Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…And it has always been a male heir that has become the publisher now through five generations, even though there are plenty of daughters in the family. Gay Talese, a great writer from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, who actually worked as a reporter at The New York Times for a while, wrote the definitive book about The New York Times. I think it came out in 1969, called The Kingdom and the Power. Which I don't think the family loved. Like this one, I was reading The Trust from about right around year 2000, referring to The Kingdom and the Power. I think he was always—after he released that—kept it a little bit at arm's length. He writes about this. He says, “How long The Times would survive would depend largely on how well Ochs’s heirs got along in the decades ahead. He knows this. Nothing would crumble his foundation faster than family squabbles, selfish ambition, or short-sighted goals. His successors would have to make money but not be enticed by it, would have to keep up with the trends but not be carried away by them, would have to hire talented people but not people so talented or egocentric that they could become too special as writers, or indispensable as editors.”…

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