Page One: Inside the New York Times Page #5

have been caught if they didn't have

some kid with a video camera

who was bored and filming everything.

Stelterz He's not going

to make news today, no.

No, the last president

who made news in Buffalo got shot.

Wasn't it McKinley?

Let's not put that one in the paper.

This is what it is at this point:

How do you cover

the president on the cheap?

We've looked at

every, I think, conceivable model

all the way from,

you know, philanthropic,

you know, could you find

a generous foundation

that wants to underwrite

"The New York Times"

to memberships.

That's an extraordinary thing.

I mean, it used to be

that newspapers almost

gave themselves away.

I mean, they charged far less than

the cost of printing the newspaper,

and they made up

the difference in advertising.

The newspaper industry

didn't see Monster.com

taking the jobs portion away.

They didn't see

Craigslist taking

the classifieds portion away.

They didn't see Ford and GM

making their own websites

to take automotive advertising

basically away forever.

We are now in

the middle of a really unsettling time.

The real question is whether

newspaper advertising

will ever return at the same level.

Like a lot of companies in the industry,

this one found itself scrambling

for its cash position.

The company borrowed

$250 million from Carlos Slim

and executed

a sale-leaseback of the building,

which is essentially like

mortgaging the building.

Nobody wanted to make

any predictions,

because all the predictions they had

been making had been so badly wrong.

Nobody was pessimistic enough.

There was just this sort of

decades of organizational hubris

about, you know,

our own excellence

and our own dominance.

And then in a matter

of, like, 18 months,

all of a sudden there was-

the air ionized the situat-

and everybody started

like asking a question:

Could "The New York Times,"

like, go out of business?

"The New York Times,"

which is trading for three bucks-

a Sunday newspaper costs more than

a share of "New York Times" stock.

There has been, since the famous

"Atlantic," you know, "Monthly" story,

there has been open talk of

"What if 'The Times' were to go away?"

You know, I don't pretend

to be a seasoned business reporter,

but certainly looking

at the numbers, it did seem

as if they were in some peril and that

there certainly was a scenario

in which if they didn't act fast,

that "The Times" could

go into bankruptcy.

And so that's what I wrote.

I thought, "You horse's ass."

I thought, you know,

"You don't know what you're

talking about. You really don't."

I mean, I thought that

that kind of article,

for that to appear in "The Atlantic,"

I thought that was just

so stupid of "The Atlantic."

I was actually pretty stunned

at the reaction that piece had.

I just- I didn't...

I genuinely didn't expect

that people would be

so shocked by it,

because it felt sort

of obvious to me.

Please. I mean this is "The New York

Times" we're talking about,

and I think that that kind of an article

was both- I found it just dumb.

There's a collective denial about

what is going on and that

newspapers are somehow special

and somehow they're public trusts

and that they shouldn't fail,

and so therefore they won't fail.

And I think the disconnect between

"shouldn't fail" and "can't fail"

is the thing that I'm trying

to, like, really blow up.

"End Times" is good. It's great.

People have been arguing

that "The New York Times"

should be put out of business

ever since there was one.

So it's an old question,

but one that has a great deal

of salience for people.

They like it.

I don't think it's an argument

that will be very easily made,

and if it is, I'll vaporize

whoever's making it.

I'd like to note

that none of us are economists.

We're here not to talk

about whether

"The Times" is

a viable institution or not,

talk about CPMs

or prices on advertising.

We're here to talk about

what would happen

if "The New York Times"

disappeared.

How many of you would be happy

if "The Times" disappeared?

Okay, so we have

a sprinkling of hands.

We have probably

10 people voted for that.

And then how many of you

would be disappointed or upset?

Okay, wow. So-

Markos,

I'm going to go to you first.

If "The Times" ceased to exist,

how would you feel about it?

I think there's a perception

that a lot of people like me

who are writing online

cheer the demise of traditional media

outlets like "The New York Times."

But people like me just want

traditional media outlets

like "The New York Times"

to do theirjobs,

to do what they're supposed to do.

"The New York Times"

helped cheerlead

our way into the war in Iraq

with Judith Miller.

I think a lot of the decline

in these traditional media outlets

is because people have

lost faith that those publications

don't have ulterior

motives or agendas.

People like me, I have an agenda,

and I'm very clear about it.

But "The New York Times," they try

to be something better than that...

That's great, Markos,

but here's the thing:

When you're making

an argument about how

we're always falling down on the job,

you're reaching back through five years

of really important,

good hard reporting.

We're on the ground in Afghanistan.

We're on the ground in Iraq.

I'm not implying that it's bad work.

I'm saying that to claim that because

you're with "The New York Times"

you have to be taken seriously,

I think that's dangerous.

It's that sort of implied credibility

that "The New York Times" brings,

and that's how Judith Miller

got away with her war...

pre-war coverage that helped

get us into this war.

It's because she works for "The New York

Times," so she has to be credible.

Judy Miller reported, quote...

"The New York Times"

carried the unsubstantiated

claims of those, including...

On the front page

of the nation's paper of record,

"The Times" reported that

Saddam Hussein had launched a...

Weapons of mass destruction.

Weapons of mass destruction.

"The Times" had reporters

who were very much vulnerable.

There's a story in

"The New York Times" this morning...

We read in "The New York Times"

today a story that says

that Saddam Hussein

is closer...

They were trying to acquire

certain high quality...

The Bush administration was helped

by the nation's leading newspaper,

"The New York Times."

If "The New York Times"

thinks Saddam

is on the precipice

of mushroom clouds,

then there is really no debate.

Judy Miller was

someone who was let loose on this story,

and there were not people there

who were given the power

to rein her in,

and she clearly

needed to be reined in.

Do you accept

that your reporting was wrong?

Absolutely.

The handful of stories-

about six or seven of them-

that I did before the war

Wefe Wl'ollg,

and the intelligence information

that I was accurately

reporting was wrong.

I guess if your sources are wrong,

you're going to be wrong.

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