Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…Totally. In 2001 on the 150th anniversary issue, former executive editor at the time, Max Frankel, wrote the title article on that, and he says, “Then there was failure none greater than this staggering, staining failure of The New York Times to depict Hitler's methodical extermination of the Jews of Europe, as a horror beyond all other horrors in World War II. A Nazi war within the war crying out for elimination, and that obviously The Times did chose not to illuminate.” Yeah, heavy stuff. Listeners, I will say this is something that David and I both realized in the research. My initial reaction was, do you really want to talk about this on this episode? It's heavy. It's different from us talking about tech multiples. It is commendable that The Times—albeit 50 years later—did self-reflect on this and realize that, hey we got to own up to this. Maybe they did in earlier times as well but frankly reflects positively on an organization, especially one that was owned by the same family and the same people, and all those people were still alive to be self-critical. And for us, frankly, to not have to go out on a limb on this episode and criticize The Times but to be able to just quote them being critical of themselves, yeah, it's meaningful. While we're on the subject of criticism of The Times, too, I think it's obvious that we also need to say here. We've talked a little bit about discrimination against women within the company, also against people of color. It was not only Iphigene who was obviously qualified to become the publisher—it was her husband, she just passed over to her husband. The first woman reporter joined The Times in 1912, Jean Grant, to report on Society. She had to fight her way into this city staff, and then the management made it clear, you will never be an editor here, that's just not going to happen. She ended up leaving the organization, started New York Magazine, and then became a leader in the women's rights movement. Screw you guys. For decades, women were relegated to basically just a society and style sections. The New York Times wouldn't hire its first black reporter until 1945. That person wouldn't even last that long. Then in 1974 women reporters filed a class action lawsuit against The Times for discrimination and wage bias. In 1977, minority reporters sued for the same thing. The Times settled on both of those cases. Today, of course, Dean Baquet’s a Black man, the Executive Editor, the CEO of The Times is a woman. Last year they won the Pulitzer for the 1619 Project. Things are different now. We have to point out and I think The Times would point out, too, that there was not always—…

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