NY Times Apparently Seeking to Misappropriate "The Times" as New Trade Name

New York Times ^ | November 16, 2003 | Jonathan Kendall

[tvn]

But a legion of critics faulted Mr. Tisch's performance. "Is that the legacy he wants to leave, that he made a lot of money?" Gerard R. Roche, an executive recruiter who often placed managers at the company, asked at the time. "CBS is a disaster." Media spokesmen were even more scathing. "He took an institution that was important in this country, and he strangled it," said Alex S. Jones, host of "On the Media," a public radio program, in a 1995 interview in The Times.

[tvn]

In his Larry Tisch obituary appearing today, writer Jonathan Kendall on three separate occasions references "The Times," as shown in the example above. Clearly, the paper's editors have been authorized to use this new trade name when referring to the NYT in stories.

However, to readers across the globe, " The Times" refers only to Britain's oldest surviving newspaper, The Times of London, which dates to January 1,1785.

It appears that Pinch Sulzberger has decided to allow his NYT staff to move on from misappropriating and fictionalizing stories and sources, to infringing international trade names.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Either that, or they are trying to get away from the bad journalistic repuation that the name "New York Times" has given itself...

Watch for a name change to happen soon. "Well, we are not the same newspaper anymore. We are honest, forthright, and true. Really. Honest."

[Cicero]

To be fair, people in New York generally call it "The Times." But The New York Times has always been a stickler about following its style sheet in formal articles. So what someone might say in conversation would not be acceptable in formal print.

Note that according to the NYT style sheet, the correct usage is The New York Times with a capital "T," but not italicized. Or at least WAS.

[Cicero]

So, Larry Tisch is dead. Folks at the helm of NYU will be holding their breath until the will is read. As the article notes, he was a big fund raiser for the university. But in his late years he was wooed by Harvard. Interesting to see how that plays out.