The Inheritance (Pinch Sulzberger prewritten obit - Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Poynter Online ^ | May 2009 | Mark Bowden

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NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "comes off as a lightweight, as someone slightly out of his depth, whose dogged sincerity elicits not admiration so much as pity," writes Mark Bowden. "While no one blames him for what is clearly a crisis afflicting all newspapers, he has made a series of poor business moves that now follow him like the tail of a kite." Friend Peter Osnos says: "Sure, Arthur has made his share of mistakes. But they get recycled all the time, and he rarely gets the credit he deserves for what he's done right."

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This one's gonna leave a mark...

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Link to main story.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/05/new-york-times200905?printable=true&currentPage=all

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ping

[ComputerGuy]

"...he rarely gets the credit he deserves for what he's done right..."
So says Mr. Mark Bowden, who apparently couldn't think of an example.

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[Rummyfan]

Quite simply, ‘Pinch’ Sulzberger is presiding over a buggy-whip manufacturing company, and the automobile - in the form of the alternative media - has been introduced. The state of his firm is only worsened by the fact that 90% of what is printed is virtually unreadable, from the lightweight Style to Sports to the hard news, all equally permeated by an overweaning sense of PC and liberalism.

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Just now reading the whole article. Devastating.

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"Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. is fair-skinned with small, deep-set light-brown eyes. He has a high forehead with a steepening widow’s peak, his crown topped with a buoyant crop of wavy hair, now turning to gray. He is a slight man who keeps himself fit, working out early in the morning most days of the week. He has a wide mouth that curls up at the edges, and when he grins he is slightly buck-toothed, which adds to an impression, unfortunate for a man in his position, of puerility."

[Hardastarboard]

Mark Bowden, IIRC, wrote "Blackhawk Down", which is a very precise, detailed, well written account of the incident in Somalia in which 100 of our most elite fighting forces (Army Rangers and Delta Force) were sent into the city center of Mogadishu in broad daylight without armored support by the military geniuses of the Clinton administration.

I read the book a few years back. IMHO Bowden did a remarkable job of documenting that incident. Given that he did such a good, neutral job of documenting the incident, I expected his closing chapter analyzing the reasons for the incident to excoriate the Clinton administration. Instead he did a remarkable job of finding excuses for why Clinton should be held blameless under all possible scenarios. His passive defense of Mr. Sulzberger comes as no surprise to those of us familiar with his work.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"..Having squandered billions during the newspaper’s fat years—buying up all that stock, buying up failing newspapers, building a gleaming new headquarters—Arthur is scrambling to keep up with interest payments on hundreds of millions in debt, much of it falling due within the next year. To do so, he is peddling assets on ruinous terms. Arthur recently borrowed $250 million from Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican telecommunications billionaire, who owns the fourth-largest stake in the Times Company. Controlling interest is held closely by the Sulzberger family, which owns 89 percent of the company’s Class B shares. These shares, not traded publicly, are held by a family trust designed to prevent individual heirs from selling out, and ultimately to shelter editorial matters from strict concern for the bottom line..."

Without Class B shares Pinch would have been road kill years ago. The good thing about Class B shares is that he stays in power to rot the Times faster.

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Yet as I read through the piece I detect not very subtle sarcasm throughout. Very unflattering.

This is a hit piece. It’s in Vanity Fair. Major, major hit piece.

[GOPJ]

It's not just that he's a small man - or a "puffed up" personality. It's that all the other newspapers take their cues from him. "It's not news until the New York Times says it's news" is not far off the mark. So Sulzberger's lack of vison and lack of backbone has taken down an industry.

And for people like me - people who think coffee and a newspaper IS breakfast - it's an outrage..

[GOPJ]

It's not just that he's a small man - or a "puffed up" personality. It's that all the other newspapers take their cues from him. "It's not news until the New York Times says it's news" is not far off the mark. So Sulzberger's lack of vison and lack of backbone has taken down an industry.

And for people like me - people who think coffee and a newspaper IS breakfast - Sulzberger's an outrage..

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"Even as his locks gray and he nears almost two decades as publisher, he remains the prince-in-waiting who once haunted the newsroom in his socks, his trousers held up by colorful suspenders, peering in a harmless but nevertheless insufferably proprietary way over the shoulders of hard-boiled reporters on deadline."

[ComputerGuy]

I've heard about the whitewashing aspects of "Blackhawk Down" from a few folks. I've got a copy, but have never been able to make myself read it. Same thing with my "Hamburger Hill" DVD.

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[SampleMan]

And for people like me - people who think coffee and a newspaper IS breakfast - it's an outrage..

I have three words for you, "Wall Street Journal".

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http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=131&aid=160877
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http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=103031
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http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/27/BUFA16OIFC.DTL&type=business
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30chronicle.html?ref=media&pagewanted=all
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http://francesdinkelspiel.blogspot.com/2009/03/tope-reporters-will-be-leaving-san.html
Top Reporters will be leaving the San Francisco Chronicle

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http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090327-714343.html
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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cotown-redbox30-2009mar30,0,3496501.story
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http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2009_03_28_Boston_Herald_lets_go_24_employees/
Boston Herald lets go 24 employees

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090327/bs_afp/usmediaindustrynewspapersnaa
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[Rummyfan]

And for people like me - people who think coffee and a newspaper IS breakfast - Sulzberger's an outrage..

Me too... and when at home I make do with The Washington Times....

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30paper.html?ref=media
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http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3icda4693bce31a5ad17587141b1a93aa7
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