The New York Times: A Chronology: 1851-2010
- September 18, 1851: Henry J. Raymond, Speaker of the New York State Assembly and George Jones, an Albany banker, begin publishing The New-York Daily Times at 113 Nassau Street.
Note: Raymond worked for Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune before teaming with Jones.
- September 11, 1852: Raymond Rotham writes the first theater review for The Times.
- September 14, 1857: The New York Times replaces The New-York Daily Times as the new name of the paper.
- April 21, 1861: The New York Times launches a Sunday edition. The first edition sold for 2 cents.
Note: The Sunday Monitor (Baltimore, MD) published the first Sunday newspaper on December 18, 1796.
- September, 1869: Maria Morgan is the first female reporter to occupy a desk in The Times newsroom, where she's assigned to stock news, horse shows, and racing.
Note: Sara Jane Clark was the first woman reporter on The Times payroll, submitting travel pieces from the West and Europe using the pen name Grace Greenwood
- July 22, 1871: The Times expose the crooked dealings of Tammany Hall's William Marcy Tweed, or "Boss Tweed", who, along with others, had been stealing millions from the New York City Treasury, according to documents presented to the paper by his enemies. The story displayed figures from the Controller's books showing large chunks of money were being diverted to the Tammany Ring. George Miller, a carpenter, according to the ledger, was to have received $360,747 for repairing a courthouse, which was never completed. Miller never received a dime. The checks were actually endorsed by firms in partnership with Tweed.
The deception evident in these revelations marked the beginning of the end for Tweed and his underhanded operation. He was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to prison.
This page one story ran under a three-column headline and is believed to have been the paper's first display heading. The first Times article to report Tweed's malfeasance appeared July 8th.
Note: Tweed's associates offered The Times $5 million if they would kill the story. The Times refused.
- 1872: The New York Times promotes itself as "the only Republican paper in New York."
- March 25, 1878: In a short lived experiment, The Times begin publishing the first of three supplements written in Spanish.
- April 13, 1893: The Times is sold to The New York Times Publishing Company. Charles R. Miller, the editor of the paper, was named president. Managing editor George F. Spinney became the publisher and business manager. In announcing the new management team on April 14th, the paper reports "The Times will be a Democratic newspaper."
- August 19, 1896: Adolph S. Och's name first appears on The Times editorial page listing him as publisher after becoming principal owner the previous day.
- September 6, 1896: The first photographs appeared in the Illustrated Sunday Magazine, the paper's first regular supplement. The magazine was discontinued after the September 3rd, 1899 edition.
Note: The first half tone illustration was published in The New York Daily Graphic on March 4, 1880.
- October 8, 1896: The Times begin publishing summaries of major news stories on page one under the logo: "The News Condensed."
- October 10, 1896: The Times begins a book review section, The Saturday Review of Books and Art, based on the assumption books can and should be treated as news.
- October 25, 1896: The Times slogan: "All the News That's Fit to Print" makes its first appearance on the editorial page.
Note: A portion of the slogan: "All The News" was actually taken from The Philadelphia Times; Ochs and The Times' editors merely added "Fit To Print".
- December 1, 1896: The hyphen from The New York Times is dropped once a style change is universally accepted.
Note: The New-York Historical Society is the only institution to keep the hyphen in its name.
- February 10, 1897: The Times motto: "All The News That's Fit To Print", is moved from the editorial page to page one.
- July 4, 1897: The Times spends $5,000 on a finer quality print in order to publish photographs of Queen Victoria's procession during her Jubilee celebration in June.
- August 14, 1900: Adolph Ochs officially takes control of The Times when the Equitable Life Insurance Society votes to give him the controlling stock in the company after showing a profit for three consecutive years.
- September 25, 1901: The Times publishes its Jubilee Issue, which includes a 40-page supplement on the history of the paper.
- May 31, 1903: In celebration of New York's City's 250th anniversary, historian Thomas A. Javier writes for The Times 7 condensed chapters on its founding: I. "The Planting of the City", II. `The Dutch West India Company", III. "The Dutch Rule of New Netherland", IV. "How New Netherland Became New York", V. Our First Reform Governor" VI. "New York Under English Rule" and chapter VII. "The Lessons of Three Hundred Years".
- January 18, 1904: New York City boasts 13 dailies, including The Times. By March of 1964, ten of those 13 either folded or merged. Of those that survived, The New York Post (1801) beginning April 6, 1942, under Dorothy Schiff, changed from being a broadsheet into a 6-day a week tabloid. The Morning Telegraph (1897) segued into a horse racing paper and reporting news from Broadway before folding on April 10, 1972. The Times (1851) was the only paper to keep its format unaltered since its inception.
The New York Daily News began publishing on June 26, 1919, as the Illustrated Daily News, the first tabloid in America. New York Newsday launched on September 11, 1983, and closed after the July 16, 1995 issue. Its parent newspaper, Newsday, founded by Alicia Patterson in Hempstead, Long Island, was first published on September 3, 1940.
- April 8, 1904: "Long Acre Square" is re-named "Times Square" after the New York City Board of Alderman passes an ordinance.
Note: On May 1, 1894, The Times report the triangle bordering 32nd and 34th Streets and Broadway and Sixth Avenue was named "Greeley Square", home to Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. Less than a year later, on February 5, 1895, the New York City Board of Alderman passed a similar ordinance naming the area around Broadway and 35th and 36th Street "Herald Square" in honor of James Gordon Bennett Jr. and his New York Herald.
- October 28, 1904: The New York Times writes extensively about the opening of the NYC Subway that extends from City Hall to One Hundred and Forty-Fifth Street and Broadway accompanied by a map on page 2 showing the stations on the route. The paper reported a number of notable firsts, such as: F.B. Shipley, from Philadelphia, was the first man to give up a seat for a woman; the first subway ticket was purchased by Joseph Curran of 310 West Forty-eighth Street; the first theft on the subway was reported by Henry Barrett of 348 West Forty-sixth Street who noticed his diamond horseshoe pin missing 3 minutes after buying his ticket; and the first subway delay took place two hours after the subway opened on the express train at the 14th Street Brooklyn Bridge Station due to a broken brake hose. The most prophetic statement came from an unnamed passenger who reportedly said: "Mark my words; the Subway is going to boom the newspaper business. When you get in there's nothing to look at except the people, and that's a tiresome job."
Note: On April 9, 1890, the first Rapid Transit Commission was created recommending a steam railroad run on a viaduct from the Brooklyn Bridge to Astor Place and from there a subway to 42nd Street.
- January 1, 1905: The final issue of The New York Times is printed at the old Jones Building (41 Park Row) in Lower Manhattan, famed Newspaper Row, where more than a dozen New York City dailies once called home. It includes a 48 page illustrated supplement on their new building, Times Tower, at 42nd and Broadway.
- January 1, 1905: The New York Times begins placing a poem on the editorial page. Fredrick Craig Martiner conceived the idea. The last poem to appear on the editorial page was on June 16, 1973.
Note: Beginning February 17, 2002, The Times started a new feature in the Book Review section, in which they will publish original poetry from accomplished writers as well as unknown poets.
- October 29, 1905: A separate section is created devoted to music drama and society.
- January 7, 1906: Paul Piper introduced a comic strip in the rotogravure section of The Times--the only one in the paper's history--chronicling the travels of two bears: The Roosevelt Bears. The comic strip lasted through July 22nd. Many believe it was modeled after Teddy Roosevelt, an avid bear hunter.
Note: The New York Daily Telegraph was the first newspaper to feature a comic strip beginning September 11, 1875 called "Professor Tigwissel's Burglar Alarm". The New York World was the first to feature Sunday comics in 1893.
Note: The only time the ball didn't drop from Times Square on New Year's Eve (since 1907) were two years during World War II, 1942 and 1943, due to a wartime dim-out.
- June 5, 1910: The New York Times publishes the full-text transcript of former president Theodore Roosevelt's address he delivered at the Guildhall in London, where he roundly criticized British foreign policy in Egypt. This is thought to have been the first time the paper reproduced a speech of any kind word-for-word.
- January 29, 1911: The Book Review moves from Saturday to Sunday.
- October 9, 1912: The Times report on the mass gathering surrounding the paper's new electric scoreboard at Times Square to watch the New York Giants play the Boston Red Sox during game one of the 1912 World Series. The scoreboard allowed fans outside of the Polo Grounds-- for the first time-- to watch every play of a baseball game. At the time of publication, this was the largest crowd ever to assemble at Times Square.
- December 15, 1912: The Times launch "Hundred Neediest Cases", a public donation appeal for the less fortunate during the holiday season.
- February 2, 1913: The Times Annex at 229 West 43rd Street is opened.
- April 23, 1913: The Times writes on the unveiling of The New York Times Index, a quarterly publication that will provide readers for the first time with citations (date, page, column, along with a brief summary) to articles previously published. Items are to be indexed by name and subject and will include cross-references, making it an indispensable news source for tracking current events.
- March 29, 1914: The Times along with 6 other newspapers introduce rotogravure sections showing pictures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The other papers were: The Boston Sun Herald, The Philadelphia Public Ledger, the Chicago Tribune, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Kansas City Star.
Note: The last issue of The Times picture rotogravure section was published on February 8, 1942, when it merged with The Sunday Magazine.
- August 23, 1914: The Times publish the British White Paper in its entirety, the document outlining Britain's decision to enter the war.
- November 10, 1918: A cartoon by Hy Mayer was published alongside a news story on the eve of the armistice of World War I depicting the abdication of the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm. This is thought to be the first cartoon to accompany a news story in a daily newspaper.
- September 18, 1921: The Times publishes its 70th Anniversary issue, coinciding with the publication of a new book by Times staff writer Elmer Davis: "History of The New York Times."
- 1927: To entice libraries into archiving their paper, The Times calls itself "The Paper of Record".
- November 6, 1928: The Times begins to display election results for pedestrians on the exterior of The Times Tower at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street.
- March 7, 1930: The New York Times is the first major newspaper to begin using the word Negro in the upper case. An editorial stated future references to the race would be treated as equitably as other races and nationalities.
Note: Negro is the Spanish and Portuguese word for black. The English borrowed it during the 16th Century.
- June 7, 1931: Waldemar Kaempffert, an engineer, who had been writing on Science topics for The Times beginning in 1927, introduces a regular Science column in the Sunday edition.
- April 23, 1933: Magazine advertisements begin using color ads.
Note: The New York Recorder published the first color ad on April 2, 1893.
- April 26, 1933: Arthur Krock, The Times Washington bureau chief, begins attaching his name to a column on the editorial page, representing the first signed column to appear on the editorial page.
Note: The first initials attached to an editorial were on March 2, 1871, when C.R.M. appeared at the bottom of an editorial written by Charles R. Miller
- February 13, 1935: When the Navy's dirigible Macon exploded off the California coast, The New York Times experimenting with fax technology for the first time, published photos of the disaster the following day thanks to a portable facsimile transmitter sending the photos over a phone line from San Francisco to New York.
- August 4, 1934: The first weather map in the paper's history is published extending three-columns and accompanies a news story.
- January 25, 1935: The Times ushers in a new Sunday section: The "News of the Week in Review" under the direction of Lester Markel.
Note: The New York Sun is believed to have been the first major newspaper to offer a summary of the week's news events when introduced "It Happened This Week" on December 26, 1931. The feature lasted until 1946.
- April 8, 1935: Adolph Ochs dies
Note: As a tribute, teletypes at the Associated Press fell silent for two minutes when news of his death is learned.
- May 7, 1935: Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Adolph Ochs son-in-law, is elected president and publisher of The New York Times Company by the board of directors. In conjunction with that announcement, a new position -general manager- was created and filled by Ochs nephew, Julius Ochs Adler.
- November, 1935: Back issues of The New York Times from 1914-1927 become available on microfilm.
Note: The New York Herald Tribune was the first newspaper to make microfilm available of its current issues beginning with the January 1, 1936 edition.
- February 1, 1937: The first woman in Times history to sit on the editorial board is Anne O'Hare McCormick. She begins a column: "Affairs in Europe", later re-named "Abroad."
Note: McCormick was also the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1937.
- February 6, 1937: The Times begins the first of 50 editorials ("Remaking The Judiciary") attacking President Franklin Roosevelt on his court-packing scheme.
- June 15, 1938: The New York Times predicts war is at hand in Europe and encourages the United States to free itself from the Neutrality Act and play an active role in the approaching conflict when it writes: "The U.S. would and should be prepared to defend a way of life which is our way of life and the only way of life worth living."
Note: This marks the beginning of a new activism in Times news coverage and it has been observed this was an editorial that Adolph Ochs would never have allowed.
- October 9, 1939: Times writer Meyer Berger introduces a new column: "About New York".
- June 7, 1940: With European countries falling like dominoes at the hands of Nazi Germany, New York Times editorial calls for compulsory military training as a first step to protecting the country's national security.
- April 21, 1941: The Times reach a settlement on a Guild contract covering all commercial departments--business, circulation, promotion, and advertising. The contract, however, does not extend to news and editorial employees.
- February 15, 1942: The crossword puzzle makes its first appearance in the Sunday Magazine.
Note: The first crossword puzzle to appear in a daily newspaper was in The World on December 21, 1913, at the suggestion of Arthur Wynne.
- May 1, 1942: The Times agrees to a Guild contract covering the news and editorial departments.
- August 9, 1942: The Book Review section introduces a "Best Seller's List."
- March 22, 1943: Maintenance workers are brought under the Guild's jurisdiction.
- December 7, 1943: Abraham Michael ("Abe") Rosenthal submits his first story for The Times ("Spirit of C.C.N.Y. A Sad, Sad Story") as a 12 dollar a week college stringer. He became a full-time employee in 1944, and on October 20, 1945, his official byline: A.M Rosenthal appears for the first time.
- July 18, 1944: The Federal Communications Commission approves The Times purchase of radio station WQXR, which will be used for hourly newscasts as well as facsimile short-wave experiments.
- 1945: George Streator was the first African-American reporter to be hired at The New York Times.
- April 26, 1945: The Times report on a four-page wire edition that was sent by facsimile and delivered to members of a United Nations conference in San Francisco just after midnight (West Coast time) of the paper's next morning edition. The facsimile transmission consisting of conference and international news marked a journalism milestone.
Note: The Associated Press and the Richmond (Calif.) Independent assisted The Times with the transmission of the special wire edition.
- August 11, 1946: The Times introduce an editorial change announcing they will no longer refer to the race of persons suspected of a crime unless race is relevant to the story.
- November 3, 1946: The Times unveil a fashion section: "Fashion of the Times"‘, which began with a spring preview of 1947.
- June 20, 1949: The Times begin printing an International Edition in Paris, making it available in Europe 24 hours after publication. Prior to that, on December 11, 1948, the paper started an International Air Edition. It was produced in New York and flown to Paris daily.
Note: On May 17, 1967, The Times report on the closing of their offices in Paris after agreeing to merge the International Edition with their Paris competitor: The New York Herald Tribune-The Washington Post International. The new publication was named the International Herald Tribune beginning May 22, 1967.
- September 11, 1950: The daily publication of The Times now includes a crossword puzzle.
- September 17, 1951: The Times publishes its One Hundredth Anniversary issue, carrying the headline: "A Century of the Times." In celebration of hitting the century mark, The Times previously assigned staff writer Meyer Berger to write a book on the history of the paper, entitled: "The Story Of The New York Times 1851-1951."
- November 16, 1952: Clellon Holmes, in a Sunday Magazine article, introduces readers to the "Beats", the post World War II generation disconnected from American mores, who rebel against its moral and political conformities through drug use, hanging around jazz clubs, and putting thoughts to words in poetry, essays, and other literary contributions.
Holmes observed: "There are those who believe that in generations such as this there is always the constant possibility of a great new moral idea, conceived in desperation, coming to life. Others note the self-indulgence, the waste, the apparent social irresponsibility, and disgrace."
Note: The term Beats was coined by John Kerouac in his novel "The Town and the City": "It was several years ago, when the face was harder to recognize, but he has a sharp, sympathetic eye, and one day he said, "You know, this is really a beat generation."
- September, 1954: The first black woman appears on The Times Society page.
- October 27, 1954: Cy Sulzberger begins writing his "Foreign Affairs" column.
- January 5, 1956: A New York Times editorial ("Voice Of A Free Press") responds to the menace of McCarthyism and in particular to Senator James Eastland's subcommittee investigating suspected Communists infiltrating media organizations. According to the editorial, the subcommittee appeared to be targeting Times staff members in their witch-hunts, due to the paper's criticism of Senator Joseph McCarthy, including its reporting on the "abusive methods" used while questioning witnesses.
The editorial concludes: "Long after Senator Eastland and his present subcommittee are forgotten, long after segregation has lost its final battle in the South, long after all that was known as McCarthyism is a dim unwelcome memory, long after the last Congressional committee has learned that it cannot tamper successfully with a free press, The New York Times will still be speaking for the men who make it, and only for the men who make it and speaking without fear or favor, the truth as it sees it."
Note: Charles Merz wrote the editorial and many considered it representative of The New York Times principles. Until the newsroom was remodeled, the manifesto hung on the wall of the editorial department's 10th Floor reception area. McCarthyism, a political term for witch-hunting, was coined by Max Lerner in an April 5th, 1950 New York Post article, which carried the headline: "McCarthyism: The smell of Decay".
- March 13, 1956: The Times publishes an in depth study of the American South chronicling how selected states in the region are adapting to the May 17, 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision abolishing segregation in public schools. The lead paragraph of the study warned there was a social revolution facing the country with "profound implications."
Note: Another pioneering survey of the Deep South was published by U.S. News & World Report on March 23, 1956, when reporting on blacks putting economic pressure on white owned businesses through a series of well orchestrated boycotts. The businesses boycotted were supporting groups promoting racial superiority. Another group of white owned business owners were similarly being boycotted from members of their own race who were upset with them for giving financial support to civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, compounding the region's racial strife.
- August 20-23, 1956: The Times experiment again with fax technology--this time during the Republican Convention--where news pages produced in New York were transmitted over phone lines to San Francisco and then distributed to delegates at the convention hall.
Note: On February 28th, 1959, The Times report the selling of The Times Facsimile Company to Litton Industries for $1,250,000.
- March 19, 1959: The New York Times was the first publication to reveal details of a secret government project code-named Project Argus, in which 3 atomic bombs were launched in the South Atlantic and detonated in space. The tests were significant from a military standpoint in that the government learned a great deal about nuclear emissions in space, which would help them with the development of an anti-ballistic missile system. The story described the atom blasts as "the greatest scientific experiment of all time." The first firing was conducted on July 31, 1958.
Note: The Times had knowledge of the tests even before they took place but withheld reporting on it after leading scientists cautioned them that if word of this experiment were made public--protests in all likelihood would follow--which would have forced them to scrap the project.
- July 6, 1959: A bridge column is added as a regular feature to The Times daily edition by Albert H. Morehead.
Note: There was a bridge column in the drama section of The Times beginning in 1935.
- January 10, 1961: The Times give readers a preview of the Bay of Pigs operation in the making when they report on U.S. military forces operating in Retalhuleu, Guatemala training anti-Castro forces for what is believed to be a planned offensive against Cuba.
- April 25, 1961: Orvil E. Dryfoos is named The Times new publisher by the board of directors after Arthur Ochs Sulzberger steps down, assuming the title of chairman.
- August 14, 1961: With Babe Ruth's 60 home run record in danger of being broken by Mickey Mantle who just hit his 45th home run followed by Roger Maris's 44, fans question whether the ball has been altered or "juiced", which may account for the recent home run surge. Accordingly, The Times commission a scientific analysis conducted by Foster D. Snell Inc. Consulting Chemists and Engineers that compares baseballs from 1961 against those from 1927, the year Ruth set his record. Their conclusions? The analysis proved inconclusive, though, it did find baseballs from 1961 were livelier and lighter in weight distribution than the ones from 1927, taking into consideration that it could be due to "age deterioration."
- April 16, 1962: Al Horowitz introduces a chess column for the Sunday edition of The Times. Robert Byrne succeeded Horowitz in the 1970's.
- June 1, 1962: The Times writes an editorial in Latin ("Quatenus Mortua Lingua Latina?") in response to the language's removal from the public school curriculum.
- September 23, 1962: Fred J. Cook, in a Sunday Magazine article for The Times, previews a new nationwide telephone system soon to take effect: All Number Calling (ANC) in which a simple seven digit extension will replace the present cumbersome system of dialing the area code, followed by the first two letters of a persons name along with an identifying numeral (exchange designation) and finally the four numbers of a customer's exchange before a long distance call can be made. Cook notes: "Somewhere around the corner looms a new phenomenon, global dialing, where, by the use of area codes, you can call London or Afghanistan (assuming you know anyone in Afghanistan)". Other traces of the future reported by Cook include: A system for redirecting telephone calls to another location by punching a two-number code; touch-tone dialing replacing rotary dialing was yet another new feature that was being tested in Findlay, Ohio and Greensburg, Pa. The story also mentions "pushbuttons" (known today as speed dialing) as the wave of the future, making connections possible by a mere press of a button.
- October 12, 1963: The obituary of playwright and poet, Jean Cocteau, represents the first obit that began The Times tradition of writing detailed biographical sketches of prominent figures at the urging of the metropolitan editor at the time, A.M. Rosenthal.
- December 17, 1963: The Times breaks new ground reporting on social issues with their page one story centering on the homosexual community ("Growth of Overt Homosexuality In City Provokes Wide Concern") around Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The story explores whether homosexuals are growing to alarming proportions as the headline suggests, or rather, if a more liberated public tolerates freer sexual expression. Attempts to understand homosexuality from a medical and sociological perspective through the gathering of opinions from specialists is examined. The story also reports on a piece of street lingo gaining currency: "There is a homosexual jargon once intelligible only to the initiate, but now part of New York slang. The word gay has been appropriated as the adjective for homosexual."
Note: Not until 1987 does The New York Times begin using the word gay as a synonym for homosexual.
- March 9, 1964: The U.S. Supreme Court in Times v. Sullivan overturns a previous $500,000 libel award and rules that a public official cannot sue a newspaper for compensatory damages merely for negative reporting unless deliberate malice can be proved. In the case, Montgomery Ala. Commissioner L.B. Sullivan sued The Times along with four Alabama ministers: Ralph D. Abernathy, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, S.S. Seay Sr. and J.E. Lowery over a full-page advertisement that ran in The Times on March 29, 1960, entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices". The ad was soliciting funds for Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in the South, which attacked the criminal treatment of blacks, including the bombing of Dr. King's home by "Southern violators." Despite no public official being named, Sullivan nonetheless argued the illegal activity described in the ad unjustly implicated him, resulting in defamation of character. The Times maintained the suit was brought against them for no other reason than to intimidate news organizations from reporting on public official's unlawful actions in the South.
- May 29, 1964: The New York Times published a page one story about the Blood Brothers, a black youth gang operating in Harlem who were reportedly recruiting and training forces planning to kill whites.
The Times met with an outpouring of criticism once the story rolled off the presses. Questions were raised, for instance, whether there ever was such a gang by that name. Even if they existed, a Times' editor acknowledged, they carelessly relied too much on police accounts of the gang and the danger they posed to the community, which later were to be found exaggerated. The reporter who wrote the story eventually resigned. Other papers picked up on it reshaping it with sensational headlines, such as "HARLEM MAU MAU"--creating a sense of hysteria in the community and may have contributed to the riot that inflamed Harlem on July 18th (lasting through the 23rd) after a black youth was shot by an off-duty white police lieutenant, leading to scores of arrests, injuries, and causing $50,000 in property damage.
Note: Two other major riots that engulfed Harlem occurred on March 19, 1935, when a group of Harlem residents went on a rampage after erroneously learning a black youth, caught stealing in a store, was beaten to death by police; and on August 1, 1943, a black military policeman was shot by a white police officer after the soldier reportedly tried to steal the officer's night stick while arresting a woman for disorderly conduct. A riot ensued when Harlem residents heard the black military officer was killed. In fact, the soldier was merely treated for a minor arm injury at Sydenham Hospital.
- February 9, 1965: The first Times editorial to question President Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam is published. It corresponded with the Vietcong attack on Pleiku and the U.S. decision to assist the South Vietnamese in the bombing of North Vietnam.
- April 25, 1966: The Times publishes their first real analysis of the CIA that examines if the agency is running an "invisible government" operating independently outside the control of the executive branch. Questions were additionally raised why the CIA, unlike other agencies, is protected from outside oversight and review. The story set off sirens within the halls of Congress about the growing influence of the agency and whether it should be subject to greater scrutiny.
- February 21, 1967: The period that followed "The New York Times" masthead on page one is dropped.
- March 6, 1967: The New York Times is the first major newspaper to begin publishing a large type weekly for the visually impaired.
- December 11, 1968: Arthur Hays Sulzberger dies in his sleep at his (1115) Fifth Avenue residence.
Note: Sulzberger's obituary appeared the following day along with an essay by editorial-page editor John Oakes who was the first cousin to Sulzberger's widow, Iphigene Ochs, and son of George Ochs--the younger brother of Adolph Ochs. His family changed their name from Ochs to Oakes during World War I due to their dislike toward Germans.
- April 29, 1968: Assistant managing editor A.M Rosenthal attends the opening of the Broadway play "Hair." After the performance, he learns a group of Columbia University students staged a sit-in at the school and police were planning to make arrests later that evening. Rosenthal witnesses first hand the violence that unfolds when police storm the campus building. He becomes so enraged at the demonstrators, the violence they incited, and the damaged caused to the buildings, that he writes an impassioned account of the night's events, which appeared May 1, 1968, on page one.
Note: According to Harrison E. Salisbury, former editor at The Times and author of "Without Fear or Favor: An Uncompromising Look at The New York Times," Rosenthal paid a price for letting his emotions get the better of him. The Times top executives, for one, were upset with him for pushing his story onto page one; the publisher of the paper, Punch, had to contend with a group of picketers in front of his Fifth Avenue apartment; and Rosenthal himself would be thought of as a "right-winger" -- a label, Salisbury maintains--particularly among the youth--that would remain with him throughout his career.
- January 14, 1969: The New York Times goes public. The issue opens for $42 a share on the American Stock Exchange.
- September 21, 1970: The Op-Ed section makes its debut opposite the editorial page, moving the obituary page to another section of the paper.
- June 13, 1971: The Times published the first in a series of articles by Neal Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, E.W. Kenworthy and Fox Butterfield that disclosed the contents of a government report commissioned by the Defense Department, which was highly critical of the U.S. government's role in the Vietnam War particularly to the extent to which it distorted its role to the American public. The guts of the classified material were passed on to The Times through the photocopying efforts of Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst, who over time grew disillusioned with the war.
Note: Shortly after publishing the Pentagon Papers, the Justice Department blocked further publication through an order from the United States district court. The Supreme Court subsequently overturned that ruling by a 6 to 3 vote and on July 1, 1971, The Times resumed publishing its contents.
- 1972: The Times discontinue using the word Negro when referring to African Americans after managing editor A.M. Rosenthal criticized a copy editor for taking out a reporter's use of black and replacing it with Negro.
Rosenthal wrote: "The decision as to whether to use black or Negro should be made by the reporter writing the story. The reason is that there are many subtleties and the reporter is best qualified to decide which usage is the proper one given the context of the story and people about whom he was writing."
- June 2, 1972: The Times begins publishing a "Correction" box directly under the news summary and index for stories previously reported with factual errors.
- November 14, 1972: The Times report on the first computerized installation of The New York Times Information Bank, which allows researchers, students, and faculty at the University of Pittsburgh to access abstracts and articles previously published by the paper. This experimental hook-up marks the first time New York Times articles became accessible electronically to the outside public.
- January 31, 1973: The Times report on the hiring of President Richard Nixon's speech writer, William Safire, who will begin writing a twice-a-week column on the Op-Ed page from Washington D.C.
- July 29, 1974: The Times along with the New York Daily News embrace the information revolution when settling on a new contract with members of the Typographical Union No 6, which eliminates the union's handcraft as computers and electronic typesetting machines are introduced. In exchange for agreeing to the deal, the union is guaranteed lifetime job security, including a buy-out package if they opt for early retirement. The story ran on page one. An analysis of the agreement on the inside pages carried the headline: "City Papers on Threshold of Future As Result of 11-Year Automation Pact."
Note: Within two months of this landmark contract, The Times London and Washington Bureau's begin filing stories electronically.
- December 22, 1974: Perhaps the most critical assessment of the CIA up to this point, splashed across page one of The Times when it reported how they illegally targeted anti-war demonstrators and other dissident groups (including at least one member of Congress) during the Nixon administration, compiling as many as 10,000 dossiers on persons suspected of being opposed to government policies and placing them under surveillance. The story also uncovered how the agency beginning as early as the 1950's engaged in a number of illegal crusades in order to root out foreign agents suspected of operating within the U.S.--using wiretaps, opening mail without the recipient's knowledge, and randomly breaking into homes--activity clearly outside their jurisdiction and prohibited by law.
Note: As a result of Seymour M. Hersh's exclusive, Congress places the question of CIA acting as a "shadow government" on the top of their agenda including stepped up efforts to impose oversight requirements.
- July 12, 1975: The New York Times publish a feature on a new dance growing in popularity called the "Hustle", the forerunner to disco--the dance craze that would sweep the country off its feet in 1976 and 1977. The story is accompanied with a step-by-step dance illustration. A sentence from the article reads: "Whether it is part of nostalgia craze or a turning point in the history of popular dancing, it seems that the hustle will be around for a while."
Note: The hustle and the early stages of disco were thought to have been taken from similar dances performed at black and Puerto Rican bars in Queens around 1970 and later at underground gay clubs like the Sancutary in New York's Hell's Kitchen, The Tenth Floor on W.33rd St, and Le Jardin's inside the Diplomat Hotel on W. 43rd Street. The opening of Infinity (633 Broadway) in 1975, however, brought disco out from the underground and into the mainstream, attracting a diverse mix of uptown, downtown, gay, and straight dancers.
A couple of related notes: One of the first articles to observe disco as a "spreading social phenomenon" appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine on September 13, 1973, and the 1977 motion picture "Saturday Night Fever", which propelled disco to new heights was loosely based on Nik Cohn's New York Magazine cover story ("Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night") published June 7, 1976.
- August 18, 1975: The New York Times report classified advertisements have been automated replacing the linotype machines and "hot type", allowing ads to be searched faster on a computer and then sorted automatically (alphabetized, arranged by size) using a photocomposition machine.
Note: Linotype machines used in the composition rooms of newspapers produced lines of words on single strips of metal for casting type. Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the machine in 1884. The New York Tribune was the first paper to use the linotype machines for its July 3, 1886 issue.
- February 2, 1976: The Times publishes a book review of their new style manual: "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage," which hadn't been updated since 1962. The book reveals for the first time the paper's policies on datelines and the importance of protecting the anonymity of news sources. Reflecting the rise of feminism, the manual notes changes in how women should be addressed but refuses to accept the words "chairwoman," "chairperson", "spokeswoman" and "Ms." as acceptable usage.
- February 19, 1976: The New York Times report on the paper's alliance with the Harris Corporation of Cleveland to computerize the editorial department in two phases: the first video terminals will replace typewriters by May 1 with the remaining likely to be up and running by the middle of 1977.
Note: The first editorial system computerized was the Today newspaper in Cocoa Fla. in 1970.
- April 6, 1976: The Times announces the Sunday and news departments will be brought under the immediate control of A.M. Rosenthal, the managing editor. The story also announced the appointment of Max Frankel as the new editorial-page editor effective January of the following year replacing John Oakes, who would assume the position of senior editor as an op-ed columnist.
- April 30, 1976: The Times begins publishing a four-section daily newspaper, including the launching of the Friday Weekend section.
- September 12, 1976: The redesigned Arts & Entertainment section debuts.
- October 2, 1976: The Times begin publishing the Weekly News Quiz.
- November 10, 1976: The Living Section is introduced, comprising restaurant reviews, cooking columns, home furnishings, consumer issues, such as personal health and finance, as well as arts and entertainment features.
- March 17, 1977: The Home section debuts.
- December 25, 1977: The Times examines the CIA's relationship with the press chronicling how the CIA shapes public opinion by having agents disguised as accredited journalists within newspapers and major news services (mostly overseas) who, in their reporting, orchestrate propaganda campaigns against foreign countries with the hope these occasional false reports and blatant inaccuracies get disseminated through American news outlets.
Note: In the October 20, 1977 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Carl Bernstein disclosed Times' reporter Cy Sulzberger in his early years as a foreign correspondent, cooperated with the CIA by sharing information on certain sources in order to gain access to classified material. In fact, one memo shows Sulzberger was regarded as an "active asset by the agency"; even The Times itself, according to the magazine article, provided a cover for 10 CIA operatives from 1950 to 1966. The story further claimed the publisher of the paper at the time, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the uncle of Cy Sulzberger, had signed a "nondisclosure" statement with the agency, which was an agreement not to reveal the source of their information. The Times denied the allegations. A libel suit was never brought against Bernstein or the magazine.
- January 1, 1978: Cy Sulzberger retires from The Times. An editorial applauding his career is published under the headline: "Reporter Extraordinary."
- January 9, 1978: Sports Monday is introduced.
Note: Beginning September 14, 1986, the Sunday Sports section was redesigned to accommodate additional stats and features.
- May 17, 1978: Business Day debuts.
- July 1, 1978: The Times converts to cold type, completing the computerization of the newsroom.
- November 14, 1978: Science Times is introduced as a new section.
- July 23, 1979: Walter Mattson assumes the title of chief operating officer--a move intended to bring increased organization to the corporate side of the paper.
- January 20, 1980: In a Sunday Magazine cover story, metropolitan editor Sydney Schanberg writes of his experiences as a foreign correspondent during the Cambodian civil war between 1973 and 1979, describing the friendship formed with his assistant Dith Pran and recounting grim tales of the one to three million people who were either massacred, uprooted from their homeland, or starved to death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge in the so called "Peasant Revolution". Pran, presumed dead since 1975 when he was captured, thrown into a slave labor camp and tortured, eventually escaped and reunited with Schanberg on October 9, 1979 at a Thai refugee camp. The article formed the basis of the 1984 motion picture "The Killing Fields" starring Sam Waterson and Dr. Haing S. Ngor.
Schanberg was awarded a Pulitzer Prize (May 3, 1976) for his dispatch (May 9, 1975) on the inhumanity, bordering on genocide, inflicted upon millions of fleeing Cambodians by Communists who invaded Phnom Penh on April 17th, 1975. He eventually fell out of favor with The Times over his op-ed piece (July 27, 1985) involving a proposed underground highway, known as the Westway Project, in which he attacked "New York newspapers" (meaning, The Times) for failing to adequately report on the billions worth of overruns the project was costing.
The New York State Department of Transportation proposed filling 200 acres of the Hudson River shoreline with a section of the federal interstate highway between W. 34th Street and Battery Park City so that additional luxury high rise apartments could be built. Schanberg considered the project a scandal and a gross "misuse of scarce public funds". The Times didn't share his sentiments. According to Edwin Diamond, author of "Behind the Times", the publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., was a "Westway enthusiast." Schanberg left The Times and joined New York Newsday as a columnist in 1986 when attempts were made to have him re-assigned.
- April 18, 1980: The Times launch a national edition calling for the paper to be printed from other plants throughout the U.S.
- March 13, 1981: One of the first Times articles to notice rap music as an enduring genre that extends beyond predominantly black New York City neighborhoods is published in the review of The Sugar Hill Band who headlined at the Ritz along with a gathering of other rappers, including Grand Master Flash, the Fabulous Five, and the Funky 4 Plus 1.
The reviewer observed: "Rapping is probably familiar to most New Yorkers as an intrusive noise on the subway or in the park--the noise that comes out of blaring cassette players and portable radios. But as the Ritz showed demonstrated, rapping has a much broader appeal than one might have anticipated."
Note: Rap music took root in the South Bronx and Harlem neighborhoods around 1973 when it was first referred to as "break-beat music", in which percussive portions of records were danced at private house parties. By 1976, deejays began scratching records clockwise and then counterclockwise ("back-queuing a record") on live sound systems. This technique soon became a staple of rap recordings, attributing to its growing popularity. A few of the early venues that gave rise to rap were at the Hevalo, the Black Door, the Bronx River Community Center, and the Audubon ballroom. As rap's reputation spread, clubs like the Peppermint Lounge, the Mudd Club, Negril, Danceteria, and the Roxy absorbed the larger crowds. The first two rap recordings were "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" by the Fatback Band and "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Band, both were released in 1979.
- July 3, 1981: The first Times article about the AIDS disease was reported by Lawrence Altman, carrying the headline: "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals." The story ran on page A-20.
Note: Another early article about the disease appeared in The Wall Street Journal on December 10, 1981, by Jerry Bishop, which documented how the Federal Center for Disease Control reported 74 patients, mostly homosexuals and drug users, died from an apparent defect in their immune systems. The findings were largely based on a series of articles from the New England Journal of Medicine (December 10, 1981 Volume 305 Number 24). The first New York Times article to define AIDS was on August 8, 1982, under the headline: "A Disease's Spread Provokes Anxiety."
- September 28, 1981: The Times report on their new online computerized system, which allows for full-text searching of articles dating back to June 1, 1980. Each item will contain a brief description of its contents. Also listed will be the page and column number including whether the article is accompanied with a graph, photo, or map.
As part of the new system, The Times introduces two techniques for finding articles: "free-text" and "controlled" searching. Free text searching involves finding an article using words or phrases contained within the article. Controlled searching is retrieving articles through a subject and geographic directory.
- March 4, 1983: The Times introduces an "Editor's Note" positioned under the "Correction Box" for stories that were factually correct but may have been misleading and unclear requiring clarification.
- February 6, 1983: Lexis Nexis announce they will make full-text articles of New York Times available to subscribers, 24 hours after publication. The full-text archive extends back to June 1, 1980. Articles in abstract form are accessible from January 1, 1969 through June 1, 1980.
Note: Beginning in November of 1979, full-text articles of the Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, the Economist, the Associated Press, and Reuters were made available through Lexis Nexis. In 1978, The Toronto Globe and Mail, was the first newspaper worldwide to offer full-text access to its editorial content through a commercial database: The Globe and Mail.
- December 10, 1983: The Times for the first time names a same-sex partner in the obituary of actor David Rounds.
- June 20, 1986: In an Editor's Note, The Times acknowledge the term "Ms." had become common usage and accordingly will be adopted as an honorific in news columns and when an identity of a woman is unknown. Executive editor A.M. Rosenthal ordered the change.
Note: Joseph C. Goulden, in his book "Fit To Print: A.M. Rosenthal And His Times" wrote that when Gloria Steinem was alerted to The Times policy change, she immediately sent Rosenthal flowers along with a thank-you note compliments of the Ms Magazine staff.
- October 12, 1986: The Times report executive editor A.M. Rosenthal was stepping down from the post. Editorial page editor Max Frankel was named his successor beginning November 1. The story also announced Arthur Gelb was appointed managing editor and Jack Rosenthal would assume Frankel's position as editor of the editorial page.
Note: A.M. Rosenthal became a full-time Op-Ed columnist on January 6, 1987.
- October 30, 1990: In celebration of the Op-Ed page's 20th anniversary, a collage of memorable essays and illustrations are reproduced in a special section.
- April 17, 1991: The Times reveals the identity of the alleged rape victim in a cause célèbre, when Sen. Ted Kennedy's nephew, William Kennedy Smith, is accused of raping Patricia Bowman in Palm Beach Fla.
- April 21, 1991: Anna Quindlen, an op-ed columnist, put her job on the line when she criticized The Times for their coverage of Patricia Bowman, the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of rape. The paper's profile on Bowman suggested her poor driving record and sexual history, which was described as a "wild streak," cast a shadow over the validity of her charge. Quindlen accused her own papers' editors of sexism and of falling below their normal high standards when they identified her simply because of the prestige attached to the Kennedy name and because another media competitor, NBC, already revealed her identity. Quindlen never mentions Bowman's name.
Note: Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones in "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times" wrote that when Quindlen passed Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in the hallway after her column appeared, he put his arm around her and said "That was a good column yesterday."
The Times, in fact, revealed the identity of an alleged rape victim on another occasion, when on December 23, 1959, they report Laura Haines, the daughter of playwright and novelist William Wister Haines, was beaten by a cab driver who tried to rape her near La Guardia Airport.
- April 26, 1991: The Times under an Editors Note, offer a clarification concerning their April 17th biographical sketch of Patricia Bowman, stating they didn't mean to imply they were questioning her character or the legitimacy of the rape charges.
Note: The Editor's Note referred readers to a page A14 article, which chronicles challenges news organizations face when reporting on rape victims.
- January 16, 1992: Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is named the new publisher of The Times.
- April 28, 1992: The New York Times report on the launching of a Russian language edition of the paper (the first foreign-language edition in the paper's history) in a joint venture with The Moscow News beginning in early 1993. It's slated to be a bi-weekly publication called "News in Review", consisting of 16 to 24 pages of articles and editorials previously published from The Times.
Note: "News in Review" was discontinued in February of 1994.
- May 3, 1992: "Styles of The Times" debuts.
Note: On June 26, 1994, "Style of The Times" reduced its space and moved to the back of the Metro Section. On October 12, 1997, it re-emerged as a separate color section renamed "Sunday Styles," although it was available only to subscribers in the northeast. On September 30, 2001, it was incorporated into the national edition as a freestanding section.
- June 21, 1992: Robert Coover, a novelist, in an article for The Times Book Review entitled: "The End of Books" wrote that books were in danger of being replaced by a new technology--hypertext--where all print publications eventually will be converted into this digitized language and be read on a computer screen.
- June 28, 1992: Forecasting the end of print newspapers as we know them, The Times profile Roger Fidler, director of new media technology at Knight- Ridder, who envisions the coming (in about 5 years) of an electronic newspaper, which will give readers access to selected stories using a "lightweight pen" from a computer screen at a nominal cost.
Note: Senator Al Gore, while chairing the Senate subcommittee on science technology and space, advocated building a new nationwide network for storing computer information in a July 15, 1990 Washington Post article. Gore wrote that the network had the potential of reaching into homes and "providing anyone with a personal computer access to a whole universe of electronic information."
- September 11, 1992: Washington editor Howell Raines was named Jack Rosenthal's successor as editorial-page director. Rosenthal would assume the role of assistant managing editor and editor of The Sunday Magazine effective January 1, 1993.
- September 17, 1992: Lance Primis was appointed president of The New York Times, replacing Walter Mattson.
- June 10, 1993: The Times acquires The Boston Globe for 1.1 billion. The deal became official on the 13th.
- September 6, 1993: Gerald Boyd, former metropolitan editor, assumes the title of assistant managing editor, making him the first African America to have his name appear on The Times masthead.
Note: In the same year, Bob Herbert was named The Times first African America Op-Ed columnist and Margo Jefferson became the paper's first black arts critic.
- November 19, 1993: The New York Times report they will deliver published articles to customers using a facsimile service called TimesFax on a trial basis beginning in the spring.
Note: TimesFax was created by The New York Times Company in January of 1990 for distribution of Times articles in the Far East. On September 10, 1990, it began producing a special military edition consisting of news and sport summaries, which were transmitted daily by fax to U.S. armed forces stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. TimesFax was re-named Times Digest in 2001.
- December 6, 1993: The New York Times Company and Dow Jones & Company agree to a deal that makes The Times news stories available on Dow Jones computer service, marking the first time the daily content of The Times becomes accessible to subscribers of an electronic news service on the same day of publication.
- April 8, 1994: The New York Times report Joe Lelyveld, current managing editor will succeed Max Frankel as executive editor on July 1. Eugene L. Roberts Jr., former Times national news editor, long time executive editor of The Philadelphia News, and current professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, was named Lelyveld's successor as new managing editor, making him the first top editor chosen outside the paper's ranks since 1904 when Carr V. Van Anda was hired as managing editor from the New York Sun.
Note: On October 2, 1994, Frankel began writing a new column for The Sunday Magazine focusing on communication called "Word & Image".
- June 9, 1994: In a joint agreement, The New York Times and America Online begin offering AOL subscribers access to the paper's electronic database, with a main emphasis on arts and entertainment features.
- Note: In the spring of 1992, selected articles from The Chicago Tribune became accessible through AOL including an assortment of classified advertisements. The full-text of the Tribune, called Chicago Tribune Online, became available on AOL in early 1993.
- January 19, 1996: The New York Times Internet edition goes online, offering free access to current news stories.
NOTE: The first news organizations to offer Internet editions were USA Today, which launched on April 17, 1995, followed by CNN on August 30, 1995.
- August 18, 1996: W. 43rd Street is re-named Adolph S. Ochs Street.
- September 21, 1996: The New York Times give readers a sense of the power struggles taking place within upper management when reporting on the resignation of Lance Primus as president and chief operating officer of the paper because he wasn't given assurances he would one day assume the duties of chief executive, a position that was currently held by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger. The story cited sources who speculate Sulzberger's refusal to give Primus any hope of succeeding him meant that title would eventually be filled by his son, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of the paper. Russell T. Lewis, who had been president and general manager, replaced Primus. Janet L. Robinson, senior vice president for advertising, assumed the title of president and general manager.
- September 22, 1996: Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is named chairman of The Times.
- October 16, 1997: The first page one color photo appears in The Times.
Note: The first color photo believed to have appeared on page one of a major newspaper was on October 21, 1959, when the Minneapolis Star ran an Associated Press color photo of the funeral of General C. Marshall. On June 8, 1939, AP transmitted a half-tone color picture of President Roosevelt and King George VI from the nation's capital.
- February 26, 1998: The New York Times introduces "Circuits", a new weekly section focusing on digital technology and how it affects every day users.
- November 4, 1999: A.M. Rosenthal, Op-Ed columnist for The Times since 1987, retires--completing a 55-year career as reporter, foreign correspondent, metropolitan editor, assistant managing editor, associated managing editor, managing editor, executive editor, and finally columnist. His final column appears the following day along with a biographical sketch by Clyde Haberman.
- May 21, 2001: The New York Times announce the naming of editorial page editor Howell Raines as the paper's new executive editor replacing Joseph Lelyveld who announced his retirement. The change takes effect in September.
- June 22, 2001: The Times publish the naming of Gail Collins as the new editorial page editor, making her the first woman in the paper's history to occupy such a position.
- June 25, 2001: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a group of magazine and newspaper publishers were guilty of copyright infringement when individual articles written by freelancer writers became accessible through electronic databases without their consent. Jonathan Tasini, president of National Writers Union, filed the lawsuit.
As a result of the ruling, The New York Times begins removing freelance articles from their electronic databases unless given permission to continue archiving them.
Note: Newspaper publishers expressed disappointed with the decision, labeling it a "blow to the public interest in easy access to information" while representatives from an assortment of library groups praised the historic ruling, reminding everyone that unlike Lexis-Nexis, historical records of newspapers and magazines are still available in public libraries at no cost.
- July 26, 2001: The Times announce Gerald Boyd, assistant managing editor, will assume the title of managing editor beginning in September, succeeding Bill Keller who will become an op-ed columnist and senior writer for The Sunday Magazine.
- September 18, 2001: The Times is 150 years old.
Their special anniversary edition originally scheduled for publication on September 20th, is put on hold due to the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, where a group of terrorists linked to the Al Qaeda network headed by Osama bin Laden destroyed the Twin Towers on a suicide mission using commuter jets. Over 3000 people were killed not including the 184 lives lost at the Pentagon building in a similar airplane collision and another 40 victims on a hijacked plane that crashed in western Pennsylvania.
Despite the attacks stunning the world, paralyzing New York City for days, including concerns of another attack just around the corner, Americans remained defiant--coming together in a show of patriotism not seen since World War II.
A new section is launched on this day: "A Nation Challenged" devoted exclusively to terrorism in the U.S. and the anticipated war in Afghanistan. It's especially noted for presenting short tender biographical sketches of the victims lost at the World Trade Center.
Note: The Times discontinued publishing "A Nation Challenged" as a separate section after the December 31, 2001 issue.
- October 23, 2001: The Times introduce an electronic (fee-based) version of their print edition at Newstand.com, where an exact replica of their metropolitan edition, including ads and photos can be downloaded and read on a desktop for seven days. The service is only accessible through broadband. A dial-up modem service was still being planned.
- November 14, 2001: The Times publish their 150th commemorative issue, nearly 2 months after its official anniversary (September 18). The 56-page supplement featured a timeline, an assortment of photographs from its archives, along with featured articles on the paper's history from staff writers, as well as past Times' writers, including Anna Quindlen, David Halberstam, and former executive editor Max Frankel.
- April 8, 2002: The New York Times wins a record seven Pulitzer Prizes, six for their coverage of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which included "A Nation Challenged", a daily special section that chronicled the consequences of September 11, and the perilous political and international landscape facing the United States in the new age of terrorism.
- February 21, 2002: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times from 1963 to 1992, retires from the board of the New York Times, a position he held since his election in 1959. The Times report that Sulzberger's daughter, Cathy J. Sulzberger, partner in the LHIW Real Estate Development Partnership, had been nominated to the 13-member board.
- April 5, 2002: The New York Times introduce Escapes, a new weekly section that will be devoted to weekend pleasure trips, accompanied with maps and other travel columns.
- April 22, 2002: The New York Times and Discovery Channel agree to collaborate on a series of documentaries, to be hosted by Pulitzer winning columnist Thomas L. Friedman, beginning in 2003, focusing on world events, which will include interviews with political and social policy experts.
- August 17, 2002: Howell Raines, executive editor of The New York Times, recognizing a growing trend toward formal commitment ceremonies, announces that beginning next month, they will publish same sex "commitment ceremonies" and formal registration of gay and lesbian partnerships in the Sunday Styles section.
- August 27, 2002: John Steuart Wilson, the first popular music critic at the New York Times beginning in 1952, who wrote on the first rumblings of Rock n' Roll, as well as Latin and folk music; but was best remembered for capturing the echo of jazz that stirred the air at popular clubs like the Basin Street East and Cafe Society, died at a Princeton N.J. nursing home at age 89.
- October 22, 2002: The New York Times' announce they have bought the Washington Post's share of the International Herald Tribune for less than $75 million, a newspaper that was founded as The Paris Herald in 1887 by James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, ending the two companies split ownership of the Tribune that dated from 1991.
- Beginning on January 2, 2003, the Herald Tribune appears for the first time under the sole ownership of the New York Times.
Note: In 1934, Bennett's Herald acquired the Paris edition of The Chicago Tribune; the following year, "Tribune" was added to its name. After the Herald Tribune folded in 1966, the Washington Post and New York Times each acquired one-third of the newspaper from Whitney Communications; and in 1991, they became co-owners when they bought out the Whitney shares.
- February 25, 2003: The New York Times reports that a DNA story originally published on May 16, 1953, about encoding and transmission of genes ("Form of 'Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned."), a pioneering breakthrough at the time, based on findings first reported in the journal Nature by Francis Crick and Dr. James D. Watson, could not be found in the Times' database, the only logical explanation for its omission was that more than likely it ran its early edition only, and was pulled in later editions in favor of more pressing news.
- March 3, 2003: Associate managing editor, Nicholas D. Kristof, 43, who first joined the New York Times in 1984, holding a number of positions, among them, bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo, is appointed op-ed columnist by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the Times, and Gail Collins, editorial page editor.
- March 19, 2003: The Times' report with the war in Iraq looming, many news organizations, including the Times, are instructing employees to leave Baghdad, and would rely on wire services for their coverage, according to Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the newspaper.
- May 1, 2003: Executive editor of the Times', Howell Raines, announces that Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned from the company after allegations surfaced over whether he lifted passages from a story originally published by the San Antonio Express-News.
In an Editor's Note, the paper wrote: "The Times regrets this breach of journalistic standards."
- On May 11th, the Times publishes a 7102 word article ("Correcting the Record"), chronicling the journalistic crimes committed by Blair, which included false datelines, fabricated quotes, and outright plagiarism in at least 36 stories, spanning a six-month period.
- May 14, 2003: The New York Times senior management team holds a town meeting to answer questions from staff members about the journalistic fraud committed by Blair, how it could have happened in the first place, what steps were being taken to restore the sunken morale of the newsroom, and how it planned to repair the damage the scandal had inflicted on the Times as an institution.
Raines, the executive editor, fielded a battery of tough questioning, the most bruising coming from business reporter Alex Berenson, who wondered whether he would resign. The publisher of the Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., was quick to defend his executive editor, saying "he would not accept Mr. Raines's resignation even if offered."
- May 28, 2003: Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist based in the South, turns in his resignation, five days after the paper published an "editors note" explaining he had relied heavily on the work from free lance writer, J. Wes Yoder, in his report about oystermen of the Florida Gulf Coast (June 15, 2002) without properly attributing the free lancer, delivering yet another ethical blow to the Times still reeling from the Jayson Blair scandal.
- June 5, 2003: Executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald M. Boyd stand in the middle of the 3rd floor newsroom to announce their resignation, a move that despite the cordial facade, was in reality a firing of the newsrooms two senior managers as pressure mounted on the publisher of the paper, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., to restore the morale of the newsroom badly shaken by the ethical breaches committed first by Jayson Blair and then Rick Bragg.
While the paper planned to accelerate their search for a replacement, Joseph Lelyveld, the former executive editor, agreed to come out retirement and take control of the newsroom.
- July 14, 2003: Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., announces that Bill Keller, the senior magazine writer, a former managing editor, and a Pulitzer Prize recipient for international reporting in 1989, had been appointed executive editor of the Times', effective July 30th.
- July 24, 2003: David Brooks, former editor of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly, was named the newest addition to the Times' op-ed page.
His first column was scheduled to appear in September.
- July 26, 2003: Harold C. Schonberg, chief music critic for the Times from 1960 to 1980, who rose to prominence when he became the first music writer to claim a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for his critical reviews on classical music and opera, died at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan at age 87.
Schonberg first landed at the doorstep at the Times in 1950, becoming record editor in 1955, before replacing Howard Taubman as chief music critic in 1960.
- July 31, 2003: Bill Keller, fresh from assuming the executive editor duties, announces for the first time in the paper's history, it will have two senior managing editors, with the appointment of Jill Abramson, the Washington bureau chief, as the new managing editor of news gathering, and John M. Geddes, the Times' deputy managing editor, becoming managing editor for news operations, with an emphasis on production, budgeting, and staffing.
In an effort to rebuild the public trust in the aftermath of the Jayson Blair scandal, Keller also announces he will appoint a public editor, another first for the Times, in the coming weeks.
- October 21, 2003: The Times introduces a new typeface to its page one, when it begins using Times Cheltenham, adding thickness to the headlines, while eliminating Latin Extra Condensed, News Gothic, Bookman Antique, and Century Bold Italics. But the Times did not part company with the Cheltenham Bold Italic, the font that was created in 1896 by the Cheltenham Press, a private publisher in New York City, and first appeared on Times' front page in 1906. In addition, the text typeface, Imperial, which has been parked on Times' pages since 1967 was left untouched.
- October 27, 2003: Reacting to the 25 journalist committee's recommendations, commissioned shortly after the Jayson Blair scandal, Daniel Okrent, 55, former managing editor of Life and editor of Time Inc.'s new media operations, is named public editor of the New York Times by executive editor Bill Keller. Okrent's tenure as ombudsmen becomes effective December 1 and will last for 18 months.
As the Times first public editor, Okrent will respond to readers complaints and concerns of the Times coverage without interference from the senior management structure or the editorial board of the paper; his commentaries will be published in the Sunday Week in Review section, and other days as he deems it necessary.
Note: The first newspaper to appoint a public editor was The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times in 1967. In 2006, there are approximately 40 newspapers that have public editors or ombudsmen.
- November 21, 2003: The Pulitzer board decides against stripping Walter Duranty of The New York Times of the Pulitzer he earned in 1932 for his series of articles about the Soviet Union, despite waves of protests from Ukrainians and other historians, who claimed his reporting accommodated the Soviet propaganda machine of Josef Stalin, and most egregious of all--failed to report the famine of 1932-33, which resulted in the death of several million Ukrainians.
While the board did acknowledge that Duranty's reporting failed to live up to the standards of today's international reporting, there was "no clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception."
- February 19, 2004: Russell T. Lewis, announces he is retiring as president and chief executive of the New York Times at the end of the year, a position he held since 1997; and will be succeeded by Janet L. Robinson, senior vice president for newspaper operations.
Lewis career at the Times was launched in 1966 as a copy boy; he was later elevated to news assistant and reporter; he left the Times for a short time, earning a law degree from the Brooklyn Law School (1973) and practicing at the law firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel in New York City.
When he returned to the Times in 1977, he worked in the paper's legal department as staff lawyer before becoming vice president and deputy general manager in 1992, president and general manager the following year, and president in 1996.
- August 12, 2004: Times' reporter Judith Miller is subpoenaed by a Washington grand jury investigating whether any senior administration official intentionally leaked the identify of CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, when her name first appeared in his July 14, 2003 column. It's considered a felony for a high ranking administration official to leak such sensitive information.
Miller became a target of the grand jury investigation when prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald learned Plame's name came up in conversations I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, had with Miller, along with four other reporters: Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, Meet the Press host Tim Russert, and Washington Post reporters, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler.
- October 1, 2004: The Times' introduces a new correction policy on page A2, when it begins classifying corrections under two groupings: "Corrections" which will clarify factual errors that have clouded the readers understanding of a news topic; and "For the Record, which are narrow corrections, such as grammatical errors, misspellings, and historical dates of reference.
- November 15, 2004: The Times' announce that William Safire, 74, Richard Nixon's former speech writer, will write his final op-ed column on January 24, 2005, after 32 years, but will continue contributing his "On Language" column for the Sunday Magazine, which he has done since 1979.
- January 1, 2005: A new masthead is introduced on the editorial page, which will list management positions by "News Sections", "The Opinion Pages," and "The Business Management." in an effort to make clear to readers these are separate divisions with each department head responsible for reporting to the publisher.
- February 15, 2005: A federal appeals court in Washington rules that Times reporter Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, of Time magazine, should be jailed for contempt of court for refusing to identify their sources on who identified Valerie Plame as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction"; their ruling shoots down the contention that reporters are shielded by the First Amendment, because, the court contends, these reporters may have witnessed a federal crime, and they backed up their ruling citing a precedent, Branzburg v. Hayes, a 1972 Supreme Court case, in which a reporter was ordered to testify after witnessing the production of illegal drugs.
Responding to the ruling through a prepared statement, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, said: "The Times will continue to fight for the ability of journalists to provide the people of this nation with the essential information they need to evaluate issues affecting our country and the world, and we will challenge today's decision and advocate for a federal shield law that will enable the public to continue to learn about matters that directly affect their lives."
- March 1, 2005: John Tierney, 51, a New York Times Sunday Magazine columnist, who first started as general assignment reporter in 1990, is named op-ed columnist; his columns will appear twice weekly beginning in April.
- March 10, 2005: The New York Times announce that former Times theater critic Frank Rich, beginning in April, will move from the Arts & Living section to the Sunday op-ed page and write mammoth style essays on popular culture, twice the length of the traditional op-ed columns- when the Week in Review op-ed section is expanded into two pages.
In a challenging move by executive editor Bill Keller and editorial page editor Gail Collins, the announcement (April 11) of the expanded section led to some spirited anger from loyal readers, when it was learned Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman, the section's two biggest boppers, would be penciled out of the Sunday lineup.
- April 14, 2005: Representatives of the New York Times, a minority partner of the Boston Red Sox, which owns 17 percent of the team, who finally laid to rest the "Curse of the Bambino," were given World Series rings by the New York Yankees' chief rival at a ceremony at Fenway Park.
Russell T. Lewis, recently retired president of the Times, was one of 4 Times' representatives on hand to receive the rings.
- May 9, 2005: The internal committee appointed by executive editor Bill Keller to examine how the Times could regain readers trust, makes their findings available on the Times' company website at www.nytco.com.
Among the committee's recommendations: The Times should expand their coverage of religion in America, increase their coverage of cultural and lifestyle issues, cut down on their use of anonymous sources, and make reporters, editors, and other staff members more accessible to the outside public through emails.
- May 16, 2005: The New York Times announce a new fee-based feature on their website, TimesSelect, which will charge users $49.95 a year to read op-ed columnists, reports from the International Herald Tribune, and other features, including gaining access to the Times online archives. Most of the material on the website, the company emphasized, would remain free of charge.
- May 22, 2005: Daniel Okrent writes his final column as public editor of the New York Times, and passes the baton to Byron Calame who begins his tenure on June 5th.
- May 25, 2005: Responding to the economic reality of declining readership, sagging advertising revenue, and the high cost of newspaper print, the Times announces it will eliminate 190 jobs, 130 at the Times, including approximately 20 editorial positions, the rest will come from its flagship newspaper, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and the Boston Globe.
Bill Keller, the executive editor, also announced buyout packages would be offered to a limited number of the editorial staff.
- September 29, 2005: Judith Miller leaves prison after nearly three months when her confidential source, believed to be I. Lewis Libby, came forward and released her from their bond of confidentiality, encouraging her to testify before a federal grand jury about whether a senior White House official leaked the identity of a CIA operative. "Oh boy, am I happy to be free and finally able to talk to all of you", Miller told reporters after her testimony outside a federal courthouse in Washington.
- October 25, 2005: "I've always liked Judy Miller" Maureen Dowd's much discussed opening lead paragraph in which she tears into Judith Miller, questioning her credibility as a journalist by acting as a pawn for the Bush administration's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" propaganda; and then for not coming clean to her editors about her role in the Valerie Plame leak case.
- November 9, 2005: Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter for 28 years, agrees to resign from the paper after a couple tough weeks of negotiations with top editors over her proper exit strategy. She was initially denied by editors to be allowed to write an essay on the op-ed page, challenging some of the criticism she received from staff members over the past weeks. But the paper did agree to publish a letter she wrote to the editor explaining her position. In her letter, titled "Judith Miller's Farwell" she said she had chosen to resign "because over the last few months, I have become the news, something a New York Times reporter never wants to be."
- December 16, 2005: Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau disclose for the first time that just days after the September 11 attacks, President Bush, without seeking court approved warrants, authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans suspected of terrorist activity.
This alarming disclosure sparked a spirited debate over how much power a President should be allowed to have in order to fight terrorism.
As a result of this chilling expose, Risen and Lichtblau were awarded with Pulitzers in the category of National Reporting on April 17th, 2006.
- January 26, 2006: Executive editor Bill Keller names Joe Sexton The Times's new metropolitan editor, replacing Susan Edgerley, who was named assistant managing editor.
- April 3, 2006: The New York Times announces a major redesign of its Web site NYTimes.com, including a newly designed home page and section front pages; new ways to personalize the site; enhanced search capability; and more original video.
- May 10, 2006: Pulitzer Prize winning A.M Rosenthal, a former op-ed page columnist, and the pioneering executive editor of the New York Times from 1977 to 1986, who spoke with a sharp tongue, ruled with an iron fist, but was largely credited with giving the Times a much needed facelift during a crucial phase of its illustrious history, died in Manhattan, at age 84.
- July 1, 2006: Executive editor Bill Keller and L.A. Times executive editor Dean Baquet write an op-ed piece explaining their reasons for disclosing a secret government program to monitor international banking transactions. 
- September 7, 2006: The New York Times launches a mobile Web site, allowing readers to access New York Times content from their mobile phones.
- October 13, 2006: Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. names Andrew Rosenthal the newspaper’s new editorial page editor. Mr. Rosenthal, son of the late A. M. Rosenthal, a former executive editor of The Times, replaces Gail Collins, who will begin a new column on the Times’ Op-Ed page after her return from a leave of absence to write a book.
- May 3, 2007: Clark Hoyt, a 1973 Pulitzer recipient for national reporting, and a former Washington editor at Knight Ridder is named The Times’s third public editor since the position was first created in 2003. Mr. Hoyt’s responsibilities take effect May 14th and last for two years. His tenure is later extended an additional year to end in June 2010.
- September 17, 2007: The Times announces that after two years, TimesSelect, a fee-based program, which charged online subscribers $49.95 a year for access to The Times’s columnists and newspaper archives was ending, making access free, once again, to all visitors to its Website.
- November 19, 2007: The New York Times Company officially opens its new building, a dazzling 52-story tower located at 620 Eighth Avenue during a gala celebration, hosted by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the Times Company and Bruce Ratner, chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies with Senator Chuck Schumer, Governor Eliot Spitzer, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg in attendance.
The New York Times Building, co-owned by the Times Company and Forest City Ratner Companies, was designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano in association with FXFOWLE Architects.
- December 29, 2007: The Times announces William Kristol, editor and co-founder of The Weekly Standard, a conservative political magazine, will write a weekly column for the Times beginning January 7th.
NOTE: On January 26, 2009, the Times and Mr. Kristol mutually agreed to end their relationship after little more than a year.
- February 14, 2008: Executive editor Bill Keller announces The Times will eliminate 100 of its 1,332 newsroom employees in 2008 through buyouts and layoffs if necessary, if not enough employees accept the buyout package.
- July 10, 2008: The New York Times announces the release of the NYTimes iPhone application, which gives readers offline reading capabilities of their favorite New York Times stories.
- September 5, 2008: In an effort to save money on production costs, The Times announces beginning October 6th, they will eliminate the Metro report and Sports as stand alone sections. Metro will move inside the newspaper’s A section, while the Sports section (on Tuesday through Friday) will slip inside the Business Day section. Sports will remain a separate section on the weekends and on Mondays.
- September 26, 2008: NYTimes.com hosts live streaming video of the 2008 presidential debate -- its first live video feed on the homepage.
- October 13, 2008: Paul Krugman, an economics professor at Princeton and Op-Ed columnist for The Times since 1999, is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for his insightful analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity, research that Mr. Krugman began in 1979.
- March 30, 2009: The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times, joins forces with The New York Times on the Web to create a new online Global Edition, which combines the international voice of the IHT with the worldwide breadth of reporting of The Times and the digital expertise of NYTimes.com.
- May 24, 2009: The Times launches Metropolitan, a new section in its Sunday edition. The section, which includes narrative profiles, reported essays and innovative storytelling about New York and its suburbs, will replace The City section and the New Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester and Long Island sections, which were eliminated to cut costs, as well as the New York report pages in the main news section.
- April 20, 2009: The Times wins five Pulitzer Prizes, the second most in its history for breaking news, investigative reporting, international reporting, criticism, and feature photography, giving The Times a total of 101 Pulitzers since journalism’s top prize was first awarded in 1917.
The Times previously won seven Pulitzers in 2002, the most by any newspaper.
- June 19, 2009: Times reporter David Rohde, abducted outside Kabul, Afghanistan, on Nov. 10 while researching a book, escapes from the clutches of the Taliban after seven months of captivity in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
NOTE: Beginning October 18, 2009, Mr. Rohde begins the first of a five-part series of a first-person account of his seven months of captivity in Pakistan.
- August 5, 2009: Sam Sifton, the Times Culture editor since 2005 is named the newspaper’s new restaurant critic, replacing Frank Bruni, who will begin writing for The Times’s Sunday Magazine
- September 15, 2009: Bill Keller, the executive editor, named Jonathan Landman, the deputy managing editor, The Times new culture editor, a position he briefly held on an interim basis in 2004 and 2005, while reorganizing the department.
- October 15, 2009: The New York Times announces an expanded Bay Area metro report with added pages of local content on Fridays and Sundays in the San Francisco area. This expanded local report is the first of several to take place in key markets across the United States, and designed to complement the national and global coverage that has made The Times a popular news provider in the region.
- January 20, 2010: The New York Times announces that it will be introducing a metered model for NYTimes.com at the beginning of 2011. This will enable NYTimes.com to create a second revenue stream and preserve its robust advertising business.
- March 12, 2009: The New York Times announces that Ross Douthat, a columnist and former senior editor at The Atlantic, will write a column for The New York Times. Beginning mid-April, his columns will appear occasionally on The New York Times Op-Ed page and online at nytimes.com/opinion and will cover politics, foreign and national affairs.
March 22, 2010: Richard Berke, previously assistant managing editor, is named National editor of The New York Times, replacing Suzanne Daley, who returns to the Foreign desk.
April 2, 2010: The New York Times announces the release of The New York Times Editors' Choice app for the iPad.
- May 19, 2010: Executive editor Bill Keller informs staff members (by email) that Jill Abramson, managing editor for news at The New York Times, will step aside for six months in order to concentrate on the Times’s digital operation.
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