In 1999, Susan Tifft and Alex Jones published The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. The idea behind the clever title was a) The Times was a newspaper controlled by a complicated family financial trust, and b) that The Times held an august position of trust with the American peope, serving them as the Newspaper of Record.
Well, that was then. Today, less than a decade later, Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. has presided over a series of editorial disasters (Howell Raines, Gerald Boyd, Jayson Blair, Judy Miller) that have undercut the Times' credibility--and betrayed The Trust that he inherited.
But Sulzberger, when he's not busy trying to relive the heady radicalism of the 60s, seems hellbent on squandering whatever remains of his inheritance. In his obvious jealousy and hostility toward a vastly more successful media outlet, he has unleashed the dogs of war on Murdoch and, today, his family.
Read the latest installment here if you want, but here's the only new stuff, from a hard-hitting statement in response from the Murdoch camp:
“News Corp. has consistently cooperated with The New York Times in its coverage of the company. However, the agenda for this unprecedented series is so blatantly designed to further the Times’s commercial self interests — by undermining a direct competitor poised to become an even more formidable competitor — that it would be reckless of us to participate in their malicious assault. Ironically, The Times, by using its news pages to advance its own corporate business agenda, is doing the precise thing they accuse us of doing without any evidence.”
Pow!
The Cable Game predicts that the Times series will be a big dud. Indeed, the only enduring hit will be on Sulzberger's reputation; Pinch will be remembered as the spoiled rich kid who busted his own Trust.
