NY Times: No Stock-Class Shift, Times Co. Chief Says. Janet L. Robinson, the chief executive of The New York Times Company, sought to put to rest yesterday any notion that the company might change its dual-class stock structure, a move that could make the company vulnerable to a takeover. “The Ochs-Sulzberger family, which owns approximately 20 percent of the equity of our company — more than any other investor — has no intention of opening our doors to the kind of action that is tearing at the heart of some of the other great journalistic institutions in our country,” Ms. Robinson told analysts.
Glad to hear it. The Times’ quality is partly the result of the family’s decision to have such high standards and pay what it takes to keep them.
Their stance, in theory, is bad for me, if you believe the agitators who want to force the company to move to a one-class stock structure. That’s because I own a small amount of NY Times company stock.
But I’m convinced that it’s worth more in the long run if the management gets to manage for the long run, not the short-term hyperventilations from Wall Street.
on Dec 7th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Yes! Wall Street’s interest in the The Times or any other media organizations has so far not been defined by a desire to see constantly improving journalism, but by a desire to see constantly increasing profits.
As the business models of these organizations undergo fundamental changes, the focus needs to be on new forms of journalism, even if that means a short-term drop in profits: meeting readers’ needs is the only way that they’ll stay in business.
This news is a relief to me.