苏兹贝格家族为何应该卖掉《纽约时报》

    最近，《纽约》杂志刊登的长篇文章深入报道了《纽约时报》的发行人宝座争夺战，争夺者要么姓苏兹贝格，要么是现任发行人的亲戚。这篇文章很棒，它探讨了媒体和一家豪门（也许仅次于默多克家族）的最深层关系，所有的内斗都是围绕谁家的侄子、外甥或表兄弟该上位，还剖析了苏兹贝格家族作为《纽约时报》掌控者所感受到的那份高贵责任。

    不过，这篇文章中有一处明显失误。它认为：“挑选下一任发行人也许是《纽约时报》面临的最关键挑战。”事实远非如此。对苏兹贝格家族的各个支系来说，挑选发行人可能都是最关键的挑战，但对《纽约时报》本身来说，这件事还远算不上最重要的挑战。

    《纽约时报》面临的挑战实际上和所有传统媒体机构一样，比如《华盛顿邮报》、时代公司（《财富》杂志的拥有者）以及CBS等电视业巨头。几家新闻机构把持着为数不多的几个传播平台，进而垄断这些平台带来的广告收入，这样的时代已经一去不复返。还不清楚《纽约时报》将在新时代扮演什么样的角色。它会基本上沦为Facebook等其他平台的新闻来源吗？

    都是因为姓氏

    鉴于《纽约时报》及其新闻事业的根基面临着如此巨大的挑战，现在真的应该让创始家族的第五代成员继续掌权吗？我觉得不应该。实际上，从某种意义上讲，这是他们最不该掌权的时候（顺便说一下，默多克家族和新闻集团基本上也是这种情况）。

    总的来说，《纽约时报》的三位候选发行人都很聪明，也都很有闯劲。现任发行人的儿子亚瑟•格雷格•苏兹贝格协助编写了一份内部创新报告，其中罗列了《纽约时报》面临的挑战；拥有哈佛MBA学位的戴维•珀皮奇是现任发行人的侄辈，他参与建立了网上收费业务；山姆•多尔尼克，现任发行人表亲的儿子，则一直负责手机App等业务。

    New York magazine had a long, in-depth piece recently about the race for the publisher’s seat at the New York Times, a race that consists solely of people whose last name is Sulzberger, or who are otherwise related to the current publisher. It’s a great look at the closest thing that the media world has to a royal family (next to the Murdochs, perhaps), with all of the in-fighting over whose nephew or cousin will advance, and a glimpse of the noblesse oblige the Sulzbergers feel as stewards of the Times.

    There’s one glaring error in the story, however: At one point, it says “the selection of the next publisher is perhaps the most critical challenge facing the Times.” This is not even close to being true. Choosing a publisher may be the most critical challenge facing the various branches of the Sulzberger family, but it’s nowhere near the most important challenge for the newspaper company itself.

    The challenge facing the New York Times is the same one that virtually every traditional media entity is facing, whether it’s the Washington Post, or Time Inc. (which owns Fortune) or even TV giants like CBS. The time when a handful of news outlets controlled the only platforms for distribution — and hence, the advertising revenue attached to those platforms — is gone. And it’s not clear what the NYT’s role is going to be in the new world. Will it be primarily a supplier of news to other platforms like Facebook FB 3.56% ?

    The name is the thing

    Given that kind of monumental challenge to the very foundations of the Times and its journalism, is this really the moment when the fifth generation of a founding family should be holding the reins? I would argue that it is not. In some ways, in fact, it is the worst possible time to do that (and many of these same arguments also apply to the Murdoch family and News Corp., incidentally).

    From most accounts, all three of the men in the running for the NYT publisher job are smart and driven. Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, son of the current publisher, helped put together the internal Innovation Report, which outlined the challenges facing the paper. David Perpich, the current publisher’s nephew, is a Harvard MBA and helped build the paywall for the paper. Sam Dolnick, the son of Sulzberger’s cousin, has worked on mobile apps, among other things.

    不过，尽管做出了上述贡献，但他们最有竞争力的条件，或者说让他们超越传媒界其他所有潜在候选人的条件，则是他们都和苏兹贝格家族沾亲带故。实际上，他们了解报刊运作方式或者互联网运作方式的能力只是次要因素。如果把这种能力作为最重要的选择标准，发行人这个位置就会落入旁人之手。

    在办报纸还很枯燥无味但会带来大笔稳定收入的时代，这样的“封建”体制，也就是由某个家族的各个支系来掌控如此庞大的传媒实体，也许还有些道理，但这已经成为了过去。同样的，在人们毫不知情的情况下，创始家族每年从《纽约时报》的利润中提取约2400万美元红利的日子也已经不复存在。

    格雷厄姆家族已经这样做了

    在不卖掉《纽约时报》的情况下，苏兹贝格家族能完成任务吗？也许吧。他们可以找一位拥有恰当能力的发行人，然后全权委托他不惜一切代价来做到这一点。但从某种程度上说，这也许比转让这份报纸还难以让苏兹贝格家族接受。同时，这位发行人会感受到来自于整个家族的压力，就像现任主编目前的情况一样。

    唐纳德•格雷厄姆的家族曾以类似的方式牢牢控制着《华盛顿邮报》，这要归功于神奇的一股多票制。2013年，格雷厄姆觉得自己再也不能继续拥有这份报纸了，遂将其转让给了亚马逊的杰夫•贝佐斯。格雷厄姆这样做是因为他不再相信或者不再关心《华盛顿邮报》了吗？绝非如此。恰恰相反，实际上，他决定卖掉这份报纸正是因为他觉得需要裁员并做出调整，但又下不了决心。

    这是怯懦吗？我不这么看。基于我对唐纳德•格雷厄姆的认识，以及和他身边熟人的接触，我想格雷厄姆认为贝佐斯是当前这个时代《华盛顿邮报》的最佳所有者。这不仅仅是因为贝佐斯很有钱，因而不太可能受到短期思路的左右，还因为他了解互联网，知道数字媒体正在如何改变内容发挥作用的方式。换句话说，贝佐斯具备帮助《华盛顿邮报》适应未来的手段和能力。

    《纽约时报》需要帮助

    苏兹贝格家族中有什么人拥有这样的手段和能力吗？也许有。但如果有这样的人，他就应该可以通过公开竞争来赢得这个职位，而不是采用《权力的游戏》中帝王交权的方式。让迈克尔•布隆伯格掌管《纽约时报》会好一些吗？未必，但布隆伯格至少会找到最合适的负责人，而不是姓苏兹贝格的最佳人选。

    《纽约时报》的网上收费业务也许非常成功，付费用户已经超过100万。然而，这样的业绩仍然很难弥补印刷版广告的损失，原因很简单，那就是印刷版读者的价值至少是网络读者的20倍。NYT Now等新App很受欢迎，但在创收方面尚无明显作为；在原生广告等领域，《纽约时报》截至目前也只是浅尝辄止。同时，编辑部依然人数众多，约有1300名成员。

    和其他所有面对这些挑战的传统媒体机构一样，《纽约时报》需要的不是对业务模式修修补补，它需要一次“重大手术”。有迹象显示，如果需要大举裁员，现任发行人也许愿意做出必要的牺牲，把这份报纸转让出去。为了《纽约时报》，我希望这些传闻属实。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    校对：詹妮

    Despite all that, however, their most compelling qualification for the job, and the one that has set them above every other potential candidate anywhere in the media world, is that they are related to someone named Sulzberger. In effect, their ability to understand the way newspapers work or the way the Internet works is secondary. If that was truly the most important decision criteria, someone else would have the job.

    Having a feudal structure in which various branches of a single family control the fate of such a massive media entity might have made sense when the newspaper business was a boring, dependable money-spinner, but those days are gone. And so are the days when a founding family could take $24 million or so out of the newspaper’s coffers every year in the form of dividends without anyone noticing.

    The Grahams did it

    Could the Sulzbergers achieve what they need to without selling the paper? Perhaps. They could search for a publisher with the right skills and then give them carte blanche to do whatever they needed to in order to succeed. But in some ways that might be even more difficult for the family to stomach than selling. And the publisher would feel the weight of all that combined family pressure, just as the current editor does now.

    Donald Graham, whose family had a similarly iron grip on the Washington Post — thanks to the magic of multiple-voting shares — decided in 2013 that he simply couldn’t continue as the owner, and sold to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Did Graham do this because he no longer believed in or cared about the Post? Not at all. Just the opposite, in fact: He decided to sellbecause he couldn’t bring himself to make the kinds of cuts and changes that he felt would be necessary.

    Was this cowardice? I don’t think so. Based on what I know about Don Graham, and conversations with those who know him, I think he believed Bezos was the best possible owner for the Post at a time like this. Not just because he is wealthy, and therefore not as likely to be driven by short-term thinking, but because he understands the Internet and how digital media is changing the way that content functions. In other words, he had the tools and the skills to help the Postadapt for the future.

    The Times needs help

    Do any of the Sulzbergers have those tools and skills? Perhaps. But if they do, then they should be able to win an open competition for the job, not be awarded it in the same way the king hands out jobs on Game of Thrones. Would Michael Bloomberg be any better a steward for the Times? Maybe not, but at least he would be looking for the best person to run it, not the best person named Sulzberger.

    The Times may have a tremendously successful paywall, with over a million paying subscribers, but even that is still barely making up for the loss of print advertising, for the simple reason that print readers are worth at least 20 times more than digital readers. New apps like NYT Now have been well received, but as yet aren’t making much in the way of revenue, and the paper has so far only tip-toed into areas like native advertising. Meanwhile, the newsroom is as large as it has ever been, at 1,300 or so.

    Like every other traditional media entity going through these challenges, the Times needs more than just a tweak to its business model here or there — it needs radical surgery. There have been hints that the current publisher might be willing to make the sacrifice required to sell the paper if large cuts necessary. For the sake of the Times, I hope those rumors are true.