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[Music]
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[Music]
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uh Arthur welcome to the Wharton School
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uh going to begin to ask you about uh
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your time with the New York Times as
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publisher of the new York Times and
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chairman of the New York Times companies
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as you look back on your year as
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publisher and owner and
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chairman what decision what action what
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purchase what divesture looking back on
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your time at the top uh of what are you
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most proud of all the decisions the
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major decisions you have reached well
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thank you Mike first of all it's a
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pleasure to be here so thank you for
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this um and let me start by saying that
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the decision I'm most proud of I haven't
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made yet so that's my hope good very
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good um but I think as I look back at
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the time that I've had uh so far in the
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leadership of the New York Times and the
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New York Times company what I am most
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proud of is
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our uh the speed with which we began to
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address the digital Revolution and that
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we have worked very hard to build our
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digital muscles journalistically and
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from a business sense and why times
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uh all of our various apps our iPad app
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um and the continuing Evolution and that
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was something that we took on very early
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in in in in
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this Evolution um so it wasn't something
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we shied away from we have made mistakes
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we've had successes we continue to
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evolve as we must but I think what I'm
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most proud of is that my colleagues and
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I stood up to that right away and
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acknowledged it and embraced it Arthur
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quick follow up on that we're still in
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the middle of that Revolution we are
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hopefully in the middle but my guess is
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we're still at the beginning and I may
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be closer to the start than the end as
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you look ahead what do you anticipate
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that Revolution is going to look like
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for the New York Times let's make it
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five years out well I've I've learned to
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not do those kinds of projections uh
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because I've been um caught uh being
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wrong in the past um and that's right in
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fact one of the I think one of the
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greatest challenges that this has meant
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for the management structure and
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decisionmaking is not to say that's
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where we're heading because what we've
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discovered over and over is this is a
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very twisty Road and if you think you're
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going that direction and the road curves
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left you're going to be in trouble so
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it's flexibility and being comfortable
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with that the ambiguity of that so
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having now said all of that what uh I
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see most exciting is the chance for
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international growth digitally um we
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recently launched a website in Chinese
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it's our first um foreign language
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website it's one of a number that you'll
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be seeing over the next few years um and
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what we're discovering is for that
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people are engaging with us in very
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exciting ways and I'll give you just one
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example if I might if you look at
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our usage outside the US of the
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website the biggest countries outside
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the US are and this will shock you
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England Canada and
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Australia obvious right
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English if you look at our usage on the
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iPhone and this is before we move to a
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Chinese language site China was the
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largest use of the New York Times
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outside the
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US and if that doesn't tell you that our
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information the quality of our news the
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quality of what we offer is not
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incredibly valuable
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worldwide I don't know what can so
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Arthur this may actually take us back to
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the digital Revolution but when you
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think about your your leadership
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experience can you tell us a little bit
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about the toughest decision that you've
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ever made and sort of how you walked
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through it and then maybe anything you
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would have done differently with with
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hindsight well it doesn't take us there
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are two tough decisions I mean part of
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my job is news and part of my job is
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business so I sometimes have to look at
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it from both ways from a news
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perspective um it was our decision to to
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publish this the story saying that the
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Bush Administration was illegally
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wiretapping United States citizens I
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mean the Bush Administration was very
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vehement in in the fact that this was
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going to have a very hard effect on on
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the country and on the security of our
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nation um to the point that we met at
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their request with the president and his
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some of his staff at the White House and
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they made their pitch um at the end we
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concluded that it was in fact right to
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publish that story but that was not an
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easy
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decision um I think in fact it played
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out that it was the right decision um on
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an uh on the business side uh I think
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the hardest challenge I faced was when
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we discovered that one of our
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journalists had been um writing lies and
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making up stories and uh and really that
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goes to the core of what we are the core
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is the brand promise of the New York
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Times and whether you get it in print or
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whether you get it digitally or whether
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you get the Mind mail edition of The New
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York Times at the end of the day it's
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got to be about the quality of our
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content and the trustworthiness and so
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when the Jason Blair event happened in
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2002 um and that really threw so much
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into question and that was probably the
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hardest leadership challenge I faced th
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those are great examples and and I guess
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just to dive into either one of them a
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little bit more they're both big values
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questions how did you think through sort
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of what to do in in either one of those
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situations well um obviously for the for
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the one involving the story I had uh
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some very uh
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some colleagues who were very plugged in
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to through the story who had their own
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sources within the security
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administration as did did I who um and
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having heard out the president and his
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team and
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just the followup we did over the next
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few days you know it's just about at the
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end of the day you know we just were not
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convinced and we'd held the story for a
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year by the way before we made the
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decision to publish it so it was not as
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though we were just got story and said
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go we held it for a year and then learn
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more and learn more and learn more and
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decided no they're not telling us the
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full story and that's when we finally
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made the decision to go so it was
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constant in investigative journalism
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over and over and over for Jason Blair
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that whole event I wish I'd move faster
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honestly that was my M that was our
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mistake um we there were some earlier
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warnings we could have listened to uh
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about what he was doing that we didn't
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hear quite as well as we should have um
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so I think it was in a way you know just
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being willing to move faster and more
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aggressively we're going to take you
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back even further in your early career
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you graduated from tus University you
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worked for another newspaper came into
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the New York Times you were a Frontline
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reporter assistant editor editor now
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you're the publisher as you look back on
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your experiences and maybe a mentor or
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two which experience maybe which Mentor
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really stands out in shaping the kind of
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person you are now and the kind of
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leadership that you
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exercise well let's start with the fact
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that my best Mentor was my father um my
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father um Like Me grew up in the family
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that has controlling interests of the
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New York Times company um his father had
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been publisher um and he knew a lot
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about the road that I was going to be
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traveling uh he was always gentle he was
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always kind uh he pushed me when I
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needed to be pushed but he did in a kind
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and loving way um so I think
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uh I I'm grateful for for him and all
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that he gave me
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um outside of that one um I would uh
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point to an organization not to a person
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Outward Bound Outward Bound has taught
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me more lessons about myself about how
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to think about who I am and about how to
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work with teams of people under
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conditions of pressure and stress in a
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fruitful way that allows you to really
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build a team set a goal and work on
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achieving that goal more than anything
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in my life and that has been perhaps the
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single best mentoring experience I've
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ever had along that line you've written
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about being with an Outward Bound group
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on What's called the Via Fara in the
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Italian elps there and you got stuck at
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nighttime so just to pick up on that as
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one experience help you that's a very
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funny it's been a while since I thought
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about that but yes you're right um well
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that was a perfect example we had a a
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group of of guests that we'd invited on
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a uh 4-day Outward Bound Trek in the the
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in in the Italian Alps of farata um the
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first day we were moving way too slow a
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lot of these were people new to these
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kinds of experiences being at altitude
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being clipped into a wire and knowing
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that if for any reason you slift and the
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wire came out you were going to fall to
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your death just small things like that
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um and when the dark fell and we started
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to run out of water and other things we
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uh broke ourselves into small teams and
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just said look now this is the time
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where we break down to groups of five
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and I led one of those teams because
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I've been involved many years um and we
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had other team leaders and we just took
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and we said our goal is to take care of
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ourselves um and one of the great
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lessons of of Outward Bound and I
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actually had to use it on this
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particular trip was when the slowest
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person is keeping you from going getting
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to where you need to go the worst thing
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you do is yell at them because that only
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slows that person down further what you
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really do you reach into their pack and
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you take something heavy out of their
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pack and you put it in yours and that's
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the fat way to get that person to move
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with the group that's great that's a
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really nice metaphor for leadership and
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um it it connects very nicely actually
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to to one of our other questions which
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is if if you look back on maybe what you
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thought leadership was about early in
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your career and your current view of of
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what leadership entails how has it
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changed over time well it's changed in
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um uh a number of ways uh I grew up in
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an environment in in my work environment
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uh where we had daily deadlines and you
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filed for that deadline and um when that
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was done you went home and you were done
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for the day
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um and it was there was a nice
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systematic way to it and the paper would
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land on the door and you'd be off and
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now I'm in a world where you file you
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must file the story when the story is
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ready if it's ready at 2:47 p.m. you got
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to get it up on the web we hold stories
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back now and we put them up at different
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times in the day because we want someone
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waking up in Paris to have a different
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experience
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than the person who woke up in New York
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to have some new news and the same
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around the world and we own the
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international Hill Tribune and so we've
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got a worldwide view um which means it
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there's that you've lost some of the
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certainty of life and you've got to
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embrace that
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uncertainty and with that comes
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experimenting and recognizing that if
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you're don't experiment if you're you're
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just going to fall further and further
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behind an experiment means you're going
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to fail one of my colleagues famously
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said if if everything we do succeeds
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we're not trying hard enough and that's
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that's to get one culture in a more
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stable environment to embrace that
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culture and the environment we now live
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in that's been one of the the great
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challenges and pleasures of of my job as
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a quick followup on that how do you sort
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of differentiate between you know sort
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of productive failures that allow you to
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learn and failures you can't tolerate
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okay um failures you can't tolerate
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really have to go back to the core
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promise of the New York Times quality
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journalism we cannot tolerate failures
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of qu of quality journalism which
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doesn't mean we don't make mistakes of
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course we're human Enterprise that's why
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we have a correction box that's why we
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have a public editor that's why we have
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a standards that are we're human but
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there are certain levels of mistakes you
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cannot allow or else it's going to
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deflate the brand in in a way that's
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unacceptable on the more on the business
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side uh early early on a number of years
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ago we made a first attempt to charge on
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the web time select it was called it
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focused on our editorial content and in
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particular our oped page colist Tom
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Freeman and Marine D Etc um didn't work
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and after a year and a half we said done
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pull the plug on that and four years
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later when we were coming back and
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saying should we start charging for the
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New York Times on the web
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boy did the people who didn't think we
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should start charging throw that in our
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face don't you remember time select
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don't you remember time select now we
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finally made the decision after a lot of
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study to charge but and it has been far
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greater success than than anyone had
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predicted uh including our own uh
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internal numbers um but there's a you
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know you've got to keep trying
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but sometimes you're going to fail I've
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got a question on the
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flip side of thinking about leadership
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you run a multi-billion dollar
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Enterprise you have a worldwide brand
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you're an extremely rapidly changing
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industry you have a very strong board of
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directors you're publicly traded you
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have to work with those in the equity
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Market got a couple thousand people
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coming to work for you every day taking
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that all into account and looking back
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on how you thought about leadership some
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years back what in your own experience
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turns out to be not true about how to
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lead is there I think what turns out not
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to be most not true is just make the
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decision leaders make
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decisions blue red yes no I no I I I
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think in this environment leaders bring
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groups of people together and and
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there's got to be a collective Buy in
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now that doesn't mean everyone has to
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agree that's nonsense but there I I
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really do believe
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strongly in the power of debate and
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discussion um and teamwork and teamwork
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um and that's the the big lesson for me
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a quick U anchoring of that you've made
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tough decisions on running Wikileaks
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materials you've already referred to a
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couple other decisions very difficult
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just talk if you would about one of
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those decisions and who you put in the
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room to make that decision with you well
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I think the biggest one and um it is is
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the decision to move to a pay model on
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the web um there was Massive Internal
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debat on this one I mean there were
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people who absolutely were committed to
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the thought that if we did this we would
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be just destroying ourselves digitally
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we'd be C carving ourselves away from
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the digital ecosystem there were other
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people who said firmly that look we've
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got to create a model because the move
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is shifting from advertising to
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circulation we're seeing it impr print
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we've got to se in digital and it took
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us a long time to get to where we had to
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get to but without that discussion and
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without that debate we would not have
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come up with the structure we came up
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with the porous wall in other words 20
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started as 20 free stories a
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month if you came in through
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search you came in if you came in
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because you shared a story with somebody
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you were able to to come in that model
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which I think really did protect us from
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being being thrown out of sort of the
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Google driven digital
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ecosystem uh or the Facebook driven um
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but still allowed us to begin to build a
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very powerful pay model that was that no
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we would not have come to that if we had
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not engaged in a real dialogue great and
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this this is also I think on a similar
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theme but we're interested in advice for
00:17:28
for current and Future Leaders so you
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know if you're going to help people
00:17:32
think about whether it's leading an
00:17:33
effective debate and dialogue or whether
00:17:36
it's other key skills you need to learn
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as Leaders what are the most important
00:17:39
pieces of advice you would share listen
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uh is one of the big ones find find
00:17:44
colleagues that you value embrace them
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um one of the things I tell uh people is
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um if you find if you're new to an area
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there's nothing like grabbing people and
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taking at the lunch you're going to
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establish a relationship with people
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outside the office that is going to pay
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off very much inside the office so build
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a build a group of people who who you
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value you trust you listen to which
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doesn't mean you don't have to
00:18:14
occasionally say yeah we're going to do
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it this way you
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do
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but more often than not you'll be
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getting the kind of value the quality
00:18:23
information you need to make the right
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call Arthur by way of closing is there a
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question we should have asked you about
00:18:30
leadership that we didn't touch on
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anything else that comes to mind no I
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think we've covered this very well we've
00:18:36
done it great I think so but thank you
00:18:38
good I want to thank you for joining
00:18:40
knowledge of Wharton today and it's good
00:18:41
to have you in our news so Arthur thank
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thank you for coming just print the name
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right
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okay okay that's an old tradition that
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you're fond of we'll get it right thanks
00:18:52
a lot you appreciate itks super
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[Music]
