{"id":340963,"date":"2017-05-15T23:44:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T15:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1490194"},"modified":"2017-05-15T23:44:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T15:44:03","slug":"ny-times-ceo-mark-thompson-isnt-fazed-by-trumps-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/ny-times-ceo-mark-thompson-isnt-fazed-by-trumps-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Times CEO Mark Thompson isn\u2019t fazed by Trump\u2019s criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mark Thompson, CEO of the company that President Donald Trump has\u00a0called the \u201cfailing\u201d New York Times<\/a>, doesn\u2019t\u00a0sound too bothered by presidential criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in journalism for more than 30 years,\u201d said Thompson, who\u00a0appeared\u00a0this morning at TechCrunch\u2019s\u00a0Disrupt New York conference. \u201cPoliticians\u00a0attacking media is not a new thing. It\u2019s unusual for it to be this feisty, this early in the cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson recalled a moment after the election when \u201cthe president-elect started tweeting not about our coverage, but about our business.\u201d There was a Sunday morning conference call, and ultimately The Times decided to rebut Trump\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a weird way, what\u2019s happened\u00a0to us is, the broader narrative about the president saying either\u00a0things which are reckless, or said without evidence, or are known to be untrue, applies to us as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While The Times has sometimes called out Trump for making false statements<\/a>, it\u2019s also aimed for some degree of balance by hiring conservative columnist Bret Stephens<\/a> and with stories expressly designed to \u201csay something nice about President Trump<\/a>.\u201d Is there business pressure to avoid alienating Trump voters?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s what\u2019s going on at all,\u201d Thompson said. He argued that if you look at The Times, you wouldn\u2019t think it was a paper that was \u201ccreated to make the president happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he said, Editorial Page Editor James Bennet \u201cis on a mission to broaden\u00a0the range of opinions that are available to users of The Times.\u201d That includes conservative voices, but also \u201cvoices to the left of the mainstream\u201d as well.<\/p>\n

Thompson was\u00a0also asked about efforts to grow The Times\u2019 online business. (The newspaper added a record number of digital subscribers<\/a> in the first three months of this year.) He said the print paper will continue \u201ca decade or longer\u201d into the future, but it\u2019s clear that the emphasis is increasingly on digital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love our print product \u2026 We want to produce it as long as it makes economic sense,\u201d he said. Still, he said his goal is to build \u201ca\u00a0business which will be a successful business without selling a single physical copy of The New York Times.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    Thompson said The Times is\u00a0\u201cvery good progress\u201d towards that goal, but will other newspapers, particularly metro and local newspapers, be able to follow its lead?<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s possible, but he said there\u2019s a big challenge: \u201cEssentially, high quality content involves paying great journalists.\u201d \u00a0While The Times maintained a newsroom of 1,400 people, many other papers have had to make big cuts. As a result, \u201cThere\u2019s not much journalistic strength there.\u201d<\/p>\n

    And yes, Thompson\u00a0knows that it\u2019s possible for people to get around The Times\u2019 paywall, but he said it was a deliberate decision to make it more porous. That\u2019s because this helps The Times\u2019 journalism have a broader impact, and because the readers who go around the paywall could still turn into subscribers.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe\u2019re in no hurry,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe think \u2026 the geometry of our model,\u00a0the porosity, is more\u00a0efficient at generating digital revenue than any other model we know about.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Featured Image: TechCrunch<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \"\" Mark Thompson, CEO of the company that President Donald Trump has\u00a0called the “failing” New York Times, doesn’t\u00a0sound too bothered by presidential criticism.
    \n“I’ve been in journalism for more than 30 years,” said Thompson, who\u00a0appeared\u00a0this morning at TechCrunch’s\u00a0Disrupt New York conference. “Politicians\u00a0attacking media is not a new thing. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

    \"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-340963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}