Neha-Tamara Patel
Two days ago, the chairman of the New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger, gave a talk at Journalism and society think tank POLIS based at LSE, on the continuing digital transformation of the New York Times. [Full text can be found here: http://bit.ly/vtRf3H]
In his speech, Sulzberger addressed how the NYT are adapting to the digital age and what they are doing to build their online readership. Ranked number one as the most social company in the United States, the New York Times value their social presence, and are ambassadors of social media in their multiplatform approach to attract new readers. Their Facebook page has 1.7 million fans, whilst their main Twitter page has more than 3.8 million followers.
However, the change in journalism through social media is not merely through publishing articles via Twitter and Facebook to attract new audiences; Sulzberger specifically praised three reporters who have championed social media and use it as a primary tool when reporting and investigating stories. Nick Kristof, Chris Chivers, and Lydia Polgreen have used social media to build networks of contacts and readers for specific topics, to crowd-source the answers to questions, and to access breaking news from locals when reporting on the ground. He said: “Our efforts in social media are meant to tap in to the knowledge from that readership. We value what they can share with us and with other users.”
The New York Times have realised that the people they need to address are now online and they need to keep up with the digital age to keep their readers. Sulzberger stated: “A healthy democracy is built on an informed and engaged population. News organizations are a critical part of that.” As a news-broadcasting platform, news organizations need to have some presence in every new space that there may be a potential reader – they can no longer rely on readers coming to them. The web is now saturated with sites offering the latest news, so established news platforms have to do something new. In order to ensure a readership that is representative of the population, the NYT understand that they must access everyone.
