Ben Gilbert: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Yeah, crazy. So Sulzberger took over in 1935. He remained publisher until 1961. He does many things. He's a great publisher stored at The Times, sort of transitional from the Ochs period to more modern New York Times. He makes it a little more readable, the paper. He adds a style section and the crossword puzzle. He expands distribution. But it's really during World War II, which is during his time as publisher that I would say probably is both the best of The Times’ history and also the worst all in World War II that we should talk about. The best is that the raw materials for newspaper production were rationed during the war, ink, paper, other material, et cetera. There was only a limited space that newspapers could publish. Most newspapers decided to cut back on reporting, and keep their advertising load. The Times vastly cut back on advertising and up the war reporting, and really became the foremost chronicler of World War II. Which this is definitely a playbook thing for them. I don't know if they have intentionally done this in modern eras because they learned from this time when it went well for them, but The Times now has a pattern of buying low when others are selling, in particular, investing in high quality journalism when the industry is going through terrible financial times. Totally, and famously (as we’ll get to), they did not lay off any reporting staff in 2008–2009 when every other paper did. So this culminates in—this is amazing—science reporter for The Times, William Laurence, is the only journalist given access to the Manhattan Project as it's going on during the war. He ultimately writes in The Times and then (I believe) books afterwards, sort of the official history of the Manhattan Project. He's the only journalist that witnesses the dropping of the bomb in Nagasaki.…

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