The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times Paperback – September 20, 2000

Alex Jones and Susan Tifft have written a masterful book about the Sulzbergers, America's premier media family and stewards of arguably the world's greatest newspaper. Offering rich detail and flowing prose, they capture the ethos of The New York Times and the remarkable men and women who own the paper, who run it, and who serve unflaggingly in the public interest. This is a book for media followers and general readers alike. It tells you, with carefully chosen anecdotes and trenchant analysis, how integral The Times is to American life.

This book is big, for sure, but it's incredibly gripping. It's easy for books like this to get buried in minutiae found in annual reports and interviews with lesser subjects, but this is a fascinating, dramatic read.If you're interested in the subject, this is the book you need to read.

I was reading this book from the library, and it had such depth and detail that I bought it. A satisfying read.

Even more interesting than I expected.

good book in good condition

In 1934 Adolph Ochs was a gloomy man worried about Hitler's success. Och's ambition was forged in deprivation and humiliation. When his father suffered financial disgrace, Adolph became determined to rescue the family's fortunes and reputation. A failed newspaper venture in Chattanooga was saved via the job-printing plant. Adolph became enthralled by the idea of owning a newspaper. Adolph made a show of being prosperous.The Chattanooga of 1878 was something of a melting pot. Adolph launched a love affair with Iphigenia Miriam Wise of Cincinnati. After their marriage Effie and Adolph's life centered on THE CHATTANOOGA TIMES. Their daughter was named Iphigene in honor of Effie. Adolph's sister had a son named Julius Ochs Adler. Adolph sought to make his newspaper impartial. His ambitions exceeded the profits at THE CHATTANOOGA TIMES. He had to borrow to finance the building, the Ochs building, that housed the newspaper.In 1896, learning that THE NEW YORK TIMES was available for purchase, he traveled to the city. He made an ally of Charles Miller, president of the company and editor. Miller listened to Adolph's plan to revive the newspaper. Adolph met with influential stockholders, Morgan and Schiff. Adolph received operational control of THE NEW YORK TIMES. He earned ten thousand dollars a year as publisher of THE NEW YORK TIMES. By 1899 Adolph had a controlling interest in the TIMES. Too, by the turn of the century, Adolph had fostered a mystique about THE NEW YORK TIMES. Carr Van Anda became managing editor in 1904. Free and clear title to THE NEW YORK TIMES was obtained in 1916. The first year the newspaper ran the Hundred Neediest Cases Fund was in 1912.Initially Arthur Hays Sulzberger made little impression on Iphigene. Later the couple had a whirlwind romance and married at the time of the First World War. By April 1918 Iphigene was pregnant. Arthur worked at the TIMES, becoming a newsprint expert. Newsprint was scarce after the war. Then he showed an instinct for the news business. During the GREAT DEPRESSION the profits at the TIMES were reduced by eighty percent. After the death of Adolph Ochs Arthur Hays Sultzberger became publisher and president of THE NEW YORK TIMES in 1935.The newspaper failed to highlight Nazi atrocities. Iphigene Sultzberger experienced remorse over the people she did not save during the Holocaust. Postwar THE NEW YORK TIMES aspired to be a New York-based paper with a national circulation. In 1945 the TIMES acquired WQXR, a classical music station. The TIMES, with its superior reporting capabilities, suffered mightily in the 1963 newspaper strike. The settlement of the dispute added 3.5 million in costs to the TIMES operation that could not be absorbed easily. Abe Raskin nailed down the details of the strike and the settlement in his reporting of the matter. As publisher, it was Orvil Dryfoos's finest hour to permit the fifteen thousand word article to be published.During a later era, Abe Rosenthal didn't understand the lack of respect for academic authority some of the protesting Columbia students exhibited. Rioting students believed the TIMES story of police conduct at Low Memorial Library was a whitewash. On the other hand, Lyndon Johnson came to believe that THE NEW YORK TIMES wanted him to lose the War in Vietnam. The editor Punch Sultzberger appointed, Abe Rosenthal, had an 'idealistic attachment to America and considered journalism a patriotic act'.In 1969 the TIMES went public. The publication of the Pentagon Papers was the grand defining moment of Punch Sultzberger's leadership of the TIMES. The directors and the family members were informed of the decision to publish after the fact. Henry Kissinger, it seems, pushed President Nixon to oppose disclosure of the Pentagon Papers. This is something of a life and times treatment, but the subject is not a person but an institution, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and secondarily the Ochs-Sultzberger family for whom the TIMES is a sort of trust. The authors of the book have amassed a mound of factual details and have handled the material collected adroitly.

It is not surprising that this book's major revelations have not had greater circulation given the nature of family ownership of the vast majority of the biggest media conglomerates in the country, including the massive Gannett holdings of all forms of media all over the world, the enormous Newhouse "out-of-the-shtetl" holdings of not only papers, but magazines, book publishers and electronic media, the Washington Post, and its TV stations, etc., but you would think that some of them would be discussed a bit more than zero. Unknown in the US is any coverage of what the rest of the world classifies as the "Jewish conspiracy" of media dominance in the US. It appears daily in the major media in the Islamic world as the reason for US support of Israel and the reason for jihad against the infidels. It also explains much of French, German and British hatred of the US, long before GW Bush showed up. This book covers some of this, but not much, and is one of the reasons it does not get more stars. But the book has some great insights such as the following.Did you know that Punch Sulzberger viewed the current publisher, his son "Pinch" Sulzberger's positions on the Vietnam War to be treasonous because his son said he would cheer on the death of an American soldier over a Viet Cong in Vietnam in a face to face fight? Do you know that the majority of the editorial positions at the Times are held by militant homosexuals, and that one of the editorial writers at the Times is married to a member of the Massachusetts Supreme court who cast the deciding vote on the issue of legalizing gay marriage in that state but never revealed his affiliation in his many columns on the issue? (The Times' own ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, recently said that the Times' coverage of homosexual issues has crossed the line from reportage to advocacy.) Do you know that the Times is a "publicly held" company, but the family has prevented any kind of modern corporate governance with its stranglehold on its preferred stock while at the same time the paper screams about corporate transparency at every other corporation in the US? And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "The Trust" that guarantees the succession of the male heir to the throne. A corrupt American version of British primogeniture in kingly succession to the Time's monarchy.But this book also shows why the Times has become a shadow of its former self, is beset by scandal after scandal such as the Jason Blair forgeries (which occurred after the publication of this book) and has resulted in the gradual decline of a formerly great paper. While newspapers are probably doomed in this century, just as the town criers before them, as they are replaced by the internet and cable television news, you can find out why The New York Times is in its death spiral by reading this book. Unfortunately the authors were reluctant to get into the business consequences of the loss of credibility of publications such as the Times with mainstream Americans, but this is still a very worthwhile book. Unfortunately the billions of dollars sucked out of the unsuspecting shareholder of the Times never gets to read about the corruption and moral bankruptcy of current Times management, but this book would be a good place to start.

This book was a terrific wander through history through the lens of the amazing New York Times family and business. The authors got the mix just right: history, personal details, family interactions, NYTimes details.