Behind the Times (70 page)

1979

Midtown rally for Soviet Jews draws 100,000.

Protests over Shoreham nuclear plant.

1980

Carter renominated at Democratic convention in Madison Square Garden.

Publication of the
Times’
National edition begins with satellite transmission to Chicago, the first of eight remote printing plants. Initial weekday circulation: 22,000.

John Lennon assassinated in front of his apartment building on Central Park West.

Black employees’ suit settled at
Times
; plaintiffs win package worth $1.5 million.

Ronald Reagan elected president.

New York Daily News
starts
Tonight
, an upmarket evening paper.

1981

Cable TV boxes and VCRs begin to appear in large numbers, bringing consumers more media choices in their homes.

News
ceases publication of
Tonight
edition.
News
owners try and fail to give paper away to a new publisher who would be willing to assume
News’
pension and job security obligations.

U.S. health officials report that forty-seven cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma have been discovered among homosexual men.

1982

Times
gains control of its home-delivery systems and begins major subscription drive in suburbs and exurbs.

Antinuclear protest in Central Park draws 800,000.

Mario Cuomo elected governor of New York.

Phil Donahue broadcasts show about AIDS.

1983

Conversion of
Times’
43rd Street presses from letterpress to offset is completed after two years.

Metropolitan Opera celebrates its one hundredth birthday.

1984

Mondale wins Democratic presidential nomination, chooses a woman, Geraldine Ferraro of New York, as running mate.

Times’
first use of national bar code on page two of National edition.

General Westmoreland, during his libel trial against CBS, admits he falsified estimates of enemy troop strength in Vietnam.

Bernard Goetz—the “subway vigilante”—shoots four black youths on a downtown IRT train.

1985

Circulation of
Newsday
, the Long Island daily, passes 500,000 mark.
Newsday
’s owner, Times-Mirror Corporation of Los Angeles, introduces morning edition in city,
New York Newsday.

Edward I. Koch easily wins third term as mayor.

Law enforcement officials hold news conference to discuss rapid spread of new, smokable cocaine distillate, known on the street as
crack.

Dow Jones jumps to record 1500.

1986

New York’s City Council passes gay rights bill.

Statue of Liberty’s one hundredth anniversary celebration.

Mets beat Red Sox in seventh game and win World Series.

Jennifer Levin found slain in Central Park in what becomes known as the “Preppy Murder” case.

Wall Street operator Ivan Boesky pleads guilty in insider trading scandal.

Michael Griffith, a black youth, chased to his death by gang of whites in Howard Beach, Queens.

Max Frankel named to succeed A. M. Rosenthal as executive editor of
Times.

1987

Bess Meyerson resigns as New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner amid growing scandals in Koch administration.

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North begins testimony before House and Senate about his involvement in Iran-contra scandal.

Reverend Al Sharpton leads hundreds of demonstrators in “Days of Outrage.” Sharpton denounces “white power structure” for handling of Tawana Brawley case (black teenager who reported that she was raped by white policemen).

October 19 “Black Monday” stock market crash.

1988

A weekly guide,
Television
, introduced by
Times.
Daily
Times
circulation goes over 1 million.

Expanded three-section National edition of
Times
available in San Francisco.

Jimmy Breslin starts column for
New York Newsday
, at reported salary of $350,000 a year.

George Bush elected forty-first president; Dan Quayle his vice president.

Pan Am jet flying from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 244 passengers killed.

Real estate developer Peter Kalikow acquires
New York Post
from Rupert Murdoch.

New York area beaches closed as sewage, blood vials, syringes, and other waste products wash up on shore.

1989

Central Park jogger beaten and raped by gang of “wilding” youths.

Massacre of Chinese student protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Black teenager Yusef Hawkins fatally shot in Bensonhurst, predominantly white section of Brooklyn.

David Dinkins becomes New York’s first African-American mayor.

Berlin Wall falls; beginning of reunification of East and West Germany. Cold war over after forty-five years and, says Max Frankel, “the winner is Japan.”

1990

U.S. troops land in Panama. Manuel Noriega taken into custody.

Expanded three-section
Times
National edition introduced across U.S.
Times
claims circulation of 240,000.

Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, daughter of Adolph Ochs, dies. Ochs Trust dissolved and equal shares distributed to her children: Marian S. Heiskell, Ruth S. Holmberg, Judith P. Sulzberger, and Punch Sulzberger.

New York Post
’s unions agree to pay cuts.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., earns $275,000 and bonus of $47,500 as deputy publisher of
Times.

1991

U.S.-led coalition goes to war against Iraq after UN deadline for withdrawal from Kuwait passes.

Iraq accepts UN ceasefire terms, ending Gulf war.

Tribune Company of Chicago pays British media mogul Robert Maxwell $60 million to take
News
off its hands.

New York Post
owner Peter Kalikow files for personal bankruptcy; paper’s future in doubt.

Times
runs story of Kitty Kelley’s bedroom biography of Nancy Reagan on page one. Paper names Florida woman in William Kennedy Smith rape case, describes her wild drinking and driving habits—prompting stories about
Times’
own “wild streak.”

Times
raises daily newsstand price to 50 cents in city, and to 75 cents for National edition. Circulation tops 1.1 million daily, 1.6 million Sunday—both new highs despite price increases.

Robert Maxwell dies at sea, as his empire collapses.
News
in Chapter 11.

Gorbachev survives hardliners’ coup, and begins endgame for Soviet Union.

1992

USSR formally dissolved on first day of New Year. Boris Yeltsin vows to introduce free-market economy.

Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., succeeds father as
Times
publisher.

Museum of Modern Art opens “blockbuster” Matisse exhibit.

Times
endorses Clinton-Gore ticket; Democrats win presidency; for first time since Jimmy Carter in 1976,
Times
on winning side.

Mortimer Zuckerman buys the
News.

Howell Raines moved from
Times’
Washington bureau chief job to editorial-page editor, putting him in place to succeed Joe Lelyveld if Lelyveld moves up to take Frankel’s place.

1993

Kim Foltz,
New York Times
reporter, dead at forty-four.
Times
obituary lists his cause of death as AIDS and also runs name of Foltz’s male companion in obit.

New York Post
reacquired by Rupert Murdoch, pending FCC waiver.

Times
opens state-of-the-art production plant in Edison, New Jersey, after three years of delays. Costs spiral to $500 million.

First color pages appear in
Times
, in
Book Review
section.

The formal reporting for this study started in 1987 when several of the changes described here were getting under way. But my work as a
Times
-watcher goes back three decades. As a wire-service reporter in Washington during the mid-1950s, I first competed against the
Times.
During the 1960s, when I was an editor at
Newsweek
, the competition between daily paper and weekly newsmagazine was less direct, and so my work at
Newsweek
didn’t prevent me from receiving regular assignments from the
Times Magazine.
These
Magazine
assignments stopped in 1970, when I became a contributing editor at
New York
magazine, writing about the press, including the
Times.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a right-wing bumper sticker challenged critics of the Vietnam war: “U.S.A.—Love It or Leave It.” The slogan comes to mind whenever I read the
Times
, as subscriber and as critic; it remains a paper too smug to love, yet too important to leave.

Most of the materials in this book come from my own reporting over the past five years, including some two dozen tape-recorded interviews with
Times
people, present and past, as well as three times that number of non-taped interviews with other
Times
men and -women. I acknowledge their cooperation and interest. In addition, the
Times
allowed me access to its archives, or at least those portions open to outsiders. In general, the rule was that “inactive” files—that is, materials about
Times
executives who were retired or dead—could be studied. Nevertheless, one or two exceptions involving still “active” executives were made. I thank the staff of the archives, and particularly its former director, Dr. John Rothman, for allowing me fair use of selected materials.

Several memoirs and studies of the
Times
have been published over the years, and I’ve tried to digest them all, even when they fell outside the time frame of this book. For example, I read Ruth Adler’s A
Day in the Life of The New York Times
(Lippincott/NY Times, 1971) and used it as a model for reconstructing my own twenty-four-hour day in the life of the modern
Times.
(Adler was an Ochs family member, and her project had official status, unlike my “Day.”) Several analyses of the American press that treated the
Times
in passing were helpful, particularly Deborah Lipstadt’s study of how the press covered Hitler’s persecution of European Jews. Some excellent studies of New York City and its media also exist. Richard Kluger’s
The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune
was especially helpful. Over the years, too, I’ve done content analyses and criticism of the
Times
for
New York
magazine, for various journalism reviews, and for a series of my own studies published by the MIT Press.

I’ve drawn on these interviews, reporting, analyses, and books. I would also like to acknowledge the research and administrative assistance of Mariah Bear, Eileen Clarke, Dale Fuchs, Gregg Geller, Kate O’Hara, Rebecca Mead, Lori Robinson, Whitney Scott, Stacy Shatkin, Robert Silverman, Christal Smith, Martha Bula Torres, David White, and Matthew Fenton. I am also grateful for the advice and support of Lois and Tom Wallace. I wish to thank Adelina Diamond, my best friend, and Edward Kosner, the best editor I know (and the editor and president of
New York
at the time I worked on this project), for their support and counsel. Finally, I owe a special debt to Diane Reverand and Emily Bestler, my infinitely patient and skilled editors at Villard Books.

All the opinions and conclusions here are my own, and I bear sole responsibility for them.

Edwin Diamond
New York, September 1993