Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Ask The Times

On Trust and Transparency: A.G. Sulzberger, Our New Publisher, Answers Readers’ Questions

The Reader Center is one way we in the newsroom are trying to connect with you, by highlighting your perspectives and experiences and offering insight into how we work.

Image
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger assumed the role of publisher of The New York Times on Jan. 1.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

When we solicited questions last month for our new publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, our readers responded in droves — to the tune of some 2,500 submissions. You’ll find his responses to a curated selection below. (Some questions have been condensed and edited for clarity.)

_____

Before I answer your questions, I want to share a bit about my background.

I got my start as a reporter at newspapers in Rhode Island and Oregon before joining The New York Times as a metro reporter in 2009. I went on to cover the Midwest as Kansas City bureau chief, where I wrote about crime, government and many tornadoes and floods.

But my favorite stories were the ones that were built around memorable characters or that came out of discovering something unexpected: a look at the 103-year-old federal judge who took the notion of lifetime appointments to the extreme; the strange saga of one of England’s most infamous bank robbers; an examination of how the internet weaponized small-town gossip; a story about how a community in rural Kansas became the last place on earth to develop Kodachrome film (which was turned into a movie last year).

Most recently, while working as an editor, I wrote this 7,000-word tale about two hang glider pilots battling to set the world record for longest flight.

In 2013, my work shifted to helping craft the strategy for The Times as a whole, after I led a team that produced a report calling on the newsroom to accelerate our digital transformation.

Since then, I’ve been working with colleagues across the company to answer an essential question: How can The Times hold on to the best of our journalistic traditions while also evolving to meet the changing needs of our readers and taking advantage of powerful new ways to find and tell stories? Though we’ve made a lot of progress in the last couple of years, that question remains a focus in my new role as publisher.

And now for the questions …

_____

What exactly is the role of a newspaper publisher?
— Long, in San Antonio

Seems like a good question to kick this off.

At the highest level, a publisher oversees a news organization’s journalism and business operations. This means I am responsible for ensuring that our journalism is worth your time and money, and that we have a strong strategy for our long-term commercial success in a moment of pressure and change in our industry.

But to me, Adolph Ochs, my great-great-grandfather and our first publisher, captured the spirit of the role best: “To maintain the editorial independence and the integrity of The New York Times and to continue it as an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare.”

_____

Image
Ellen Barry’s article about a murder in small-town India is an example of the “balance between classic journalistic storytelling and sharing helpful context about how we actually found and reported that story,” Mr. Sulzberger writes.Credit...Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

How do you win the battle with “fake news” and reach those who believe The New York Times is biased?
— Cristina Chan, in San Francisco

This is a really important — and tricky — question, and one that I think about a lot.

Powerful forces are stoking distrust in the news media with attacks on the press and sowing confusion by promoting clickbait, rumor, fraudulent stories and propaganda. This has been driven in no small part by various politicians and technology platforms pursuing their short-term interests over the greater good. These tactics contribute to growing polarization and undermine trust in news organizations.

It will be hard for a single institution to counteract these forces, but we’re determined to try. (I’m encouraged that some leaders in Washington and Silicon Valley seem to be recognizing that they need to do their part.)

The best thing we at The Times can do is stay true to our mission of finding and telling the stories that matter, without fear or favor. I believe that our rapidly growing number of readers and subscribers is a testament to how people increasingly crave news they can trust. I also believe we still have more to do to help people understand why they should trust our journalism and to provide greater transparency into our reporting.

In the past, our approach was to let our work speak for itself. Our assumption was that people intuitively understood all the hard work that goes into a New York Times article. But we’ve learned we need to do more to explain how our reporting works. For example, many readers don’t know that a dateline from a foreign city means our reporters are physically in that place, on the ground seeing and hearing firsthand everything they’re reporting. They don’t know that Adam Liptak’s Supreme Court reporting is made stronger by his experience as a lawyer, or that Sheri Fink’s background as a physician informs her investigations into medical misconduct. And they don’t know that for every person we quote in a story, sometimes dozens more have been interviewed.

On the flip side, I look at articles like Ellen Barry’s heartbreaking tale of a woman murdered in India, C. J. Chivers’s deeply empathetic examination of a Marine’s unraveling after returning from war, or the investigation Malachy Browne led into how Americans were attacked by a foreign leader’s security detail — all are great examples of the balance between classic journalistic storytelling and sharing helpful context about how we actually found and reported that story. (And it should be no surprise that when we do this well, it has a real, meaningful impact.)

The more we can show readers the thoughtfulness, thoroughness, expertise and rigor that go into everything we cover, the better. (I address the concern about bias in more detail below.)

_____

How can ordinary people help support The New York Times’s important work?
— Margo Wixsom, in Inverness, Calif.

Unlike most news organizations, The Times gets the majority of its revenue directly from readers like you. So the best way to support our work is by subscribing — and by encouraging your friends and family to do the same. If you’re feeling extra generous, you can buy a gift subscription or sponsor student subscriptions to help the next generation learn the value of engaging with the world through quality journalism.

But I’d also encourage everyone who is able to support your local news organizations as well. They do essential work and are feeling real pressure right now.

_____

Will you bring back the position of public editor? Eliminating that position decreases your responsibility to the public for accuracy and fairness.
— Paul Kingsley, in Rochester

Our responsibility to ensure the accuracy and fairness of our work will never change. As I said in my note to readers this month, your trust is the most important asset we have.

So why eliminate the role of public editor?

The public editor was created in a different era to act as an intermediary between our readers and our journalists. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But today there are faster, more effective and more transparent ways to receive and respond to feedback.

My view is that if readers have significant concerns about a particular story or how we’ve covered a broader topic, we should engage with them directly and openly.

That’s part of the reason we introduced the Reader Center and why we’re doing things like this Q. and A. In the old model, the public editor would have sat down with the new publisher, asked a few questions of her choosing and written a short article based on my responses. In the new model, I’m hearing your questions directly and you’re hearing my answers directly. (As part of this process, every question submitted by readers was reviewed by editors, who selected those that captured the most common areas of interest and concern.)

If you’re worried that The Times no longer faces real scrutiny, check out the president’s tweets. In all seriousness, our work is even more closely watched and there are more ways to raise questions and concerns than ever before. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have given readers the ability to immediately raise questions and concerns, as has our comments section. Just as important, we’re covered every day by other news organizations around the world. And we are one of the few places anywhere to still have a significant, full-time operation dedicated to editorial standards, reader complaints and corrections.

_____

Image
As a correspondent based in the Kansas City bureau, Mr. Sulzberger once reported on the challenges of being a vegetarian.Credit...Steve Hebert for The New York Times

As one of the few papers with national clout left, how will The New York Times work to improve the coverage of the rest of the country?
— Matt, in Michigan

This is a great question.

I got my start at local newspapers like The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif.; The Providence Journal in Rhode Island; and The Oregonian. I know firsthand that local newsrooms play an essential role in providing the information and insights that bind a community together, and the accountability that prevents leaders from abusing their power.

But the pressures local newsrooms face are immense. The number of working journalists in this country has declined by more than half since 2000, and those who remain are increasingly concentrated in a few places like New York, Washington and California. These trends carry profound risks for our democracy.

Though there are no easy answers, The Times is deeply committed to finding ways to support robust coverage throughout the United States.

The most concrete evidence of this commitment is our decision to expand our national reporting staff. We now have journalists living in every part of the country who spend their time crisscrossing their states and regions for stories that aren’t being told. (As I mentioned above, I had the great fortune of doing one of these jobs myself as a correspondent based in the Kansas City bureau — though being a vegetarian there admittedly had its challenges.)

We’re also looking for ways to support local journalism. One example is our partnerships with local news organizations like The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. But there is much more to do and we’re actively thinking about other ways to contribute.

_____

How do you respond to the view that The New York Times has a liberal bias?
— Ron Caton, in Alamo, Calif.

There is nothing we take more seriously than the fairness, accuracy and independence of our journalism.

That’s not to say our journalists never have opinions. But just as a judge is expected to set aside personal views to ensure the integrity of a trial, our journalists are expected to do the same to ensure the integrity of their journalism. My colleagues in the newsroom work hard at this, and it’s one of the reasons The Times has such strict standards and rigorous editing.

Our job is to follow the truth, wherever it leads, and to bring information to light — not to tell people how to think.

Now more than ever, it is vital for our pages to feature stories and columns that reflect a diversity of views and that challenge readers to consider perspectives very different from their own. Making sure our report explores multiple angles on the biggest stories is a critical part of our mission to remain nonpartisan in these polarized times.

Do we sometimes fall short? Of course. This is a human enterprise. But I think some complaints about bias — both from the right and the left — are rooted in a misunderstanding of our core journalistic role. And some complaints, more cynically, simply seek to discredit reporting that may prove unflattering or damaging to certain interests.

Our commitment to independent, unbiased journalism is one of the things that makes The Times special. As publisher, I’m determined to maintain this approach, and I know our journalists embrace that responsibility with a fierce sense of purpose.

_____

Image
Several readers submitted questions about The Times’s coverage of Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign.Credit...Richard Perry/The New York Times

After the 2016 election, I canceled my 15-year-old New York Times subscription. I would like to come back, but I need some sort of accounting for your editorial decisions during the 2016 election.

In particular, your coverage of the Clinton email scandal and Trump-Russia seems inexplicable in hindsight. I get that you assumed Clinton would win, but the race was always pretty close. Meanwhile, obvious stories, like Trump’s business connections abroad, were totally ignored.

The overall tone of the coverage seems inexplicable. Some sort of context for these decisions is needed in order to rebuild my loss of trust in your judgment about what to maximize and what to leave out.
— Heather, in New York City

I hear you, and I’ve heard from others who were upset, too. And I don’t want to in any way diminish that concern, but I do want to put it into a broader context.

It’s impossible to have aggressive, skeptical coverage of candidates for public office without upsetting some of their supporters. Hillary Clinton was upset with our coverage. So were Bernie Sanders and a host of Republican candidates, from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz. Then there is Donald J. Trump, who has had, as you may have noticed, pretty unending complaints of his own.

No news organization reported more aggressively and deeply on Mr. Trump during the campaign than The Times. We broke stories about his personal finances, his treatment of women, his record of not telling the truth, his business ties with questionable foreign interests and much more. Our coverage of Russia’s attempts to interfere in the election was part of a broader series on covert Russian influence that won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

And sometimes even the most observant Times readers do not remember that, during the campaign, we wrote extensively about Mrs. Clinton’s biography, her civil rights work, her economic policy, and her advocacy on behalf of victims of gun violence.

Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that we embrace a kind of false equivalency — I’m skeptical of the old line that “if everyone’s mad, then we’re doing our jobs.” But I am saying that our most important function is to report aggressively and to arm readers with the information they need to make their own decisions, rather than to promote any single outcome.

It surprises some readers to know that the same reporter who broke the story about Mrs. Clinton’s private email server when she was secretary of state also broke the big stories last year about why Mr. Trump fired James Comey and the president’s efforts to shut down the federal investigation into Michael Flynn.

Our approach may strike some as old-fashioned. But we believe it’s the most important role the news media can play in supporting a healthy democratic society.

I’m always sorry when readers feel let down by our coverage. We work hard every day to earn your trust. We have devoted tremendous reporting resources since the election to examining every part of this political moment — the anger, the divisions, the rise of both anti- and pro-Trump activism.

These are crucial stories for us and, we think, for the country. And I think if you began reading The Times again, you would find that coverage deep and insightful and informative. I very much hope you’ll return as a subscriber in the future.

_____

As a longtime subscriber, my faith in The Times was deeply shaken when the Hillary numbers we saw every day leading up to the election turned out to be so incredibly off the mark. It was 82/18, 84/16; Hillary was going to dominate. After Trump won I kept asking myself how my dear New York Times could have gotten it so wrong.

What kinds of things will you do in the future to improve the accuracy of these types of polls?
— Andy F., in Vietnam

Because I’m not a polling expert, I asked Amanda Cox, who as the editor of The Upshot oversees much of this coverage, for her insight. She responded to your question about how something with 16 percent odds — in this case Mr. Trump winning the presidency — could have happened:

Sixteen percent is like rolling a die and looking for a three to come up. If it happened, you might feel surprised — chances were against you — but you wouldn’t feel like the entire system was broken.

But I also understand that lots of our readers do feel let down, and that saying it was probability, not prophecy, doesn’t help them …

I still believe that “What do all these polls mean?” is basically a noble question, and that models are a rigorous and disciplined way to think about it.

I personally think polls can provide useful information and insight. But regardless of where you come down on that issue, I can assure you that our editors are actively examining the lessons from the last election and are committed to using those insights to update our approach.

We’re going to do more to ensure we provide sufficient context to make sense of the polls and their limitations. (If you’re interested in reading a bit more, David Leonhardt, a Times opinion columnist and the founding editor of The Upshot, recently wrote a column on this subject.)

_____

Image
Readers expressed repeated interest in The Times’s coverage of climate change.Credit...The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview Survey, via Associated Press

How can The Times keep climate-change issues at the forefront of the news? Why is climate change not discussed when you have the opportunity to interview President Trump?
— Ryan Young, in San Francisco

Climate change is one of the most important stories of our time, and The Times is invested in covering it deeply and fully.

Last year, we created a new desk dedicated to showing how global climate shifts are driving economic, social and political changes and affecting the lives of people everywhere.

Our approach is to tell those stories in as many ways as we can. We’ve often turned to visuals because showing can be more powerful than telling, particularly when the science can be dense and complicated, and the scale of these challenges can make them feel abstract.

Our interactive graphics have revealed how quickly ice is melting in Antarctica, how extreme heat is spreading around the globe and how Alaska’s permafrost is thawing. We’ve used drone video to capture vivid portraits of places like Jakarta, Indonesia, where we showed how the city is sinking so rapidly that it may soon be underwater. In a year marked by a surge of extreme weather like heat waves, hurricanes and wildfires, we used explanatory video to help explain the underlying science.

At the same time, our reporters have been aggressively covering the Trump administration’s actions on climate, like the push to roll back environmental regulations and how that benefits the oil and gas industry. Eric Lipton and Lisa Friedman have been doing remarkable work investigating the changes at the Environmental Protection Agency. Throughout all this, we have asked tough questions about these topics in interviews with the president and members of his administration — we’ve even taken the administration to court to force them to release information — and we will continue to do so.

_____

How do you plan to face the enormous pressure your president is putting on those who independently criticize him in the U.S.?
— Marco A. Silva Mendoza, in Mexico City

The same way we face all pressure: through independent, deeply reported and scrupulously fair journalism, without fear or favor.

_____

I love The Times’s news coverage, but I’m chagrined to find so many typographical errors in your articles. Please, can you bring your copy editors back? The errors distract from the stories.
— Lisl Christie, in Santa Rosa, Calif.

First, allow me to correct the record a bit. While we no longer have a separate copy-desk operation, the majority of our copy editors are still on staff, and still editing copy. But we did significantly change our editing system for the first time in many decades, for two reasons.

First, we felt our editing systems and processes needed to be updated to meet the evolving needs of an increasingly digitally focused newsroom. Second, in recent years, largely because of uneven staff turnover, the number of editors had grown significantly larger in relation to the number of reporters, and it was necessary to rebalance a bit so we could put more reporters in the field.

Many people, both inside and outside the Times building, were upset with the changes. I understand that. It’s been hard to shift how we work, and it was painful to say goodbye to some longtime colleagues. But as the world changes, The Times must change, too.

As for any mistakes you’re seeing: Every week we publish about the number of words you’ll find in the complete works of William Shakespeare. Despite considerable efforts, it’s inevitable that some typos, misspellings and grammatical errors will make their way into our report. We’re tracking the effects of our new editing system closely, and the changes have indeed resulted in a modest uptick of such errors. As we continue to refine our systems, we remain confident that the errors will decrease over the coming months.

Finally, it’s worth saying that even with the editing changes, The Times has the largest and best trained staff of editors of any newspaper. Every piece of journalism we publish is read carefully by at least two experienced editors. I believe that if you compare our pages with those of other news organizations, you’ll find that ours display the highest standards of quality.

That said, we know our readers rightfully have incredibly high expectations, and we will continue to strive to do better.

_____

Image
“Though many newspapers have cut back on print, we’ve gone the opposite direction — adding new special sections like Puzzle Mania!, The New York Times for Kids and The Lost Children of Tuam,” Mr. Sulzberger writes.Credit...Stephen Hiltner/The New York Times; illustration by The New York Times

I’m worried about the future of the printed version of your paper. I subscribe online (because I can’t get daily delivery), but I also purchase the Friday paper at a newsstand and get the Sunday paper through home delivery. Although you can’t foretell the future, what would cause The Times to abandon its printed form, especially outside the New York City area?
— Andy Candor, in Fort Wayne, Ind.

I get asked this question all the time, which is a reminder of how much people still love the experience of reading the printed newspaper. And it’s easy to understand why — curling up on the couch with the Sunday paper is one of the highlights of my week.

The good news is that with a million deeply loyal subscribers, we expect the print paper to be around for a long, long time. Though many newspapers have cut back on print, we’ve gone the opposite direction — adding new special sections like Puzzle Mania!, The New York Times for Kids and The Lost Children of Tuam.

My advice would be to ignore the predictions of the end of print — we’ve been hearing them for more than two decades now and the paper is still going strong.

_____

I am a senior citizen who has been reading The Times for more years than I can count! I look forward to this on a daily basis. However, I cannot afford the price increases! I have had to cut back to Sunday only, and read on my iPad.

Why are you offering new subscribers a discount, and not thinking about people like myself, who have supported you and your paper for years?
— June Laben, in Stamford, Conn.

Thank you for your being such a loyal reader, and I’m truly sorry to hear that the print edition is becoming too expensive for you. Maybe it will help to explain why newspaper prices have been rising and where your subscription dollars go.

Basically, it’s as simple as this: Great journalism is really expensive, and right now we rely on subscriptions to pay for this important work.

We employ more than 1,450 journalists who scour the world for the most important stories and then bring them to life in the most creative and compelling ways. We put reporters on the ground in more than 150 countries every year.

We maintain a full-time presence in dangerous places like Iraq and Afghanistan and support journalists doing hard and important work covering war, natural disasters and genocide.

We employ experts in countless fields — our staff includes people with backgrounds in law, medicine, business, science, economics, statistics, the military and more — whose skills, training and experiences allow them to bring you information and insights others can’t.

We’re also one of the few news organizations that still give reporters months to dig into a single story — I’m not sure there is anywhere else where a reporter would be given 18 months to chronicle the life of one homeless girl.

As print advertising has declined, we’ve had to find new ways to support all of this hard and expensive work. Fortunately, our readers have largely been willing to fill that gap. Ultimately, for less than the cost of a subway ride each day, a print subscription brings you stories and insights from every corner of the globe — so I hope that when you do pay for The Times, you’ll never question the value you’re getting.

Thank you again for reading and supporting what we do.

_____

The Times has covered more issues and given more space and images to people of color and women in its coverage this past year. But many times the coverage is from white people. (For example, in a feature about recipes for Kwanzaa during the holiday, the only African-American cook represented wasn’t even alive anymore!)

Will the journalists, editors, illustrators and photographers employed to do work for The Times be representative of the growing population of black, brown and female Americans and be more representative in your leadership beyond a few examples?

If your staff and folks that work for you do not represent the nation’s evolving demographics, you are not doing enough. I would hope you would move into the 21st century with regards to your hiring policies and who is represented by and in your media. Will you?
— Folayemi Wilson, in Chicago

Diversity is front of mind for me as I step into this new role. And that’s not just for moral reasons; it’s because our mission is to help people understand the world, which means our report must be informed by a wide range of backgrounds, lived experiences and perspectives.

In general, I’m proud of our record on diversity. About half of the desks in our newsroom are run by women. And as we’ve increased our hiring over the last year, more than 60 percent of new hires have been women and more than 35 percent are people of color. At the same time we’ve expanded our coverage of gender and race.

But I also believe we can do better. To point to one obvious example, our lineup of columnists still needs to be more diverse. I’m committed to working with leadership throughout The Times to continue pushing for real, visible progress over the next few years. I think it will make our journalism better and our business stronger.

_____

Image
Nicholas Kristof’s “commitment to writing about less-covered issues like the plight of the Rohingya (an issue he’s been warning the world about for years) is something I admire deeply,” Mr. Sulzberger writes.Credit...Tomas Munita for The New York Times

The power of the press lies not just in how stories are written but in which stories are published. With the financial challenges that print faces, it’s harder to make choices that don’t necessarily cater to what readers think they want. I worry some important sections may alter or disappear if modern audiences feel they’re not interesting.

How do you sustainably balance what the public wants to read with what you feel the public should know?
— Andrea, in New York City

My grandfather Punch Sulzberger used to say that people don’t come to The Times for news, they come for judgment. I believe that deeply.

There are countless other news organizations and social media platforms obsessed with giving the public exactly what it wants to read. At The Times, our reporters and editors spend their days asking: What does the public need to know?

That our business is supported by the loyalty of our readers makes this easier for us. We don’t need to chase clicks. Our subscribers have made clear that they want original, expert journalism that they can’t read anywhere else.

I was talking about this the other day with Nick Kristof, our longtime columnist. At a moment when so many journalists and commentators are writing about the same few stories, he keeps going to parts of the world whose stories aren’t being told to shine a spotlight on injustice and suffering. His commitment to writing about less-covered issues like the plight of the Rohingya (an issue he’s been warning the world about for years) is something I admire deeply.

These stories don’t always get the most buzz or the highest readership, but at an institution dedicated to helping you understand the world, we view them as central to our mission.

_____

How has working for, with, and ultimately succeeding your father shaped you as a leader?
— David, in Plymouth, Mass.

My father accomplished much during his 25 years as publisher, so there is a lot I could talk about here. But to me, his most important legacy is that he never wavered from investing in great journalism. Even as other newsrooms were drastically cut in recent years, he made additional investments that ensured The Times’s newsroom was stronger than ever.

That was not the easy or obvious choice; it took bravery and vision. I feel lucky to have gotten to see that commitment up close, and it will continue to be my North Star.

_____

You write, “In the inevitable moments we fall short, we will continue to own up to our mistakes, and we’ll strive to do better.” What is your analysis of where and how The New York Times has fallen short during the rise and reign of Trumpism?
— Hannes Schaser, in Arlington, Va.

In general, I feel very good about our coverage of Trump’s campaign and his administration. It’s been aggressive, smart, revealing and fair.

But we could always do better. To give one specific example, we’ve made clear that our reporting did not fully capture the anger, frustration and alienation around the country that helped fuel Trump’s rise. Over the last year, we assigned some of our best people to cover “red state” America, and they’ve done valuable and illuminating work.

This is not a one-time adjustment — we are committed to this coverage going forward — and I think having experienced reporters talking to voters in every part of the country will make our report stronger as we head into the next election cycle.

_____

How do you believe your relative youth will help you steer the nation’s most respected newspaper, which is more a platform today than the traditional “paper”?
— Alonzo Byrd, in East St. Louis, Ill.

This is a question I’m getting a lot these days. I think people are trying to find a polite way to ask whether I’m in over my head.

One thing I should point out to start is that the publisher is just one part of a larger leadership team. And with experienced leaders like Mark Thompson, Dean Baquet, James Bennet, Meredith Levien and many others, I have the support of the best in the business.

But there are also some ways that being young for a role like this has advantages. The most important is that I’m keenly aware that I need to continue to learn and grow, which I believe is essential in a world that is changing this fast. (In fact, I think it’s essential for anyone, of any age or experience, who works in the media business.)

Another is that it wasn’t too long ago when I was out in the field as a reporter. Being deeply connected to the reality on the ground and having relationships with people at all levels of the company give me an extra layer of insight and empathy that can be really useful.

_____

Hello Mr. Sulzberger! My name is Crystal Choi and I was recently chosen to serve as the editor in chief of my school’s Journalism Club.

I wanted to say that I was very inspired by your statement on continuing on the mission of The New York Times in this day and age of manipulated mass media. Through the years, our club lost direction and isn’t in the best place right now, but after reading your letter, I am encouraged to help spark up a new flame as I strongly value the culture and skill sets that healthy journalism cultivates.

I know school journalism isn’t much, but I hope our club can shadow your vision as best as possible and I look forward to continuing to see the great, unbiased and informative content of The New York Times. Thank you!
— Crystal Choi, in Puyallup, Wash.

Thanks, Crystal. I’m so pleased to hear that you read my note.

Student journalism is both important and a great way to start learning about reporting and editing. I got my start in journalism under the tutelage of a great teacher named Bob Montera — thanks, Mr. Montera! — and many of my colleagues around The Times got their first journalism experience as students, too.

We’re wishing you and your classmates lots of luck in the years ahead. The world needs more young people who are committed to the values that make great journalism possible.

Follow the Reader Center on Twitter: @ReaderCenter.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Our Publisher on Trust and Integrity. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT