In a Divided Era, the New York Times’s Publisher Makes a Stand

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: "In a Divided Era, the New York Times’s Publisher Makes a Stand"

Host: David Remnick
Guest: A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of The New York Times
Release Date: June 12, 2023

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Main Theme

This episode centers on a deep-dive conversation between David Remnick and A.G. Sulzberger about the challenges and responsibilities facing journalism—specifically the New York Times—in a politically polarized era. They discuss the meaning and difficulties of journalistic independence, the pressures of covering divisive issues, the legacy and evolution of the Times, and how newsrooms have adapted to modern threats and criticisms from both the public and political actors.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Mission and Challenge of Independent Journalism

• Journalistic Purpose & Pressure:
  Sulzberger defends the Times’s tradition of independent, truth-driven reporting, arguing that journalism should aim to “arm the public with the facts and the context and the understanding it needs for this giant, diverse democracy to come together and self-govern.” (A.G. Sulzberger, 02:34)

• Pushback Against Advocacy Journalism:
  Sulzberger notes how media faces criticism from both left and right—for perceived ‘wokeism’ and for not being forceful enough against authoritarian threats (Remnick, 01:17–02:34).

• Quote:

  “Should the role of journalists be to push for a certain cause, or should the role of journalists be to independently follow the truth?”
  — A.G. Sulzberger (02:34)

2. The Ukraine Coverage Example

• Reporting vs. Partisanship:
  Sulzberger cites Times reporting on Ukraine’s use of banned cluster munitions as an example where truth took precedence over “balancing the ledger” or serving nationalistic narratives. (05:20)

• Quote:

  “But one day last year, one of the Times reporters woke up and found a different story. And he found that the Ukrainian government was using cluster munitions... He did it because it was true.”
  — A.G. Sulzberger (04:05)

3. Navigating Democracy and Objectivity

• On Being ‘Pro-Democracy’:
  Remnick challenges Sulzberger about whether the Times should defend democracy more explicitly. Sulzberger insists the Times’s duty is to “the cause of the truth and an informed public,” warning of the danger in conflating partisan support with journalistic obligation (06:39).

• Parallels to Past Coverage:
  Sulzberger equates accusations against the Times (e.g., criticisms for reporting on Biden) to previous pressure faced when reporting inconvenient truths about allies.

4. The New York Times’s Liberal Reputation

• Liberal Label Debate:
  Sulzberger pushes back on the claim that the Times is inherently a “liberal newspaper,” arguing the goal is independent reporting even if the newsroom’s demographics are skewed (09:02).

• Quote:

  “The key isn't being a blank slate... It’s a willingness to put the facts above any individual agenda.”
  — A.G. Sulzberger (10:34)

5. Distrust and the Changing Media Landscape

• Rise of Distrust:
  Remnick and Sulzberger discuss plummeting trust in news institutions, citing political attacks (e.g., Trump’s “enemy of the people” rhetoric) and the role of social media in creating echo chambers (11:31, 12:10).

• Disconnection from Community:
  Sulzberger outlines how journalists have shifted from local reportage (with exposure to a community’s full diversity) to sitting behind screens, resulting in an echo chamber effect (14:32).

6. Elite Media & Local News Crisis

• Media Inequality:
  Remnick brings up the “elite media” concern and the gap created by local news’s collapse. Sulzberger acknowledges this as “an American tragedy,” emphasizing the Times’s attempt to fill certain gaps but reiterating that much of their content remains free and widely accessible (20:26, 21:43).

• Sustainability of News:
  They discuss the necessity of paid journalism amid the collapse of the “news should be free” ethos, and equate paying for news to paying for water or medicine (22:53, 23:17).

7. The Tom Cotton Op-Ed Controversy

• Process Failures:
  Sulzberger recounts the fallout from Tom Cotton’s incendiary “Send in the Troops” op-ed (June 2020), emphasizing that while independence is crucial, failure in process or editorial rigor undermines credibility (27:02–28:50).

• Quote:

  “If you get process wrong and you get execution wrong, and then you wrap a flawed thing that you produced in that principle... people can see you as flawed.”
  — A.G. Sulzberger (27:59)

• Editorial Standards Post-Controversy:
  Sulzberger underlines that Times opinion pages now publish a diverse array of voices, including hiring new conservative and evangelical columnists (32:13).

8. Coverage of Trans Rights and Accusations of Bias

• Defending Reporting:
  Sulzberger strongly rejects claims that Times coverage has been anti-trans. He describes the responsibility to report on real debates within the medical community regarding trans minors, and notes both criticisms and gratitude from within the trans community (34:20–38:08).

• Quote:

  “We have been writing all those stories. Part of our job is also to write the stories that society is working through, right? The stories that are less cut and dry.”
  — A.G. Sulzberger (36:25)

9. The Role and Disclosure of Personal Politics

• Independent Stance:
  When pressed about his personal politics, Sulzberger refuses to share, likening his role to that of the Red Cross—he argues society needs independent actors, not explicit allegiances (39:30–41:00).

• Social Media Challenge:
  Remnick notes the disconnect created when Times reporters express opinions online. Sulzberger underscores the value of non-partisan, independent actors in a hyper-polarized landscape (41:22).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the heart of journalism:

  “The Times serves the cause of the truth and an informed public. The challenge always comes not in the top line question. So do you support democracy? It comes in the questions that cascade underneath it.”
  (A.G. Sulzberger, 06:39)

• On newsroom diversity:

  “Almost everyone who works at the New York Times lives in a big city and graduated college... that alone means that we're going to under index in gun ownership, under index in church attendance.”
  (A.G. Sulzberger, 09:26)

• On the cost and value of news:

  "For less than a cup of coffee a week... I don't think the journalists should apologize for that. We don't expect medical care in this country or food or electricity. Water. Water is not free in this. Yet we think that this essential service should be free."
  (A.G. Sulzberger, 23:17)

• On independent journalists:

  “There is nothing I feel more strongly than... society needs independent actors and independent journalists.”
  (A.G. Sulzberger, 39:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:17 | Introduction; Sulzberger’s background and news business context | | 02:34 | Journalistic objectivity vs. advocacy | | 05:20 | Ukraine reporting case study | | 06:39 | Is the Times “pro-democracy”? | | 09:02 | Liberalism, newsroom demographics, and objectivity | | 11:31 | Erosion of trust in media | | 14:32 | How newsroom routines changed and local engagement lost | | 17:13 | Creating a market for paid journalism; Times’ subscriber base growth | | 20:26 | Information inequality and accessibility | | 27:02 | The Tom Cotton op-ed controversy and lessons learned | | 34:20 | Criticism over trans health coverage, defending reporting standards | | 39:30 | On disclosing personal politics and the necessity of independence | | 41:22 | Reporters’ social media expressions vs. institutional standards |

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Episode Takeaways

• A.G. Sulzberger stands firmly for independent reporting, not advocacy or overt alignment with any political movement, even (or especially) in an era when “neutrality” is viewed skeptically by some.
• His case hinges on maintaining standards and process, not just values or slogans.
• Sulzberger resists both the pressure to identify the Times as a ‘liberal’ entity and the impulse to abandon fact-based reporting amid the noise of social and political pressures.
• The Times sees itself as a public service, not just a business—but making quality journalism sustainable is inseparable from requiring revenue (via paid subscriptions).
• Controversies, such as handling of op-eds or coverage of trans issues, are taken as lessons in the necessity of rigorous journalistic process and commitment to breadth and accuracy—even at the cost of audience displeasure.

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Transcript

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[David Remnick]

This is the political scene and I'm David Remn. Five odd years ago I sat down in this studio with the man who had taken on the most powerful position in the most important news gathering organization in the country, possibly the world. A.G. sulzberger, not yet 40 at that time had been named the publisher of the New York Times. He is the sixth of the Ox Sulzberger family to run the paper and under him the Times has rebounded from a period of constant cuts and potential sale to a position of financial stability. It remains, though, an extremely tense time in the news business. Donald Trump's rhetoric about fake news and enemies of the people has had real and lasting traction on much of the country. People like Bari Weiss, who resigned from the Times a few years ago, characterized the place as being in the thrall of of the dread forces of wokeism. At the same time, left leaning critics argue that the Times has been too cautious, too reluctant to call things as they are in an era of authoritarian demagogues.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

It's been really striking to me that the people making the strongest arguments right the People who are putting the intellectual muscle behind this conversation about what is the role of journalists? Should the role of journalists be to push for a certain cause or party or group or ideology or even a specific outcome on a specific issue? Or should the role of journalists be to independently follow the truth and try to arm the public with the facts and the context and the understanding it needs for this giant, diverse democracy to come together and self govern?

[David Remnick]

Which is your view and the traditional view at the Times?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That's my view and the traditional view at the Times. And I've been struck that a lot of the intellectual firepower has been making the opposite case and that the traditionalists in the ranks, I think, have long believed that sort of that. That long standing view, you know, speaks for itself, that the argument makes itself. And I became increasingly convinced that the argument doesn't make itself.

[David Remnick]

Sulzberger has just published a long essay in the Columbia Journalism Review, and it's called Journalism's Essential Value. What he's arguing there may sound like conventional wisdom to earlier generations of journalists. So I asked him where and how it gets difficult and why he's chosen to make this argument.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Now, let me just give a very specific example. Since the war in Ukraine started, right, we have had at least a dozen journalists on the ground every single day of the conflict. So my guess is that every one of the journalists on the ground wake up every day thinking they are going to tell a story about Russian aggression, Russian atrocities, how Russia is hurting this country that they invaded in an unjust war. But one day last year, one of the Times reporters woke up and found a different story. And he found that the Ukrainian government was using cluster munitions. And cluster munitions are internationally banned. And they're internationally banned for a reason, because they disproportionately kill civilians and particularly children. And on that day, he told that story, and he didn't do that so that we could balance a ledger. And on one hand, Russia does bad things, on the other hand, so does Ukraine. He did it because it was true. And I think all sorts of people may question, like, with everything that Ukraine's been through, right, why would you point to misconduct on the Ukrainian side? And in fact, the Ukrainian government was angry enough about that reporting that they tried to eject that reporter from the country.

[Interviewer]

Right?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So why? Because it's the truth. Because these are internationally banned for a reason. Because if independent actors don't track their usage, that international ban is toothless. And ultimately, if the press decides that the good guys can use. Leads you to two questions. Are we always right about calling who the good guy is and then two? Doesn't that basically validate the bad guys using it, too?

[David Remnick]

Joe Kahn, your choice for executive editor, has said that you can't be committed to independent journalism and be agnostic about the state of democracy. So what I'd ask is, is the New York Times explicitly pro democracy? And how does that align with Walter Lippmann, who you quote in your piece, who argued that journalists ought not to be serving a cause no matter how good? Should the Times be serving the cause of liberal democracy, which is now, I think we can all agree under horrendous threat and not just abroad in corners of place for foreign correspondents to cover, but right here at home?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The Times serves the cause of the truth and an informed public. The challenge always comes not in the top line question. So do you support democracy? It comes in the questions that cascade underneath it. So if you are a Democrat, right, and you believe that Donald Trump represents a threat to democracy, is it then anti democracy for an organization like yours, David, to produce reporting that raises questions about the actions, conduct, or fitness of President Biden?

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

You could argue with it. That is anti democracy.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Like, couldn't you?

[David Remnick]

I think there are people that argue sometimes, I don't want to paint caricatures of them, that if you're very critical or you're reporting as hypercritical of Biden, that somehow serves the cause of his defeat and therefore the rise or the re. Rise of Donald Trump or the like.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Exactly. And that's the type of argument, that's the exact argument that the Ukrainian government made. But I could point to 10 other examples. I could actually point to 100 other examples. Right. We hear that our coverage, you know, maybe independently, each piece on Silicon Valley is worthy and defensible, but from inside Silicon Valley, we hear that together. It's disproportionate.

[David Remnick]

About 18 years ago, 2004, this is long before you took the reins, the first public editor of the New York Times, Daniel Okren, published a column headlined, and you quote it in your essay, is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? And the first sentence of that column was, of course it is. Now, the column caused a bit of a storm. Every time I've ever talked, certainly publicly, to a New York Times editor, Dean Beckay and others, and asked them, is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? When they're still in office, they always say no. When they're not in office, they say, of course it is. What do you say?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I really will push back on that, you know, but why not come out. Sorry, why don't come out of the.

[David Remnick]

Closet and be admit to being a liberal newspaper in the broadest sense that's also fact based, that's also relentless about accuracy and is intellectually honest and independent. Is it impossible to be those two things at the same time?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Again, coming out of the closet suggests that we're hiding something here. I think the premise is simply not true. All of the critiques of the independent model, I think there's some truth in there and I hope in the essay you see me grappling with it. For example, almost everyone who works at the New York Times lives in a big city and graduated college. That alone makes our staff unrepresentative in many ways. And that alone means that we're going to under index in gun ownership, under index in church attendance. The posture of independence. The posture of independence. It's not about being a blank slate. It's not about having no life experience, no personal perspectives. That is an impossible ask. And I think that that is a parody of the long debate over objectivity that, you know, objectivity as it was originally formulated wasn't about the person's innate characteristics. It was about the process that helped address the inherent bias that all of us carry in our life.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The key isn't being a blank slate. It's not that you don't have a theory going into any story. It's a willingness to put the facts above any individual agenda. And just you think about this moment and how polarized this country is. How many institutions in American life do you believe are putting like truly putting the facts above any agenda, Putting sort of a independent posture, the desire to arm the public with the information the public needs, you know, to reckon with all the giant existential challenges we face. And the challenges are giant, I think.

[David Remnick]

The public distrusts, I'll say us, the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal. At record levels, our ratings are a misery.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So I'll say a couple of things on that.

[Interviewer]

Right?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So I think we've seen a few things drive that. I mean, one, let's be absolutely clear. The former President of the United States, the current leader of one of America's two political parties, has now spent the better part of seven years telling the public not just to not trust us, but that we were the enemies of the American people.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Like that our work was actually fake.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That it was manufactured.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So if that's the way that the political atmosphere has worsened, trust in media.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I think that we can agree that the social platforms have done the same. Right. So in an era when it is easier than ever for like minded people to gather to build their own narratives, in which the loudest and most extreme voices in those communities tends to rise, and when it's easier for those groups to mobilize and be heard, those are the fundamental dynamics of social media. We now see the dynamic, the sort of zero sum dynamics around tolerance for journalists challenging in group narratives that we used to only really see with abortion, with Israel, Palestine and with presidential politics.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

It was like those were really the only giant stories in American life that had all those dynamics and where the sort of rhetoric and the intensity always felt dialed up to 10.

[David Remnick]

Now it's everything.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

It's everything. It is everything. So that's the dynamic we're talking about when we talk about echo chambers and social media.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The third dynamic inside our industry is that journalism to some extent has become an echo chamber.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

And what do I mean by that? It's been a while since I looked at your bio, so I can't say this for a fact, but if you are like many journalists of your generation, and if you're like many journalists of my generation, you probably started a local paper, did you?

[David Remnick]

Unless you consider the Washington Post a local paper.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I don't.

[David Remnick]

You could get in a lot of trouble.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I don't. I don't.

[David Remnick]

So I got lucky and it was a.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Well, you might just be more talented than me, but so like many journalists of my era and many journalists of your started at a local corporate.

[David Remnick]

That was the traditional path.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That's the traditional path. And what was the day like in a journalist at that point?

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Every day you were out in the communities you were covering and you were being confronted with the full diversity of this country and of the human experience.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Like on the same day you would talk to rich and poor, you'd talk to a mother who just lost a son to murder and a mother whose son was just arrested for murder.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

You would just see everything.

[David Remnick]

So people just sitting in rooms in front of a screen. I don't think that's the case.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Of course it's the case. I mean, so that type of work, putting people out in the world is so expensive. And so as traditional media faded and particularly local media faded.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

And as digital media filled that vacuum, we actually saw a full inversion of how days were spent. So the new model is you have to write three to five stories a day. And if you have to write three to five stories a day. There is no time to get out into the world and see it in all its complexity. You're spending your time writing, you're typing, which means that you are drawing on your own experience and the experience of the people immediately around you. So, literally, many journalists in this country have gone from spending their days out in the field, surrounded by everything else in the world in life, to spending their days in an office with people who are in the same profession, working for the same institution, living in the same city, graduating from the same type of university.

[David Remnick]

But you allude to something that's just incredibly painful in American life, and that is the contraction of local journalism all over the country, all the many, many newspapers that have either collapsed or their newsrooms have shrunk to the vanishing point. When Ben Smith started as the media columnist for the New York Times, having come from buzzfeed, his first column was about the potential dangers of the New York Times immense success. Ironically enough, I think. You know, it wasn't too many years ago that I wrote in the New Yorker that there was a moment not too long ago where the biggest question about the New York Times was about when the Sulzberger family was going to be forced to sell the Times, and would Carlos Slim or Mike Bloomberg be a better or worse proprietor? That was a very dangerous moment because neither one of them, to be perfectly honest, was anywhere near well enough equipped to head this, I'll say it, essential American institution. Now, your success is gigantic, and the distance between you and your competitors and putative competitors has widened. And I don't see that it's going to get any narrower in the near future. That's an enormous responsibility for you. What are the perils of the Times? Success and its singularity, if that's what it is.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. I also read the New Yorker and admire the very. I appreciate that eight years ago, when I started getting deeply involved in shaping the modern strategy of the New York Times, one of our biggest challenges and our highest aspirations was let's make a market. Let's make a market for great journalism in this country. And you'll remember that the skeptics thought it was ridiculous to try to make a market like a paid market for journalism. We were widely ridiculed for launching a paywall, for asking people to subscribe to our digital news report.

[David Remnick]

Same here.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Yeah. And not only did we grow ourselves. Right. And we've grown from. So at the time when we launched the paywall, the consultants who helped us launch it Told us that if we did everything exactly right, we might be able to get 650,000 subscribers. That was going to be our ceiling. Today we're almost at 10 million. But one of the things I'm proudest of is we didn't just make a market for ourselves.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

What's happened? The Washington Post has more subscribers than it's ever had in its history.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

They don't publicly report their numbers, but I've heard anything from two and a half to three million or those slipping lately. Yep. I mean, two and a half to three million is nothing to sneeze at. I think the New Yorker has more subscribers than at any time in your history. You probably can't say it because you also don't publicly report your numbers, but I think the Atlantic has more subscribers than at any time in your history. In their history. The Journal, more subscribers than any time in their history. What do all those have in common? Those are the institutions that are still investing in the really resource intensive.

[David Remnick]

Of course, I could agree. There is a problem though that comes with that. You've just named the New Yorker all national media, something called the Atlantic. I've never heard of it, but the Atlantic, the Times, the Journal, and they're not cheap to get and they are considered by the general public, you'll forgive me. Elite media, not just, you know, and probably.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Can I push you on that?

[David Remnick]

Hang on, hang on, hang on. But you can. Of course you can. But hang on. And the concern is, and I think Ben Smith reflected it and others have, that while those media not only have their readers, they also influence other media. And there's a trickle down effect of the facts that they uncover in the stories they write or publish or broadcast. There's a widening gulf. Just as there's an income inequality problem in this country that gets worse and worse. There's an information problem that the map of that information problem has gotten different. I'm not saying that AG Sulzberger can be responsible for it and can control it and make it all better with a stroke, but there is that problem.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I disagree with the hypothesis. Go ahead. So I think there is an information problem, but I think it's about the collapse of local news. And I think that that is an American tragedy and I think a very dangerous and insidious force in American life.

[David Remnick]

Do you have any responsibility as an ascendant and increasingly.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Let me get to that, but let me push back on the other part. Right. So at the peak of COVID half of Americans were using the New York Times. To get essential information about how to navigate the pandemic on election Day, we typically have more than a third of the country using the New York Times. Again, we have fewer than 10 million subscribers. Right. Like those are not all subscribers. The daily, you know, which is now reaches far more people than our front page and is free. The morning newsletter, which lands in 6 million inboxes every morning, is free. Our homepage free. Why am I saying that? Because I think there's often, you know, sort of an imaginary person who wants to read quality news but are being boxed at because of the cost. I really don't believe that that is a real population in any significant number.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Based on my own, I assume.

[David Remnick]

The hope, though is that people who do avail themselves of those free or service will subscribe because you make an appeal at the end of every broadcast of the daily. Hoping you do well.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So you anticipated the next spot I'm going to go to, which is. I think it is so interesting that our industry has an obsession with making the news free, even though the news is so expensive to make. The New York Times was the only newspaper that held a full time presence in Iraq and Afghanistan every day of the conflict and still has a full time presence in Iraq and Afghanistan today. And just literally, just think about the implication of that. Had the New York Times not borne the cost of covering this war on behalf of the American public, we would have had a conflict where American troops were on the ground, but no American journalists to hold them to account to bring the reality of the conflict back to the American people. So I think there's been this hangover from the honestly terrible conventional wisdom of the early Internet. Information wants to be free.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That I think almost.

[David Remnick]

That was a canard.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

It almost sunk our industry. And. And instead, do you know what an average cup of coffee costs in New York? Sorry, not in New York. In America.

[David Remnick]

I use the same analogy every time. I'm talking about a subscription price, Believe.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Me, I know it's $3.99.

[David Remnick]

I get it.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

And that's the national price for less than a cup of coffee a week.

[David Remnick]

I think you stole this from me.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

A week. I don't think the journalists should apologize for that. We don't expect medical care in this country or food or electricity. Water. Water is not free in this. Yet we think that this essential service should be free. And we know what happens when it is. We've seen what happens, which is people can no longer afford to support reporting.

[David Remnick]

I'm speaking with A.G. sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times. More from our conversation in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Katie Drummond]

What the hell is going on right now and why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily basis. And maybe you are too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial Director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview conversations are fun.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I want a shark that.

[Katie Drummond]

That eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the.

[David Remnick]

Unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

To the best of my ability, every.

[Katie Drummond]

Week, we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times. Meaning and context. True or false. You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point as of yet undefined in the future, you will die. False.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Tell me more.

[Katie Drummond]

Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Reming. I'm Speaking today with A.G. sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times. He's published an essay in the Columbia Journalism Review called Journalism's Essential Value. It's a defense of the traditional independent stance held by generations of reporters at a moment of intense controversies over news coverage. One particularly damaging controversy that erupted under AG's watch was the publication of a guest opinion column by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. In June 2020, during the protests that followed George Floyd's murder by police, the Times op ed page published Cotton's essay with the headline Send in the Troops. Cotten argued in that piece that the federal government should order the military to put down what he called an orgy of violence that he said was being led by left wing nihilists and antifa. Now, the purpose of an opinion page is to air differing viewpoints, but this column coming at the moment it did, caused real outrage, including in the Times newsroom. James Bennett, who oversaw the editorial pages, was forced to resign and he later said that the Times had, quote, signed up so many new subscribers in the past few years, and the expectation of those subscribers is that the Times will be Mother Jones on steroids. When you look back at that and you're a person of thoughtful self criticism, how do you Evaluate it. What did you do right? What did you do wrong? How do you look at that episode.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The thing I took away from it? So a lot of people wanted that episode to basically be a proxy for our view on this principle of independence and the very particular way the principle of independence manifests on the Op Ed page, or in our opinion pages, as we now call them. The thing the episode underscored more than anything else was, of course, the principle matters. It is the first and most important thing. But process matters, and execution matters. And if you get process wrong and you get execution wrong, and then you wrap a flawed thing that you produced in that principle, right? So the thing that you produce is flawed. People can see you as flawed.

[David Remnick]

How is it flawed?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I don't want to go into too much detail because I have so much respect for all the folks who were involved, and I don't want to reopen what I'm sure for many is a really difficult episode. But if you go back and read about it, just like the process, if you imagine that if you had seen that piece, you would have said, okay, this is going to be one of the most controversial things I'm gonna produce all year, right? And if you had decided that it was an important piece and that it met your standards, you would have put it through the ringer to make sure that you got everything just nailed down. You would have thought about the headline, the presentation. You would have made sure that every bit of it was perfectly fact checked.

[Interviewer]

Right?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The same way that when the newsroom counterparts have a giant investigation, say, when we got Trump's taxes, which he had been hiding from the public for years, Dean is involved at every single step.

[David Remnick]

Dean Beckett, Beckett editor at that time.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

And his closest deputies were involved, right? There are a lot of cooks in that kitchen. And you know that when you do a big difficult piece, right? You put it through a lot of steps. And as was, I think, widely reported at the time, this piece was rushed in and it showed. So my main takeaway, and it's one of the reasons I talk about process so much in this piece, because I think the disciplines of the journalistic process are really essential to supporting the underlying principle of independence. Right? It's not enough just to have the principle right, and wave it around. You also have to execute on it well, especially in an era in which that principle is so frontally under attack.

[David Remnick]

One of the arguments was that that piece somehow endangered the lives of times reporters, particularly times reporters of color. Do you believe that was true?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

You have to remember when that argument was being made in the context in which it was being made.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That was. I don't know, was it six months into the pandemic, five months into the pandemic, and then we saw the eruption of the single largest social justice protest movement in this country in a half century.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[David Remnick]

Sparked by a hideous murder that was on the ground.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That's right, exactly. And in that context, I'm sympathetic to how folks felt. What I will say, going back to the principle is, and some folks wonder, does this mark a retreat from the Times, from independence, or a commitment to having a wide range or controversial views? On our, on our op ed page, I'd point out to the thing we did not just like months later, but that very week, which is we ran a series of pieces attacking the New York Times for our handling of that piece. Attack a million times for our handling of that piece in our own pages from the left, right and center. Some folks pushed back, saying we should never have run the piece at all. And some folks push back that we should have stood behind it and defended it at every turn. So the broader thought with opinion, I would just say, look, three years after that episode, do you feel that the Times opinion pages. Are you regularly seeing pieces from every side of the political spectrum on the abortion debate.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

On economic political questions, social political questions?

[David Remnick]

I think you do.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I think you do. And I'd argue actually under Katie, you're seeing more of them than ever.

[David Remnick]

Katie, who replaced James Bennett.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

That's right. And I think you see that she's just hired another conservative columnist, our first evangelical columnist, also a military veteran.

[David Remnick]

It's David French.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

David French, who's done extraordinary work for us so far, and she's worked really hard to broaden the number of voices coming into the op ed page. So, you know, I think that that principle.

[David Remnick]

Would you hire a Trumpist on the op ed page?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

This is a question I've been getting now for six years. Right. And it's a really tricky one. It is harder than you'd think to find the Trumpist who hasn't at some Point said the 2020 election was rigged. Donald Trump won the election. Barack Obama was. You know, it's an open question, I get it.

[David Remnick]

But a huge number, tens of millions of people either tolerate that point of view or believe it.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Yeah. So independence is not about both sidesism. It is not about.

[David Remnick]

So you would not have a Trumpist who had said that at some point on your op ed page.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

We would not have anyone who.

[David Remnick]

But you'd have guest columnists say, I mean, Tom Cotton certainly doesn't.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

So we certainly would not have a columnist who has a track record of saying things that are demonstrably untrue.

[David Remnick]

So another controversy earlier this year had to do with coverage of trans rights, right? In particular, it focused on Times reporting on medical care for trans minors, coverage that was cited in support of some Republican anti trans legislation. And trans advocacy organizations were involved. And there was a public letter by some of the Times own contributors. Now, regardless of your objections to the way that the petition was handled or the way specific reporters were singled out, put that all to the side, if you would. Did you find any of the criticism validation?

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Look, we've listened really deeply. I know the Standards desk, Joe Kahn and his senior editing team have met with a bunch of groups, inside groups, outside groups, who have raised concerns about the coverage. I want to say unequivocally that I think the accusation that the Times coverage has been anti trans is. Is just demonstrably untrue. And I'd encourage anyone who has the slightest bit of skepticism of that just to type in the phrase transgender issues, New York Times, and go to the landing page that's automatically populated with everything we've written, and you will find hundreds of stories there doing the very thing that we've been accused of not doing, right? Which is these are stories that are exploring the groundbreakers in the trans community who are blazing new trails across a huge range of industries all over the world, right? And gaining new acceptance and recognition for trans people. We're chronicling the dismaying rise of prejudice and bigotry and attacks that the trans community is facing and all the efforts at the state level to undermine trans rights. So we have been writing all those stories. Part of our job is also to write the stories that society is working through, right? The stories that are less cut and dry. So we've never written a story that questioned whether trans people exist or should exist, which is an accusation I've heard from many corners that is just literally, factually untrue. But we have, you know, it is our journalistic responsibility as an independent news organization to reflect, for example, the very real debates happening in the medical community and even among trans people and parents of trans people about what type of interventions, medical interventions should happen for minors and when. And when the risk of not acting outweighs the risk of acting. And, you know, these are questions that the medical community is asking, actively working through. There's an active debate there, and our critics have effectively asked us to pretend that debate is not happening. For fear. And again, this is going back to the same theme. For fear that the information could be misused and that fear is legitimate. There are all sorts of bad faith actors who are trying to undermine trans people and attack trans rights in this country.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

But on the other side of the ledger, Right. You know, if that's what we're hearing publicly, what we're hearing privately is we've gotten so many notes from trans people, from doctors who care, from trans people and parents who are making decisions on behalf of trans minors.

[David Remnick]

But you're saying that there's nothing in the critique that you thought, okay, they have a point here or there.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

You know, for example, on the story I'm citing right now, we, you know, I know we did make a correction, Right. But overall, no, overall, I think, look, if I was to have finished that sentence, like, what I would have, what I was building towards is those folks, people within the trans community, people who, you know, who've dedicated their lives to caring for people within the trans community, have written us notes at times begging us not to stop this reporting. And what they've said is that their greatest fear is that we get to a world in which the only information they have is in talking points of various groups.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The talking points of people want to crack down on trans people. And the talking points of trans advocates who are trying to make the strongest case, you know, to, you know, you know, for trans rights in this country. And what they've said is these are life and death decisions. These are decisions involved, personal health. We need information we can trust. And if there's a debate happening in the medical community, we don't want that hidden from us.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[David Remnick]

A.J. are you willing to say what your politics are? Just broadly speaking? I remember, you know, I worked for Len Downing.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

As he was the executive editor of the Washington Post before that was Ben Bradlee. And Len not only wouldn't reveal his politics, although it was pretty plain what they were. He didn't vote. You again, you live in New York City, you went to Brown. Everything tells me that you're pulling the Democratic Party lever, if not every single time, then 90 odd percent of the time that probably people think they can guess what your politics are. Why not say it and then still be committed to this quite in depth, well thought out and coherent presentation of what independent journalism is.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

The thing I feel most passionately about in the world is that society needs independent actors and independent journalists. I just believe it. And there is like, there is nothing I feel more strongly than that. I do not believe that the truth ever resides in just, you know, that any one person will ever have the full truth.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

It's why I keep coming back towards.

[David Remnick]

But that requires you to not say anything about this.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

You know, I was really struck, as I've learned about the Red Cross.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Everyone and particularly Western nations want the Red Cross to declare an allegiance in this conflict.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

They want the Red Cross to say Ukraine is right and the Red Cross is stubbornly asserting that the world needs an independent actor to enforce the laws of war. And that if they say that it's going to be harder for them to get access to the prisoners on the Russian side, it's going to be harder for them to push the Russian government.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

And their belief is that society benefits when you actually have independent actors. And I believe that that's the case. I believe that's the case with the judiciary. I believe that's the case with medicine. Right. I believe that there are these parts of the world where we want independent actions.

[David Remnick]

So that it must irritate you that some of your reporters go on television or social media and very blatantly declare their politics. I mean, without naming anybody, it's very clear that must fly in the face of this kind of Red Cross model of at least the appearance of what.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Would you call it, look independent. But it's, you know, again, I'm aware of how old fashioned this sounds, but I guess what I would ask you is in this hyper politicized, hyper polarized moment, is society benefiting from every single player getting deeper and deeper and louder and louder about declaring their personal allegiances and loyalties and preferences? Or do you think there's space for some actors who are really committed just to serving the public with the full story? Facts fall where they may.

[David Remnick]

A.G. sulzberger, thank you so much.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Oh, it's a real pleasure. Thank you.

[David Remnick]

A.G. sulzberger became publisher of the New York Times in 2017. You can read more from my conversation with him@new yorker.com.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Foreign.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

I'm Michael Kollori, Wired's director of consumer Tech and Culture.

[Katie Drummond]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

Right. So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge or Elon Musk. We will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are affecting Washington and how they affect you.

[Katie Drummond]

Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[A.G. Sulzberger]

From prx.