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A. G. Sulzberger

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Arthur Gregg Sulzberger (born August 5, 1980) is an American journalist serving as the chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of its flagship newspaper, The New York Times.

A. G. Sulzberger
Sulzberger in 2020
Born
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger

(1980-08-05) August 5, 1980 (age 44)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
EducationBrown University (BA)
Occupation(s)Publisher, The New York Times
Chairman, The New York Times Company
Spouse
Molly Messick
​
(m. 2018)​
Parents
RelativesArthur Ochs Sulzberger (grandfather)
Arthur Hays Sulzberger (great-grandfather)
Adolph Ochs (great-great-grandfather)

Early life and education

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Sulzberger was born in Washington, D.C., on August 5, 1980, to Gail Gregg and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. He is of German ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, was Jewish, and the rest of his family is of Christian background, including Episcopalian and Congregationalist.[1]

Sulzberger is a fourth-generation descendant of Adolph Ochs, who bought the New York Times in 1896.[2] The Times has been managed and published by Adolph Ochs's family since that date.

Sulzberger attended Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Brown University, graduating in 2003 with a major in political science.[3][4] At Brown, Sulzberger worked briefly for The Brown Daily Herald as a contributing writer.[5]

Career

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Providence Journal

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After being encouraged by Brown journalism professor Tracy Breton to apply,[6] he interned at The Providence Journal from 2004 to 2006, working from the paper's office in Wakefield.[7] While there, he revealed that membership of the Narragansett Lions Club was not open to women.[7] Despite threats from the club to withdraw their advertising if the story ran, the Journal published Sulzberger's story.[7] The club began admitting women a few months later.[7]

The Oregonian

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Sulzberger worked as a reporter for The Oregonian newspaper in Portland from 2006 to 2009, writing more than 300 pieces about local government and public life, including a series of investigative exposés on misconduct by Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto.[8]

The New York Times

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Sulzberger began writing for The New York Times as a metro reporter in February 2009,[9] which published his first article on March 2.[10] He became a national correspondent,[11] heading the Kansas City bureau and covering the Midwest region.[12][13] The 2017 film Kodachrome, directed by Mark Raso, is based on his 2010 article about a rural community that became the last place to develop Kodachrome film.[14]

In 2013, Sulzberger was tapped by then-executive editor Jill Abramson to lead the team that produced the Times' Innovation Report,[15] an internal assessment of the challenges facing the Times in the digital age.[16][17][18] He was the lead author of the 97-page report,[12][16] which documented in "clinical detail" how the Times was losing ground to "nimbler competitors" and "called for revolutionary changes".[19] The Innovation Report was leaked to BuzzFeed News in March 2014.[20]

Sulzberger was named associate editor for newsroom strategy in August 2015.[17][21] In that role, he was part of the group that outlined the Times' plan to double the news outlet's digital revenue by 2020 and increase collaboration between departments,[3][22] dubbed "Our Path Forward".[23][24] Women's Wear Daily credited him with having a central role in the document's creation.[25] In October 2016, he was named deputy publisher, putting him in line to succeed his father as publisher.[26][27][28] His cousins Sam Dolnick, now a deputy managing editor of the Times,[29] and David Perpich, now head of standalone products and a member of the New York Times Company board,[30] were also considered for the role.[3][31]

On December 14, 2017, it was announced that Sulzberger would take over as publisher on January 1, 2018. He is the sixth member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family in the role.[3][32] Though The New York Times Company is public, all voting shares are controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger Family Trust. SEC filings state the trust's "primary objective" is that the Times continues "as an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare".[17] On his first day as publisher, Sulzberger wrote an essay noting that he was taking over in a "period of exciting innovation and growth", but also a "period of profound challenge". He committed to holding the Times "to the highest standards of independence, rigor, and fairness".[33]

As publisher, Sulzberger oversees the news outlet's journalism and business operations.[34] Sulzberger has been the principal architect of the news outlet's digital transformation and has led its efforts to become a subscriber-first business.[35] He became publisher on January 1, 2018,[36] succeeding his father Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.,[27] although the elder Sulzberger remained chairman of The New York Times Company until the end of 2020.[37] Sulzberger became the chairman of The New York Times Company on January 1, 2021.

Sulzberger met with President Donald Trump at the White House on July 20, 2018. The meeting was off-the-record, but after President Trump tweeted about it eight days later, Sulzberger "pushed back hard" to dispute the President's characterization of the meeting. Sulzberger said in a statement that at the meeting, he "told the president directly that I thought that his [anti-press] language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous. I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence."[38][39][40] Sulzberger met with President Trump in the Oval Office a second time, on January 31, 2019, for an on-the-record interview along with Times reporters Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman.[41][42] He has said that an independent press "is not a liberal ideal or a progressive ideal or a Democratic ideal. It's an American ideal."[43] In 2020, Sulzberger voiced concern about the disappearance of local news, saying that "if we don't find a path forward" for local journalism, "I believe we'll continue to watch society grow more polarized, less empathetic, more easily manipulated by powerful interests and more untethered from the truth."[44]

The Economist published a study evidencing a gradual leftward shift in the partisan slant of The New York Times, beginning in 2017.[45] The New York Times' former opinion section editor James Bennet, in light of the paper's Tom Cotton controversy, also disagreed, arguing that by catering to a partisan readership and an influx of new journalists focusing on digital content the New York Times under A.G. Sulzberger had taken on an "illiberal bias".[46]

A Politico report detailed that Sulzberger has made a sit-down interview with President Joe Biden a priority for the newspaper, which claims to have interviewed every sitting president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.[47] Despite efforts to secure an interview, including appeals from Sulzberger directly to Vice President Kamala Harris, the White House has not allowed the Times the same level of access to the president as it did during the Trump Administration. An anonymous Times journalist told Politico in 2024, "All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day ... It's A.G. [Sulzberger], he's the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn't done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age."[47] In a statement from The New York Times, an uncredited spokesperson responded to the story emphasizing that it "should be troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term", and the paper's commitment to a free press.[48][49]

Both Baker and fellow Times reporter Jonathan Swan have taken issue with Politico's reporting on Sulzberger. On social media, Baker said, "AG wants us to cover this president — and every president — as fully, fairly and aggressively as we can because that’s our role. That’s true regardless of whether we get an interview. AG takes our responsibility very seriously and is a complete straight shooter."[50] In response, Sulzberger wrote: "James Bennet and I have always agreed on the importance of independent journalism, the challenges it faces in today's polarized world, and the mission of The Times to pursue independence even when the path of less resistance might be to give into partisan passions. But I could not disagree more strongly with the false narrative he has constructed about The Times."[51]

Criticism of Sulzberger

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Sulzberger's administration of the New York Times has been criticized by a number of different outlets, on topics ranging from coverage of transgender people to the Israel-Hamas war.[52][53][54][55][56][57] In 2024, the Journalism Academy, in a letter signed by more than 50 journalism and news media professors, called on the New York Times "to conduct a thorough and full independent review" of its processes for reporting on the events of October 7.[53][54]

Personal life and family

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Through his father, Sulzberger is a grandson of Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger Sr., great-grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and great-great-grandson of Adolph Ochs.[27] In 2018, he married Molly Messick.[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "The Sulzberger family: A complicated Jewish legacy at The New York Times". JTA. December 18, 2017.
  2. ^ "Adolph S. Ochs Dead at 77; Publisher of Times Since 1896". The New York Times. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d Ember, Sydney (December 14, 2017). "A.G. Sulzberger, 37, to Take Over as New York Times Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved October 19, 2018.
  4. ^ Barron, James (October 20, 2016). "A.G. Sulzberger: Leading Change at The New York Times as Journalism Evolves". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  5. ^ "Public Enemy No. 1". www.brownalumnimagazine.com. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  6. ^ a b Zak, Dan; Ellison, Sarah; Terris, Ben (July 30, 2018). "'He doesn't like bullies': The story of the 37-year-old who took over the New York Times and is taking on Trump". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 25, 2020. Breton urged him to apply for a two-year internship at the Providence Journal...
  7. ^ a b c d Rosenberg, Alan (December 14, 2017). "Sulzberger didn't back down in Narragansett confrontation". The Providence Journal. Providence, Rhode Island. Retrieved December 15, 2017. Arthur Gregg Sulzberger ... took part in an internship program at The Providence Journal from 2004 to 2006
  8. ^ Rogoway, Mike (February 9, 2018). "A.G. Sulzberger, New York Times' publisher and former Oregonian reporter, talks journalism in the digital age". The Oregonian. Portland, Oregon. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  9. ^ Wemple, Erik (December 14, 2017). "A.G. Sulzberger to assume publisher role at New York Times on Jan. 1". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  10. ^ Sulzberger, A. G. (March 2, 2009). "Second Snow Day Unlikely, Mayor Says". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Trotta, Daniel (December 14, 2017). "Leadership of New York Times passes to next-generation Sulzberger". Reuters. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  12. ^ a b Klein, Julia M. (July 8, 2019). "Public Enemy No 1". Brown Alumni Magazine. Brown University. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  13. ^ Murphy, Eileen; Ha, Danielle Rhoades (December 14, 2017). "New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. to Retire at Year's End; A.G. Sulzberger Named Publisher". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved July 13, 2020 – via The New York Times.
  14. ^ Sulzberger, A. G. (December 30, 2010). "For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 6, 2011. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  15. ^ Benton, Joshua (May 15, 2014). "The leaked New York Times innovation report is one of the key documents of this media age". Nieman Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  16. ^ a b Snyder, Gabriel (February 12, 2017). "The New Tork Times Claws Its Way Into the Future". Wired. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Vick, Karl (October 10, 2019). "How A.G. Sulzberger Is Leading the New York Times Into the Future". Time. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  18. ^ Levitz, Eric (October 19, 2016). "A.G. Sulzberger Vanquishes His Cousins, Becomes Deputy Publisher of the New York Times". New York. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  19. ^ "The Heirs". New York. August 23, 2015. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  20. ^ Tanzer, Myles (May 15, 2014). "Exclusive: New York Times Internal Report Painted Dire Digital Picture". BuzzFeed News. BuzzFeed. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  21. ^ Baquet, Dean (July 30, 2015). "Arthur Gregg Sulzberger Named Associate Editor". The New York Times.
  22. ^ Steigrad, Alexandra (October 19, 2016). "New York Times Names A.G. Sulzberger Deputy Publisher". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  23. ^ Benton, Joshua. "This is The New York Times' digital path forward". NiemanLab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  24. ^ "Our Path Forward" (PDF). The New York Times Company. October 7, 2015. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  25. ^ Steigrad, Alexandra (October 19, 2016). "New York Times Names A.G. Sulzberger Deputy Publisher". WWD. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  26. ^ Ember, Sydney (October 19, 2016). "New York Times Names A.G. Sulzberger Deputy Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved October 19, 2018.
  27. ^ a b c Levitz, Eric (October 19, 2016). "A.G. Sulzberger Vanquishes Cousins, Becomes Deputy Publisher of New York Times". New York.
  28. ^ Sherman, Gabriel (August 24, 2015). "The Heirs: A Three-Way, Mostly Civilized Family Contest to Become the Next Publisher of The Times". New York.
  29. ^ "Sam Dolnick". The New York Times. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  30. ^ "David Perpich". The New York Times Company. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  31. ^ Zak, Dan; Ellison, Sarah; Terris, Ben (July 30, 2018). "'He doesn't like bullies': The story of the 37-year-old who took over the New York Times and is taking on Trump". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  32. ^ Wamsley, Laurel (December 14, 2017). "New York Times Names A.G. Sulzberger, 37, Its Next Publisher". NPR. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  33. ^ Sulzberger, A. G. (January 1, 2018). "A Note from Our New Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  34. ^ "On Trust and Transparency: A.G. Sulzberger, Our New Publisher, Answers Readers' Questions". The New York Times. January 22, 2018. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  35. ^ Pompeo, Joe (October 9, 2018). ""The Time Will Come When This Is a Digital-Only News Organization": A.G. Sulzberger, Sam Dolnick, and David Perpich Open Up About Succession, Trump, and the Eventual End of Print". Vanity Fair. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  36. ^ Klein, Julia M. (July 8, 2019). "Public Enemy No 1". Brown Alumni Magazine. Brown University. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  37. ^ Chris Isidore. "New York Times chairman retires after 23 years leading the board". CNN. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  38. ^ "NYT publisher disputes Trump's retelling of off-the-record conversation". politico.com. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  39. ^ "New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger chides President Donald Trump over 'fake news' claims". usatoday.com. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  40. ^ "New York Times publisher says he chided Trump not to call press the enemy". nbcnews.com. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  41. ^ Stewart, Emily (February 1, 2019). ""I'm sort of entitled to a great story": Trump wants the New York Times to love him". Vox.com. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  42. ^ "The President and the Publisher". The New York Times. February 1, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  43. ^ "NYT publisher A.G. Sulzberger says an independent press is an 'American ideal'". CNN. October 23, 2018. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  44. ^ "Knight Media Forum 2020 — A.G. Sulzberger". The New York Times Company. February 26, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  45. ^ "American journalism sounds much more Democratic than Republican". The Economist. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  46. ^ Bennet, James. "When the New York Times lost its way". 1843. The Economist. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  47. ^ a b Stokols, Eli (April 25, 2024). "The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House". Politico. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  48. ^ "A Statement From The New York Times on Presidential News Coverage". The New York Times Company. April 25, 2024. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  49. ^ "New York Times — And Some of Its Top Reporters — Fires Back At Politico Report Alleging Feud With Biden". Mediaite. April 25, 2024. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  50. ^ "New York Times — And Some of Its Top Reporters — Fires Back At Politico Report Alleging Feud With Biden". Mediaite. April 25, 2024. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  51. ^ Joseph Wulfsohn, Brian Flood (December 14, 2023). "NY Times publisher fires back at ex-editor who says paper 'lost its way': That's a 'false narrative'". Fox News. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  52. ^ "Sorry, Sulzberger—NYT's Anti-Trans 'News' Is Neither True Nor Important". FAIR. May 19, 2023. Retrieved August 31, 2024.
  53. ^ a b "A Call From the Journalism Academy for an External Review at The New York Times". Literary Hub. April 30, 2024. Retrieved August 31, 2024.
  54. ^ a b Wagner, Laura (April 29, 2024). "Journalism professors call on New York Times to review Oct. 7 report".
  55. ^ "When the New York Times lost its way". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved August 31, 2024.
  56. ^ Oladipo, Gloria (February 18, 2023). "Nearly 1,000 contributors protest New York Times' coverage of trans people". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved August 31, 2024.
  57. ^ Ho, Soleil (August 31, 2023). "Inside the New York Times' trans coverage: 'I wonder if people at the top fully believe in trans people's humanity'".
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Business positions
Preceded by Publisher of The New York Times Company
2018 – present 		Incumbent
Chairman of The New York Times Company
2021 – present
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