Ben Smith Takes the Podium
The first appearance of Ben Smith’s Media Equation column in the New York Times is headlined “Why the Success of the Times May Be Bad News for Journalism.” Smith’s new position at the paper appears to be anointed practically the equal of such venerable names as Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd. His appointment was a top tier media event.
This piece by the former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed is an instant classic of a kind. It praises his new employer to an extent beyond what is probably necessary and at the same time says it is bad for people like, well, him.
As a very, very long-standing Times reader, admirer (Metropolitan Diary. Yay), and critic (Jesse Green’s theater reviews. Boo) and for five years the publisher of the Times Books imprint at Random House, I join everyone else I know in feeling strongly about the institution. I am also a supplicant to the Book Review because I publish books that I want to see covered, preferably with praise.
So why was my reaction to the first column a somewhat cynical grimace?
For the past decade or so, we have all watched the upheaval in the news ecosphere with dismay. One by one the great family newspaper dynasties have gone under: the Grahams, Chandlers, Knights and Ridders and last week came the bankruptcy of McClatchy, the latest to fall into the hands of private equity. The last pillar of the old order is the New York Times saved by the daring, flexibility and good instincts of the Sulzberger family and (my friend) Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher in the years the company averted catastrophe.
How did the Times succeed where others did not? Because the family put mission ahead of money, concentrating news resources ahead of almost everything else they owned.
The Times instituted its formidable paywall despite the skepticism of at least some of its own digital experts. It experimented with new platforms. Several colleagues and I were the beneficiaries of a large grant to the Chicago News Cooperative to produce four pages weekly of local news for the paper. For a variety of reasons, that project failed, but at least it was attempted.
The Times used to be very careful mobilizing its brand. Now the company sells T-shirts and travel among a very long list of proprietary products. Its digital recipes and crosswords are a profit center of consequence.
Most of all it is an indispensable provider of news and information to anyone in the world who can read English (and Chinese if they can access it). The Times has about 100 people in London and bureaus of size and impact in Australia and Canada as well as all over the world. It has far more readers on its platforms than it has ever had before because the world needs what the Times offers 365 days a year, round the clock.
If BuzzFeed, Vox, Vice and the other start-ups have been creative and at times inspirational, they have yet to establish a viable business model. Politico has done so because it has “Front Page” rhythms of getting it fast, keeping it clear and getting it mostly right. It also, as far as I know, had the Albritton family’s business support and vision.
As it happens, some of the most successful of the newer ventures in news are non-profits — ProPublica, The Marshall Project and Texas Tribune to name three. More than anything else, they have shown that great journalism is its own best asset in drawing financial backing. The belief that sticky stuff and clicks are enough to create a business turns out to be wrong.
We have had hundreds of years of analog and a short time with digital. I argue that there is resilience in analog. The Times’ most successful new entry is The Daily, a podcast, which is after all, radio on demand. Yes, there is a major reorganization of the journalism model as big a development, in its way, as horse and buggies becoming automobiles and it will continue until it is fully done.
Funding from Report for America, the American Journalism Project, the Knight Foundation, Craig Newmark and others plus the guilt-trip initiatives of Facebook and Google to offset their obliteration of traditional advertising models are gathering strength in reviving local journalism. Moguls like Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff and the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Fortune are, for now, coming to the rescue of endangered icons of news.
At the pinnacle of reinvention is the New York Times and my alma mater, The Washington Post. They are not a problem. They are a significant piece of the solution.
