, Christie wrote, “The last seven years have been very exciting and I have had many great experiences at the company. I will always appreciate these opportunities and the many talented people that work here.”
Read the Times release here. I have worked with Christie for most of the past five years, and find him extremely responsive and helpful.
Blog competition making the financial press worse
by
Joe Weisenthal of The Business Insider writes Monday that the recent gaffes at The New York Times business desk — including problems with Gretchen Morgenson‘s story this weekend about swaps — and The Wall Street Journal‘s hyperbolic hedge fund conspiracy story are the result of them trying to compete with financial blogs.
Weisenthal writes, “Now in theory competition is supposed to make everyone better, so in theory competition from blogs should elevate the performance of mainstream financial journalism (and in some cases that happens, such as FT’s Alphaville, which gets the medium perfectly).
“But in many cases it seems as though publications are pursuing a blog caricature: scandal, more scandal, and stealing content. If that’s how publications feel the need to compete, it won’t make anyone fitter.
“Conversely, there are a few things that the mainstream media should draw from blogs, namely: speed, willingness to generously cite other publications, a running conversation with the readers, and yes, even a willingness to wing it a little bit more on stories that aren’t yet 100% fully-baked.”
Read more here.
Insider vs. outsider business reporting
by
Dean Starkman of the Columbia Journalism Review reviews New York Times business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin‘s new book, “Too Big to Fail,” and uses it to explore different business reporting strategies.
Later, he adds, “Of course, there is more than one approach to business reporting. Take, for example, Bloomberg’s Mark Pittman, a noted investigator who wrote muckraking exposés about Goldman’s issuance of defective CDOs and the like. Pittman, who died unexpectedly last November, was known in some circles as ‘the man who sued the Fed,’ the reporter behind a Bloomberg LP suit to pry loose details about the central bank’s trillion-dollar emergency lending programs.
“While Pittman’s adversarial style paid major dividends, it should be obvious that his approach would not gain him the kind of telepathic rapport that Sorkin seems to have developed with the Fed chairman (‘.?.?.?the towering white peaks of the Tetons offered a majestic view, but one that no longer took Ben Bernanke’s breath away the way it once had.’)
“Readers should be aware of the differences in reporting styles and understand them for what they are: a division of labor. Neither will give you the full picture; one aims to tell you what the players said, while the other tells you what they did.”
Read more here.