Here is the official link to the newspaper

http://www.nytimes.com/

Target Audience of the New york times

The target audience is an intelligent, general-interest adult reader.  

The International Weekly represents the best writing, photography and graphics of The New York Times, including pages devoted to business, science, arts and international news, and is distributed in 35 papers across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, reaching more than 6 million readers each week. 

Why Newspapers Are Betting on Audience Participation

For years those words evoked the romanticism of the newspaper business, back when swashbuckling reporters landed scoops with derring-do. Today they mean something else entirely, at least here where the people at The News & Record, the local daily, are toiling to reinvent their newspaper. 

In this world, "Get me rewrite" will in effect be a menu option, a way for unhappy readers to go online and offer their own versions of articles they do not like. Their hope is to convert the paper, through its Web site, www.news-record.com, into a virtual town square, where citizens have a say in the news and where every reader is a reporter. 

This feature, part of a planned overhaul of The News & Record's Web site that is to begin next week, is a potent symbol of a transformation taking place across the country, where top-down, voice-of-God journalism is being challenged by what is called participatory journalism, or civic or citizen journalism. 

Under this model, readers contribute to the newspaper. And they are doing so in many forms, including blogs, photos, audio, video and podcasts. 

Whether such efforts can revive revenue for newspaper publishers is an open question. But with gloomy financial forecasts and declines in circulation, some papers are starting to see participatory journalism as their hope for reconnecting with their audiences. 

In some cases, like Backfence.com, in suburban Virginia, citizens are the only contributors, and the "newspaper" is an unedited Web site. In Bluffton, S.C., Blufftontoday.com is made up largely of reader contributions, but some of the content is also published in a colorful tabloid newspaper and distributed free to residents. In Colorado, The Rocky Mountain News is creating 39 local Web sites under the umbrella of YourHub.com, with most of the material intended to come from readers. 

The Commercial Appeal in Memphis has community sections on its Web site written by readers but edited by the newspaper. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., has set up a blog for readers to hash over the paper's daily coverage.

Recently, The Los Angeles Times briefly opened its editorial page so readers could go online and insert their own thoughts in editorials. The approach was patterned after Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia made up of contributions from anyone with something to say. But as the newspaper discovered, there are perils in being so open. Its experiment lasted only two days, before obscene pictures were posted on the Web site, prompting the paper to shut it down.

Nearly all newspapers have been troubled by a range of substantially similar worries: the loss of 18-to-34-year-old readers; the loss of trust in conventional news media; and the emergence of technology, especially blogs, that make it easy for ordinary people to barge into the old media's one-way conversation.

Lex Alexander, an investigative reporter and editor who is overseeing The News & Record's transition, said all the long-term trends for the newspaper were troubling unless it did something different.

The paper, with a circulation around 100,000 that has not increased significantly for almost two decades, has been open about its audience-participation plans, discussing them with readers and seeking direction from them along the way.

Greensboro, a city of 229,000 in the gently rolling hills of central North Carolina with seven colleges nearby, was fertile territory for the town square idea. "Greensboro had a pretty strong blogosphere before we came on the scene, and we were trying to understand it and fit in," said John Robinson, the paper's 52-year-old editor, who has been the engine behind the transformation here.

"They were commenting on civic affairs and what the city council did and all the dumb things The News & Record did, and that annoyed me because they were misinformed," he said. "But they were scooping us. They knew things that were going on that we didn't, in the schools and other places. There was power in what they were doing."

The city has always had its subversive aspects. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1800's, and it is where black students in 1960 staged the first sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter to protest segregation, a movement that spread across the South.

Now, a popular site called www.Greensboro101.com provides residents with what it calls an alternative media hub. Mr. Robinson is considering joining forces with Greensboro101 to pursue an investigation on local water quality that the Web site has begun.

Yet there is fierce competition with bloggers. Several local politicians blog, including Sandy Carmany, a member of the City Council, who blogs in near-real time, and who scooped The News & Record recently on the city budget. Last week, when a News & Record reporter called Tom Phillips, another councilman, for comment on the paper's exclusive information that Wal-Mart was coming to town, Mr. Phillips turned around and broke the news on his own blog.

Greensboro is also home to Ed Cone, a well-known blogger (www.EdCone.com) who writes a column for The News & Record and who is widely credited with encouraging Mr. Robinson to join in the fun.

"They link off-site to other bloggers and they recognize amateurs and independents," Mr. Cone said. "That's the fascinating thing they're doing - they're participating on the Web rather than just using the Web."

Mr. Alexander has proposed several ways for the paper to become interactive, including blogs for all staff members; blogs of daily meetings where articles are planned for the next day's paper; venues for readers to participate, from writing articles to adding comments to obituaries; links from news stories to original sources; letters to the editor online to enable reader discussion about them; and a permanent free archive.

"We're being friendly as opposed to bureaucratic," said Dick Barron, 48, a business reporter.

At this stage, though, enthusiasm in the newsroom for the town square initiative has outstripped the online reality. Charles Stafford, the strategic development manager, said developing the Web site turned out to be a bigger job than the editors had imagined. And management has not yet thrown in more money or staff members.

The unveiling of the new site was bumped back throughout the spring and is now planned on July 11. The site's participatory aspects will not be available until a few months later.

Robin Saul, president and publisher of The News & Record, said the paper was waiting for more marks of success before putting money into the online project and was likely to put it into the sales staff first. "You don't invest resources until you're sure there will be a return," he said. Ann Morris, the managing editor, acknowledged that the business model is "what we lose sleep over."

"Advertisers are very conservative," Ms. Morris said. "And the idea that we're going to be able to bridge this gap from traditional department store retail advertising to all sorts of different ways of generating revenue online - through e-mail, through selling databases, through things we haven't even thought of yet - that's a big bridge."

Steve Outing, who has chronicled the online news industry for Editor & Publisher and is a senior editor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said he was not troubled by what he called the Greensboro paper's "unimpressive" start.

"I don't think we're anywhere near figuring this citizen journalism/grass-roots media thing out," he said in an e-mail message. "I do think that if news organizations think that they're going to have everybody be amateur (nonpaid) 'journalists,' they need to think again."

He said people were generally intimidated by the idea of writing news articles but, as the reaction to the Asian tsunami demonstrated, they were comfortable sharing their experiences, particularly photographs.

"I think when we figure out a better way to entice people, to make it worth their while to contribute, then citizen media will start to show promise," he said. "And I think we'll eventually see some business models come out of this that work."

In the Greensboro newsroom, more than a dozen reporters and editors are writing blogs, and many others are participating in video and audio feeds. Jennifer Fernandez and Bruce Buchanan, the two education reporters, began one of the first blogs, called Chalkboard. They said they got so many requests for information that the task of keeping the blog current sometimes meant they did not write articles they might otherwise produce for the paper.

Mr. Buchanan said he was positive about the blog. "It's gotten people excited about the paper and made them feel they have a stake in it."

In May, the blogs received more than 332,000 page views, up from 295,000 in April. But reader comments are still sparse. More lively is the paper's online message board, where readers, who can post items anonymously, offer short spurts of unedited opinion on local topics ranging from jobs with Federal Express to treatment for crack addicts.

While the reader contribution section of the Web site is not yet in full operation, readers can make submissions under a "sneak peek" preview section - even if few have yet.

One, T. W. Caudle, who wrote about his grandson's grand slam home run at a local baseball game, had submitted his article to the print newspaper, but it ran only online. His wife, Shelby, said the family was disappointed that the story did not appear in print because more people might have read it.

"I didn't even know you could see the paper on the computer," Mrs. Caudle said. She said she subscribed to the paper because she liked reading the obituaries and editorials.

Many submissions are oriented toward community service, like a recent announcement seeking families to play host to students from abroad. The announcement was submitted by Virgil Renfroe, who teaches writing to college students and who, at 28, is in the demographic heart of the paper's target audience. When the announcement ran in the print paper, he did not get any responses. Then he put it online and got five replies.

"So there are people online who are looking," he said, but added that he was not one of them. Nor, ominously for The News & Record, does he read the print version either, explaining, "I'm not that interested in local stuff."

While the outreach to readers raises questions about the fundamental role of newspapers, and whether they should be leading readers or following them, Mr. Alexander, who is overseeing the online project, said The News & Record was by no means ceding control. "If we came across a story that needed to be done but would make a lot of people unhappy, we'd still do it," he said. "And we'd still take the heat."

Mr. Cone, the blogger, said that a paper's authority came from "accuracy, authenticity and trust," not from how it was produced. "They haven't given up authority," he said of The News & Record. "They've gained it."

Ownership

The Ochs-Sulzberger family, one of the United States's newspaper dynasties, has owned The New York Times since 1896.^[13] After the publisher went public in the 1960s, the family continued to exert control through its ownership of the vast majority of Class B voting shares. Class A shareholders are permitted restrictive voting rights while Class B shareholders are allowed open voting rights. Dual-class structures caught on in the mid-20th century as families such as the Grahams of The Washington Post Company sought to gain access to public capital without losing control. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, had a similar structure and was controlled by the Bancroft family; the company was later bought by the News Corporation in 2007.

The Ochs-Sulzberger family trust controls roughly 88 percent of the company's class B shares. Any alteration to the dual-class structure must be ratified by six of eight directors who sit on the board of the Ochs-Sulzberger family trust. The Trust board members are Daniel H. Cohen, James M. Cohen, Lynn G. Dolnick, Susan W. Dryfoos, Michael Golden, Eric M. A. Lax, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and Cathy J. Sulzberger.

Turner Catledge, the top editor at The New York Times for almost two decades, wanted to hide the ownership influence. Sulzberger routinely wrote memos to his editor, each containing suggestions, instructions, complaints, and orders. When Catledge would receive these memos he would erase the publisher's identity before passing them to his subordinates. Catledge thought that if he removed the publisher's name from the memos it would protect reporters from feeling pressured by the owner.

The New York Times headquarters 620 Eighth Avenue 

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published inNew York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any news organization. Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month.

Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well as the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (as have other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily.^[5] Nicknamed "the Old Gray Lady",^[6] and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record",^[7] The New York Timesis owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman isArthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.

The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, Home, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography.

Access to the newspaper's online content is through a metered paywall which was put into place in 2011. Frequent users (over 20 articles per month; to be halved to 10 per month from April, 2012) have to purchase digital subscriptions, unless they are subscribers to the print edition. Access remains free for light users. There are also apps to access content for various mobile devices, such as Android devices and Apple's iOS platform.

History

The Times Square Building, The New York Times' headquarters from 1913 to 2007 

The New York Times was founded on September 18, 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond, who was then a Whig and who would later be the second chairman of theRepublican National Committee, and former banker George Jones as the New-York Daily Times. Sold at an original price of one cent per copy, the inaugural edition attempted to address the various speculations on its purpose and positions that preceded its release:

We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good;—and we shall be Radical in everything which may seem to us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We do not believe that everything in Society is either exactly right or exactly wrong;—what is good we desire to preserve and improve;—what is evil, to exterminate, or reform.

The paper changed its name to The New York Times in 1857. The newspaper was originally published every day except Sunday, but on April 21, 1861, due to the demand for daily coverage of the Civil War, The New York Times, along with other major dailies, started publishing Sunday issues. One of the earliest public controversies in which the paper was involved was the Mortara Affair, an affair that was the object of 20 editorials in The New York Times alone.

The paper's influence grew during 1870–71, when it published a series of exposés of Boss Tweed that led to the end of the Tweed Ring's domination of New York's City Hall. In the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned from supporting Republican candidates to becoming politically independent; in 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential election. While this move hurt The New York Times' readership, the paper regained most of its lost ground within a few years. The New York Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, publisher of the Chattanooga Times, in 1896. The following year, he coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print";^[13]this was a jab at competing papers such as Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal which were known for lurid yellow journalism. Under his guidance, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, and reputation. In 1904,The New York Times received the first on-the-spot wireless transmission from a naval battle, a report of the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Yellow Sea from the press-boat Haimun during the Russo-Japanese war. In 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began.The New York Times' first trans-Atlantic delivery to London occurred in 1919. In 1920, a "4 A.M. Airplane Edition" was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening.^[14]

In the 1940s, the paper extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the fashion section in 1946.The New York Times began an international edition in 1946. The international edition stopped publishing in 1967, when The New York Timesjoined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to publish the International Herald Tribune in Paris. The paper bought a classical radio station (WQXR) in 1946.In addition to owning WQXR, the newspaper also formerly owned its AM sister, WQEW(1560 AM). The classical music radio format was simulcast on both frequencies until the early 1990s, when the big-band and standards music format of WNEW-AM (now WBBR) moved from 1130 AM to 1560. The AM radio station changed its call letters from WQXR toWQEW. By the beginning of the 21st century, The New York Times was leasing WQEW to ABC Radio for its Radio Disney format, which continues on 1560 AM. Disney became the owner of WQEW in 2007.On July 14, 2009 it was announced that WQXR was to be sold toWNYC, who on October 8, 2009 moved the station to 105.9 FM and began to operate the station as a non-commercial.

The New York Times is third in national circulation, after USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is owned by The New York Times Company, in which descendants of Adolph Ochs, principally the Sulzberger family, maintain a dominant role. As of December 26, 2010, the paper reported a circulation of 906,100 copies on weekdays and 1,356,800 copies on Sundays.^[19]According to a 2009 The New York Times article circulation has dropped 7.3 percent to about 928,000; this is the first time since the 1980s that it has fallen under one million.^[5] In the New York City metropolitan area, the paper costs $2.50 Monday through Saturday and $5 on Sunday. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.^[20][21]

In 2009, The New York Times began production of local inserts in regions outside of the New York area. Beginning October 16, 2009, a two-page "Bay Area" insert was added to copies of the Northern California edition on Fridays and Sundays. The New York Times commenced production of a similar Friday and Sunday insert to the Chicago edition on November 20, 2009. The inserts consist of local news, policy, sports, and culture pieces, usually supported by local advertisements.

In addition to its New York City headquarters, The New York Times has 10 news bureaus in New York State, 11 national news bureaus and 26 foreign news bureaus.^] The New York Times reduced its age width to 12 inches (300 mm) from 13.5 inches (340 mm) on August 6, 2007, adopting the width that has become the U.S. newspaper industry standard.

Because of its steadily declining sales attributed to the rise of online alternative media and social media, The New York Times has been going through a downsizing for several years, offering buyouts to workers and cutting expenses, in common with a general trend among print newsmedia.

The newspaper's first building was located at 113 Nassau Street in New York City. In 1854, it moved to 138 Nassau Street, and in 1858 it moved to 41 Park Row, making it the first newspaper in New York City housed in a building built specifically for its use.^[24] The paper moved its headquarters to1475 Broadway in 1904, in an area called Long Acre Square, that was renamed to Times Square. The top of the building is the site of the New Year's Eve tradition of lowering a lighted ball, that was started by the paper. The building is also notable for its electronic news ticker, where headlines crawled around the outside of the building. It is still in use,^[when?] but is not operated by The New York Times. After nine years in Times Square, an Annex was built at 229 West 43rd Street. After several expansions, it became the company's headquarters in 1913, and the building on Broadway was sold in 1961. Until June 2007, The New York Times, from which Times Square gets its name, was published at offices at West 43rd Street. It stopped printing papers there on June 15, 1997.

The newspaper remained at that location until June 2007, when it moved three blocks south to 620 Eighth Avenue between West 40th and 41st Streets, in Manhattan. The new headquarters for the newspaper, The New York Times Building, is a skyscraper designed by Renzo Piano.

Style

When referring to people, The New York Times generally uses honorifics, rather than unadorned last names (except in the sports pages, Book Review and Magazine). It stayed with an eight-column format until September 1976, years after other papers had switched to six,^[44]and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography, with the first color photograph on the front page appearing on October 16, 1997.^[45] In the absence of a major headline, the day's most important story generally appears in the top-right hand column, on the main page. The typefaces used for the headlines are custom variations of Cheltenham. The running text is set at 8.7 point Imperial.^[46]

Joining a roster of other major American newspapers in recent^[when?] years, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, The New York Times announced on July 18, 2006, that it would be narrowing the width of its paper by six inches. In an era of dwindling circulation and significant advertising revenue losses for most print versions of American newspapers, the move, which was also announced would result in a 5 percent reduction in news coverage, would have a target savings of $12 million a year for the paper.^[47] The change from the traditional 54 inches (1.4 m) broadsheet style to a more compact 48-inch web width was addressed by both Executive Editor Bill Keller and The New York Times President Scott Heekin-Canedy in memos to the staff. Keller defended the "more reader-friendly" move indicating that in cutting out the "flabby or redundant prose in longer pieces" the reduction would make for a better paper. Similarly, Keller confronted the challenges of covering news with "less room" by proposing more "rigorous editing" and promised an ongoing commitment to "hard-hitting, ground-breaking journalism".^[48] The official change went into effect on August 6, 2007.^[49]

The New York Times printed a display advertisement on its first page on January 6, 2009, breaking tradition at the paper.^[50] The advertisement for CBS was in color and was the entire width of the page.^[51] The newspaper promised it would place first-page advertisements on only the lower half of the page.^[50]