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The New York Times

The New York Times
Henry J. Raymond · Public domain · source

Overview

The New York Times (NYT) is a newspaper based in Manhattan, New York City. The New York Times covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces and reviews. One of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the Times serves as one of the country's newspapers of record. As of August 2025, The New York Times had 11.88 million total and 11.3 million online subscribers, both the highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States by a significant margin; the total also included 580,000 print subscribers. The New York Times is published by the New York Times Company. Since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family. The current chairman and the paper's publisher is A. G. Sulzberger. The Times is headquartered at The New York Times Building in Midtown Manhattan.

The Times was founded as the conservative New-York Daily Times in 1851, and came to national recognition in the 1870s with its aggressive coverage of corrupt politician Boss Tweed. Following the Panic of 1893, Chattanooga Times publisher Adolph Ochs gained a controlling interest in the company. In 1935, Ochs was succeeded by his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who began a push into European news. Sulzberger's son Arthur Ochs Sulzberger became publisher in 1963, adapting to a changing newspaper industry and introducing radical changes. The New York Times was involved in the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which restricted the ability of public officials to sue the media for defamation.

In 1971, The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, an internal Department of Defense document detailing the United States's historical involvement in the Vietnam War, despite pushback from then-president Richard Nixon. In the landmark decision New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment guaranteed the right to publish the Pentagon Papers. In the 1980s, the Times began a two-decade progression to digital technology and launched nytimes.com in 1996. In the 21st century, it shifted its publication online amid the global decline of newspapers.

Currently, the Times maintains several regional bureaus staffed with journalists across six continents. It has expanded to several other publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times International Edition, and The New York Times Book Review. In addition, the paper has produced several television series, podcasts—including The Daily—and games through The New York Times Games. Among other accolades, it has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize 135 times since 1918, the most of any publication. However, The New York Times has been involved in a number of controversies in its history. According to a 2025 Pew Research Center study on educational differences among audiences of 30 major U.S. news outlets, The New York Times had the highest proportion of college-educated readers among the daily newspapers surveyed, with 56% of its audience holding at least a bachelor's degree.

The New York Times is sometimes referred to as "The Gray Lady", a nickname which references both the color of newsprint and the Times' opposition to yellow journalism.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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  1. It must be recognized that the present management of such natural resources as forests under the regime of private property has been extremely wasteful and threatens serious injury to the United States. Individual owners cannot be expected to consider the welfare of the country at large, or of future generations; hence the water power is impaired and the timber supply of the future threatened. Finally it must be…

    John Dewey, Ethics

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  2. They are able to decide what news the great mass of newspaper readers shall be allowed to have. They can actually falsify the news, or, without going so far as that, they can carefully select it, giving such items as will stimulate the passions which they desire to stimulate, and suppressing such items as would provide the antidote. In this way the picture of the world in the mind of the average newspaper reader is…

    Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom

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  3. The objection to a graduated property-tax applies in an aggravated degree to the proposition of an exclusive tax on what is called “realized property,” that is, property not forming a part of any capital engaged in business, or rather in business under the superintendence of the owner; as land, the public funds, money lent on mortgage, and shares in stock companies. Except the proposal of applying a sponge to the…

    John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy

    States what The New York Times is; the author is tied to The New York Times in the knowledge graph.

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