I think the number they were talking about was 41. They just need a couple more. Our Democratic Leaders in the senate indicating that they will be able to stop that from coming to a final vote. Guest because they are so close to the 41 number, which, as you said, it will be interesting to see if they decide to do that. People in senator durbins have notid that they. Ecided if they will filibuster undecided, and they may not end up getting the vote. Att read more huffingtonpost. Com. Thanks for the update. Now, remarks from the chair and publisher of the New York Times on the future of the papers future in the digital age. About half of the subscriptions are for Digital Content only, a shift for the organization. He is joined by the executive editor at this event held in new york. It is one hour and a half. Good evening. I have the great privilege of being the president of this extraordinary institution. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this discussion on the future of the New York Times. This event is hosted by the roosevelt house. Thegs to the power of executive, more people are cp then we could handle. The times strongly endorsed roosevelt. It turned against him though, andsing his opponent became increasingly critical. Irritated fdr. In 1944, while the endorsement did not back off, it did offer an eloquent assessment of what the new deal had meant to america. These measures were aimed at reviving the hopes of millions of people, so out of work, for no fault of their own, and establishing a larger amount of social justice. Fdr was one of a long line of president to have had their ups and downs with the New York Times. This extraordinary history would make the future of a discussion of the future of the paper such a powerful draw. I want to express our gratitude to the underwriters of this program. While we are expressing gratitude, i want to say a special thanks to our moderator, jack rosenthal, who has done a superb job in the last year as the interim director of roosevelt house. This Evenings Program is special for jack because he spent 40 years at the New York Times, winning a portal to prize, and serving as editor. In 1987, when arthur sold their Arthur Sulzberger was editor. To his enduring credit, arthur resisted scorn, took the committees advice, and the newspaper has become excellent digital. It is not digital or print, it is, did we get the story right . The questions before us this evening of how they will carry on the mission in the future. Be are here with a real affinity to this question. Our motto is the care of the future is mine. We are try to do what is around the corner and the apparent the next generation of leaders for it. Fortunately, there cannot be a better team to lead the times than arthur and dean. All of us are interested in their success because we know our nation cannot be successful a democracy without having a strong press. Our gratitude to you for doing all the you do to protect our democracy. To jack rosenthal, a hearty thank you. Welcome, jack, arthur, and dean. [applause] jack let me begin by thanking you both for accepting this invitation. Arthur youre welcome. Jack i want to recall one evening around 1980 when i encountered arthur in the times lobby wearing a Leather Jacket and carrying a lunch pail. He was headed downstairs on his way to work. As a fourthgeneration member of the sulzberger family, he did not have to work his way up the ladder, but he did work in every part of the times. His first job was in the Washington Bureau in 1978. Later he sold ads, worked on the , desk, and eventually became deputy publisher, then publisher, and then chairman of the Times Company in 1997. In that time, as jennifer mentioned, he was determined to make the digital times as excellent as it had been in print for more than one century. You, in our audience, reflect that concern for excellence. This program sold out overnight. Dean baquet, the executive editor of the times, did work his way up the ladder, twice. After winning a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in chicago, he came to the times in 1990 as a reporter, became deputy editor, national editor, and then was hired by the los angeles times, where he served as editor. He came back to the New York Times as Washington Bureau chief, managing editor, and in may of last year, executive editor. That means he is the number one amongst some 1200 jobs in the newsroom, where he is known for his approachability and personal interest in staff members. Our topic tonight is the future of the New York Times. For many in this audience, i think the concern about the future of the times in print. Lets start with some facts. How does circulation breakdown between digital and print . How much revenue now comes from advertising and how much from circulation . Am i right to believe that print subscriptions are dropping 4 5 per year . Arthur thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be in this auditorium. Thank you, also, for starting off with such a nice and easy question. Jack has always been good at that. Let me take those in pieces. I will start with what i think is most interesting. When you and i were in our positions, earlier in life, deputy publisher, that period of time roughly the Revenue Breakdown of the times was 90 advertising, 10 circulation. Now, because of print and digital, it is more 60 , 40 . 60 circulation. 40 on advertising. That is actually a strength. I know it sounds like it is not, but the strength is the stability of the circulation revenue. It gives us a firmer footing on which to build our future than many of our traditional, and even nontraditional, competitors have. So few of them have had a digital subscription plan that has exceeded to the extreme the ours has. When i say succeed, we are somewhere around 950,000 digital paid digital subscribers. Jack compared to what in print . Arthur im struggling with the numbers. There is Public Information on this. I think it is about 800,000 daily. Dean that sounds right, and more than that on the weekend. Arthur what is interesting is when you see circulation decline print circulation decline where we take the hit is on street sales. Not Home Delivery. What we have seen over the last 1015 years, Home Delivery is strikingly stable. If you have to your subscribers subscribers or more, so getting people to subscribe for two year, im including weekend as well as weekday you find people stay for a significant period of time. We have them or less for life. That is a great base. Now, the digital revolution continues. People are moving they moved to the website, the screen. Jack the website . The homepage . Arthur they moved from the desktop what im trying to say and now they are moving increasingly to the mobile. People come to a variety of devices over a period of time. They will see is on the smartphone first thing in the morning. Say will see us on the desktop at lunchtime. They will see us on their ipad later at night. Print is woven into all of that. People are across multiple platforms now. That is the future. Jack that raises a question for dean. With such a large proportion of younger readers, especially online, can the times display its traditional high quality on the tiny screen of a smartphone without dumbing down . Dean yes. Can i back up one second . At the heart of the question, which is a question i have been asked a lot before, is what is the lifespan of the print New York Times . The question of print versus digital has become a distraction from the fundamental questions about journalism. I think the fundamental question about journalism is what great journalistic institutions will survive . How will they survive . I guess i do not buy, at all, that the phone means that readers of the New York Times want to read something lesser or dumber. All evidence suggests that people read wrong articles long articles on their phone. If the goal of the newsroom is to be read, which has to be my fundamental goal, then the number of readers we have in the digital era is astounding. It is unimaginable. If you take the story that we did a few weeks ago on the conditions at now salons nail salons across new york 5 Million People read that story. That is astounding. If you go back to the print era, when you only have the readers of the print paper, that would have been unimaginable. I think people want to read smart, sophisticated stories in every format. My job as editor of the New York Times is to figure out ways to make stories in every format as smart and hard as possible. All evidence shows that we can do that on the phone. Jack one year ago, you received a report from the Innovation Committee that called for many changes. One point was to stop being so complacent about your readership. Over decades, the times has provided quality coverage, but that is no longer good enough in the internet era. The innovations report urged what is called Audience Development. Finding a variety of ways to reach out to potential readers. How have you responded . In business terms and in the newsroom. Arthur that is a great question for both of us. I want to go back one second, when i gave the hundred thousand 800,000, i want to clear that up. It is over one million when you include the weekend. I want to get that number back to where belongs. The innovation report was a wonderful wakeup call in many ways. As you might recall, it was written at the behest of dean and jill. They empowered a team of some of our best journalist to look deep at ourselves, and that it was then it was leaked. It was never written to be leaked. At first we thought, that is awful. It was only a few days later that we realized the power of what had just happened. People around the world embraced the fact that the times had the courage to do a deep journalistic dive on itself, which we have done, and to say, here is what we have done right, here is what we must improve on. I have to say, within one month, i can not tell you how many calls i received from other Newspaper Publishers around the world asking for to come and meet with the people who had done the innovation report. It was a wonderful week of call. Wake up call. When dean became executive editor, one of his first steps was to reach to our business side and take a woman and make her an editor on the new site in charge of Audience Development. One of the great findings was the journalist must take greater responsibility for building their audience. Welcome to the world of social media. As fewer people come to a homepage and want to engage with our journalism on facebook and other platforms, how do we get people to engage in that way with us . I dare you to name the last business person who became a masthead executive on the new s side. There isnt any. It was a really bold move. It has worked extremely well. We have done subsequent work, of course, to say, here is what we are doing right, here is what we need to push harder. There is a lot of work ahead. As soon as you catch up, the digital universe shifts. You have to start saying, it is not as much about the search as he used to be. It is now more about social. How do we adapt . Dean the audience of the New York Times has risen by 25 . I am an editor who wants the journalism of the New York Times to have impact. I do not want to do big, lush investigative stories and have them going to vacuum were nobody reads it down. We have tools to make sure more people read. That is terrific. Arthur when you look at the times globally, almost 75 million users. Jack let me head back to the relationship with business and news side. Jennifer spoke about trust in the times. Traditionally the time to try to maintain the trust by scrupulously maintaining a chinese wall between new side and business side. Now, they are not just two sides, there are the three sides print news, business, and technology. An example was the wonderful work on nail salon workers. In my day, the times the times when launched a series, it would be a splash on page one on sunday. This one was launched online and on thursday. It led some print subscribe that why are we getting the stale stuff on sunday. Arthur to be clear, very few complained. We are learning and adapting. If you do not have the courage to try new things and grow, you are going to fail. That is the reality of the world we are in. I applaud what the dean and his colleagues did which is to increasingly say lets put the story out when the story is ready. There are some people who are going to read it then and others will read it later on a different in print. Not about the device. When i say device, i mean print as well. As you so eloquently stated from decades ago, we must of the platform agnostic. Go to where the people are. And increasingly that means mobile. And as you probably know, we are doing a test right now at the New York Times. Dean there is a myth, is remarkable to me as much as people look at journalism and journalists and newspaper so closely how ignorant we are of the history. Act as l. A. Times if i had a big project that was going to run about Orange County government, that was the giant next to l. A. , next to a life and death competition. If i had a big story that was going to run about Orange County, i would go to the circulation director and say please tell me which today you will have the most papers distributed in Orange County. If they said to me, monday, i would run it on monday. To me, the question i asked myself, i want a story to be read. I wanted to have impact. I am fundamentally an idealist about journalism and the idea i want as many people to read it. I want it to have impact. I wanted things to change as result of hardhitting stuff. The only way you could do it is to be widely read. This permits arthur is referring to is to make sure everybody in the building knows how many of our readers are on the phone. We made it so if you type onto your laptop, it takes you to the phone app. Jack which side of the chinese wall is Audience Development lie on . Dean my view is it lies, part on my side. Probably a little bit in advertising. Can i back of one thing . The chinese wall has never been in newspapers between newsrooms and the entire business side. That was never the case. There is always been promotion. The wall of existence between newsrooms and advertising. Not a newsrooms and technology. Not newsrooms and circulation. Not newsrooms and promotion. That has always been the case. Jack talking about Audience Development, what new forums lie ahead . I would be interested in your experiments with instant articles on facebook and apples new news app. Dean what kind of stories are we doing . Jack i can make a complicated question. Risking a lot when you give these articles out for free. Dean here to me is the risk. I keep going back to wanting to be read. The biggest risk is not the goal where your readers are area the biggest risk is to not to go to places where there are millions and millions of people who want to read. The biggest risk is to stay out of that world. That is why we felt we had to experiment with people like facebook and apple. Jack if the experiment is not making any money . Arthur that is not the case. If you do not risk knowing you will not fail, you will fail automatically. You know the famous case. Umm what was the . The titanic fallacy. The titanic fallacy is the question, what was the fatal flaw of the titanic . Some people will say, you know, the captain trying to set a worlds speed record. Some people note they do not have enough lifeboats. Some they do not build the walls high a note to ensure it was unsinkable. The answer is none of that. Even if the tide has safely made it to new york harbor, it was still doomed. Because a few years earlier, two brothers had invented the airplane. So, we are in the world where we must shift the industry is great and it is there and we have boats for all of you. We must become an airplane company, too. That means trying things, testing, having the courage to invest and not just financially. And say, that work on how do we build on it . And that did not work, next. Thats what were trying to do. The key point, you have to increasingly go where the audience is. That does not mean our journalism is going to change but our presentation may change. The way we scroll on the small devices is totally different experience than on a laptop. We have to adapt. Jack let me ask dean a question. A lot of airplanes in the air now and they are faster and more nimble. Dean but they are not better. Jack the tradition of careful editing, going way into latenight deadlines. A lot of nimble startup sites, including welcome honestly be called parasites. [laughter] jack how do you compete . Dean whenever theres a big news story, if you want to use the example of the plane crash in the alps. People go to the New York Times by the millions. First, we break the story is pretty secondly, we do not make mistakes. Certainly because i will get to those. We are indeed a human enterprise. We do make mistakes. Lets keep going. Anyway, the New York Times is fully edited as it was in print. People still come to us for news. If you ask me, who my biggest competitors are, largely the same competitors we had in the predigital era. The News Organizations, and some european papers. The guardian, the wall street journal, they keep me up at night and they kept me up and i 20 years ago. Arthur i want to go back to mistakes. Ive said, we make mistakes. What the dean is saying its really important in this sense. We are both seen the being such a critical element in digital age more so than earlier print era. Everyone wants to be first. All of a sudden, competitors and throwing up photos of the boston bombers. Oops. Turnout