NYT publisher to media companies: reinvent yourselves
New York Times Publisher Arthur H. Sulzberger Jr. waits to deliver his keynote speech Saturday at SABEW.
New York Times Publisher Arthur H. Sulzberger Jr. sounded a call for his media company and others to reinvent themselves in a keynote speech at the SABEW Conference. ”Are we being bold enough? Or are we allowing our past experiences to hold us back? he asked. Media companies must push change at the ”cost of cannibalizing parts of our own business.”
He said he had just read a book by Jaron Lanier called, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, about how technology can lock in thought. ”We are brilliant at reporting and analyzing, but we are not as good at applying it to our own businesses,” he said.
Sulzberger said the Times is “trying to understand how digitalization is transforming the very nature of communication today.” In the past, consumers went to news sources to find information. Now, “that information is finding them,” he said.
He discussed why NYTimes.com, which is one of the top five global news and information sites, decided to start charging heavier users in 2011. He said the Times determined that while digital advertising will continue to be a major contributor to revenue, a second online stream “would be an important part of our future.” He also said that the approach the Times took would allow its site to be “a vibrant part of the search-driven Web” and would enable the company to “embrace promising opportunities” on a broad range of end-user devices, such as the iPad, that will charge subscribers for a richer user experience.
Why wait until 2011 to charge? “It will take time to get this right,” noting that home-delivery subscribers need to be assured free access to the site.
He said that the Times was one of the first media companies to set up a research-and-development arm to look into the future and try to develop interesting new models and platforms for the Times’ quality journalism.
“We must continue to discover what we don’t know. We must constantly push ourselves to be better, smarter and more innovative,” he said. “I would encourage you to take tough and courageous positions in your own organizations in this period of relentless change.
“We cannot lament a world gone by.”
Here’s more coverage of Sulzberger’s speech from:
- CUNYatSABEW.com on the Wall Street Journal’s challenge to the Times with a New York section launching April 12, and
- DailyFinance.com on how “railing against Google is like railing against oxygen.”
