New York Times

Eric Kallgren    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 11:38am on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

In an interesting profile of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim from the June 1, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, Lawrence Wright asked "El Ingeniero" about his investment of $250 million in the New York Times in late 2008:

"I asked Slim why he had invested in the Times. "We think it's the best newspaper," he said. "The best brand... We believe in media content. We think paper will disappear, but not the content. The content will be more important." I asked him if he read the Times. "Only when I'm in the U.S.," he admitted.

The full profile:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_wright

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 5:12pm on Thursday, June 4th, 2009

John M. Geddes, managing editor of the New York Times, was asked about the relationship between journalists and public relations reps on May 31, 2009 in the newspaper's "Talk to the Newsroom" feature:

"For decades, journalists and public relations reps have always seemed to regard each other as necessary evils. To journalists, P.R. people push stories that aren’t stories and prevent them from getting unfettered access to the principals involved in a story. To P.R. people, journalists too often summarily reject legitimate ideas and are too ready to block them from getting their legitimate messages out to the public. And yet … the best of each group need one another, and successfully form good mutual relationships.

At their core, those roles remain the same, but on the periphery there’s change aplenty.

Stephanie Strom, one of our reporters, says that technology has had an impact. “The ability to reach us in a variety of ways, i.e. via e-mail, phone, mobile devices, Twitter, Facebook, etc., means that the number of P.R. people I have to deal with has increased geometrically,” she says.

Steve Lohr, another of our reporters, notes that the creation of our own blogs has resulted in an increased flow of story pitches: “They know the hurdle is lower than for a fully reported piece for the paper, and they follow the blogs closely.”

And Stephanie says things haven’t gotten easier for P.R. people, either. She said she’s been told that the explosion of ways to reach the public beyond the traditional media has taxed P.R. people who find themselves reaching out to bloggers, Web journalists and other newly founded organizations with varying and evolving pedigrees of professionalism.

So yes, there is Sturm und Drang out there, but it accents what remains unchanged. It is probably the one-on-one relationships that matter, and they take time to forge."

Eric Kallgren    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 11:37am on Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Reporters twitter while Times burns...

The New York Times announced through Twitter on May 26, 2009 that Jennifer Preston will have the newly created job of "social media editor" for the newspaper.

FishbowlNY reported:

"Though some critics have predicted that Preston will only be a Twitter cop for micro-blogging NYT reporters and editors, she told FishbowlNY that her job was actually going to be much more.

"I'll be keeping everyone up to date with the rapid changes in this new medium," Preston told us, noting that Twitter and other social media sites can be "an absolutely fabulous tool" for journalists to use. "My plan is to work closely with editors, reporters, bloggers and folks here across the newsroom to explore together how we can use these tools journalistically."

Eric Kallgren    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 10:08pm on Monday, May 25th, 2009

The New York Times won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting on April 20, 2009:

"Awarded to The New York Times Staff for its swift and sweeping coverage of a sex scandal that resulted in the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports."

The prize is awarded for a distinguished example of local reporting of breaking news, with special emphasis on the speed and accuracy of the initial coverage, presented in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).