History of The New York Times (1945–1998)
Aspect of newspaper history / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Following World War II, The New York Times continued to expand. The Times was subject to investigations from the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, a McCarthyist subcommittee that investigated purported communism from within press institutions. Arthur Hays Sulzberger's decision to dismiss a copyreader who plead the Fifth Amendment drew ire from within the Times and from external organizations. In April 1961, Sulzberger resigned, appointing his son-in-law, The New York Times Company president Orvil Dryfoos. Under Dryfoos, The New York Times established a newspaper based in Los Angeles. In 1962, the implementation of automated printing presses in response to increasing costs mounted fears over technological unemployment. The New York Typographical Union staged a strike in December, altering the media consumption of New Yorkers. The strike left New York with three remaining newspapers—the Times, the Daily News, and the New York Post—by its conclusion in March 1963. In May, Dryfoos died of a heart ailment. Following weeks of ambiguity, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger became The New York Times's publisher.
Technological advancements leveraged by newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and improvements in coverage from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal necessitated adaptations to nascent computing. The New York Times published "Heed Their Rising Voices" in 1960, a full-page advertisement purchased by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. criticizing law enforcement in Montgomery, Alabama for their response to the civil rights movement. Montgomery Public Safety commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the Times for defamation. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the verdict in Alabama county court and the Supreme Court of Alabama violated the First Amendment. The decision is considered to be landmark. After financial losses, The New York Times ended its international edition, acquiring a stake in the Paris Herald Tribune, forming the International Herald Tribune. The Times initially published the Pentagon Papers, facing opposition from then-president Richard Nixon. The Supreme Court ruled in The New York Times's favor in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), allowing the Times and The Washington Post to publish the papers.
The New York Times remained cautious in its initial coverage of the Watergate scandal. As Congress began investigating the scandal, the Times furthered its coverage, publishing details on the Huston Plan, alleged wiretapping of reporters and officials, and testimony from James W. McCord Jr. that the Committee for the Re-Election of the President paid the conspirators off. The exodus of readers to suburban New York newspapers, such as Newsday and Gannett papers, adversely affected The New York Times's circulation. Contemporary newspapers balked at additional sections; Time devoted a cover for its criticism and New York wrote that the Times was engaging in "middle-class self-absorption". The New York Times, the Daily News, and the New York Post were the subject of a strike in 1978, allowing emerging newspapers to leverage halted coverage. The Times deliberately avoided coverage of the AIDS epidemic, running its first front page article in May 1983. Max Frankel's editorial coverage of the epidemic, with mentions of anal intercourse, contrasted with then-executive editor A. M. Rosenthal's puritan approach, intentionally avoiding descriptions of the luridity of gay venues.
Following years of waning interest in The New York Times, Sulzberger resigned in January 1992, appointing his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., as publisher. The Internet represented a generational shift within the Times; Sulzberger, who negotiated The New York Times Company's acquisition of The Boston Globe in 1993, derided the Internet, while his son expressed antithetical views. @times appeared on America Online's website in May 1994 as an extension of The New York Times, featuring news articles, film reviews, sports news, and business articles. Despite opposition, several employees of the Times had begun to access the Internet. The online success of publications that traditionally co-existed with the Times—such as America Online, Yahoo, and CNN—and the expansion of websites such as Monster.com and Craigslist that threatened The New York Times's classified advertisement model increased efforts to develop a website. nytimes.com debuted on January 19 and was formally announced three days later. The Times published domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski's essay Industrial Society and Its Future in 1995, contributing to his arrest after his brother David recognized the essay's penmanship.