The New York Times

Welcome to Civics and Coffee. My name is Alycia and I am a self-professed history nerd. Each week, I am going to chat about a topic on U.S history and give you both the highlights and occasionally break down some of the complexities in history; and share stories you may not remember learning in high school. All in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. 

INTRO MUSIC

Hey everyone, welcome back. 

Journalism and newspapers have been around in the United States since before there was a quote unquote United States. As a medium, journalism has evolved quite a bit from its early days. What started as highly partisan, emotionally driven arguments on broadsides meant for the elite has evolved into robust news organizations who have expanded into everything from digital editions, docuseries to podcasts. 

One such organization is the New York Times. First published in 1851, the New York Times is not the oldest national paper. It isn’t even the older New York Paper. However, it has a massive readership with the paper surpassing ten million subscribers in 2022. So it got me thinking, how did it all start?

So this week, I am diving into the history of the New York Times. How did it begin? Who were the founders? And what have been some of the paper’s major milestones?

Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let’s do this. 

As I mentioned in the opening of the episode, the New York Times is not the oldest newspaper in the country. That distinction belongs to the Hartford Courant, which first rolled off the presses in 1764. And neither is the Times the oldest paper in New York, as the New York Post predates the Times by fifty years. However, I think it is safe to say that the New York Times as a paper is more widely recognized than the Hartford Courant. And while the Post is definitely a popular press, it has transitioned into more tabloid than serious news. So how did the Times come together?

It all started as an idea between two men: Henry J Raymon and George Jones. Raymond was born on January 24, 1820 in a small town in Western New York. Not much is known about his youth, however Raymond did graduate from the University of Vermont in 1840 and went off to work in the newspaper business, finding employment with several papers in the decade run-up to the launch of his own paper. Raymond also got involved in politics, serving in the New York State Assembly right as the New York Times published their first issue. While working at the Times, Raymond also won a seat in Congress, serving from 1865 to 1867. 

It was while working at Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune that Raymond met the man who would later become his business partner, George Jones. Jones was born August 16, 1811 in Poultney, Vermont and had a brief residence in Ohio, apparently returning to his home state after the death of his parents. Like Raymond, very little is known about Jones’ time as a young man. I was unable to find any reference or record of Jones’ earning a college degree, but regardless of any formalized training, Jones too found himself working at the Tribune. However, unlike Raymond, George Jones had a personal connection to famed newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, having met him as a teenager when the two were working at the Northern Spectator newspaper. Apparently, Greeley asked Jones to help him support the establishment of his own paper - what would become The New York Tribune. In Greeley’s mind, the Tribune would be focused on abolition and politics. New York was a bustling city even in 1840 and Greeley had stiff competition, including the New York Herald. 

But despite the odds, Greeley moved forward and officially launched the Tribune in 1841. Jones opted to join the paper and lasted several years before he explored a career in banking. It wasn’t until his former co-worker Henry Raymond approached him with a new offer did George walk away from banking and into running a newspaper. 

There are a few different versions of the origin story of how, exactly, the New York Times came to be. One version, covered in a history written about the earliest days of the Times published in 1920 claims the origins of the New York Times came together due to a series of various circumstances. When Henry Raymond approached George Jones about starting a paper, he was serving in the state assembly and Jones was still employed in banking. As the story goes, there was a proposed law that would institute new regulations on the banking industry that would be unfavorable to Jones’ business. The deal was if the bill passed the legislature, Jones would join Raymond and establish the new paper. If the bill failed, Raymond would find another investor. As the fates had it, the bill passed, and George Jones left the financial world to invest his money into what would become the illustrious New York Daily Times. 

Another story, published much later in a Vermont based historical journal, claims that Raymond and Jones had been discussing the idea of starting their own paper for a while, but that it took a walk across the frozen Hudson River in 1850 to finally convince George to leave banking and invest his money into the paper. In this version of events, Jones indicated that if they proceeded with establishing a new paper, it should be modeled after Greeley’s Tribune. As the story went, Raymond agreed, and the two decided to move forward, establishing Raymond, Jones & Company in August 1851. 

One may wonder why, if the two men decided to establish their newspaper in the winter of 1850, that they waited until the following August to file the paperwork for their partnership. I am not entirely sure I trust either source implicitly, but whatever the true story is, by the fall of 1851, both Henry Raymond and George Jones were preparing for the launch of a periodical of their very own. Advancements in technology meant the cost of printing and distributing a newspaper had significantly dropped, however Jones and Raymond still required outside investors to help alleviate start-up costs. These investors were Edward Wesley, politician Christopher Morgan, and financial entrepreneur and also politician, Edward B Morgan. 

In developing the Times, Raymond and Jones made a commitment to be quote: “free from bigoted devotion to narrow interests,” end quote and to report the news in an unbiased manner. They would not champion the cause of one political party over the other and would not utilize their paper to try to make any political statements. Printing out of a small office located at 113 Nassau Street, the New York Daily Times officially hit the stands on September 18, 1851. The cost for an issue? A whopping one cent. In an article penned by Raymond, who acted as the editor of the periodical, the Times was due to be printed six days a week, going dark on Sundays, and would publish the news in a sensible manner. 

Critics of the paper claimed the Times would lend its pages to the advance of abolitionist activities and therefore was just another political news machine. Despite these charges, it appears the Times strived for fair and balanced reporting, which was a departure from the stiff competition of The Tribune and The Herald. In the earliest days of the Times, editions went off the press consistently six days a week, and eventually incorporated an extra evening edition, which was discontinued by the 1870s. The paper initially also published a weekly family times which was an effort to get the news out to more rural parts of the country. This too was discontinued in the 1870s as railroad expansion allowed for faster delivery of the daily paper. There was a lot experimentation in the early days of times. In addition to the family and evening editions, Times’ publishers put together a California times which was quote “put together whenever a mail boat happened to be sailing for San Francisco,” end quote and a campaign times during presidential years. 

At the end of its first year, the New York Daily Times counted a circulation of 26,000. This was not enough to make the paper profitable, so the price was doubled - from one cent to two. The increase initially caused a drop in circulation, but the paper made up for it in increased ad revenue. Subscriptions eventually rebounded and by 1857, the Times had 40,000 copies in circulation, the same year the periodical dropped Daily from its masthead. 

The renowned Sunday edition of the Times was introduced during the Civil War, as people anxiously awaited updates from the war front. The intense desire for up to date information led to the Times to help facilitate the Associated Press, of which the Times was a member, as the official receiver of news from the government relating to the war. Prior to this, the federal government would cherry pick who they shared information with. And in 1863, when the city of New York broke out in riots over the draft, the Times building was attacked given its pro-abolitionist leanings. Luckily for the owners, the rioters were fended off and quickly shifted their attention towards the Tribune. 

When founder and acting editor Henry Raymond died suddenly in 1869, George Jones stepped in to run the paper. The man who had always handled the business side of the periodical instituted several changes to cement the paper’s integrity and reputation throughout the country. The first, and probably the most surprising idea to modern listeners, was that Jones made sure the business side of the paper remained separate from the content they put out to the public. In his opinion, the paper had a responsibility to their readers to report the news as it was and that the content should not and would not be influenced by the bottom line. The one crusade Jones did take on was against the political machine boss William “Boss” Tweed. 

Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall, the party machine for the Democrats, had long held a major influence in party politics. But he was also corrupt. And so the New York Times, under the leadership of new editor George Jones, went about writing exposes about Tweed’s corruption. The political boss, unused to challenges, originally tried to undercut the paper’s validity and apparently offered Jones a bribe of $5 million to kill the story. Jones refused. During his tenure at the press, George Jones would set the standard for fair, tough journalism which helped increase the paper’s reputation, but did not always translate to a monetary windfall. Jones remained with the times until his death in 1891. 

Since then, the New York Times has landed a number of scoops, awards, and notoriety. The paper was the first to break the story of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and earned its first of over one hundred Pulitzer Prizes in 1918 due to the paper’s comprehensive coverage of World War I. Anne O’Hare McCormick won in 1936 for her work in Europe, making her the first woman at the Times to bring home the prestigious prize. As of this recording, the New York Times is the leader in Pulitizer wins, outpacing all other news organizations. 

Beyond awards, the New York Times has continued to expand its reach and influence in the world of journalism. The periodical went international in 1948 and introduced their now famous crossword in 1950. They introduced their op-ed column in 1970 and went national by 1980. In 1971, the Times began telling the story about the U.S. government’s involvement in Vietnam based on excerpts from what would become known as the Pentagon Papers. The documents were collected, copied, and distributed by Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst who was intimately familiar with the study and hoped to end what he believed to be an unjust war. 

The Times began publishing excerpts of the study and eventually found themselves on the wrong side of the Nixon administration who obtained an injunction against publication when they failed to convince the paper to voluntarily cease reporting on the story. The Times appealed the decision, believing they were within the First Amendment of the Constitution and that the government’s study was in the public interest. This led to the 6-3 decision from the Supreme Court in New York Times Co v. United States in favor of the paper, finding the Attorney General failed to meet the burden of proof necessary to allow an injunction. 

That wasn’t the end of the New York Times’ headline-making projects. I think you may have literally had to have lived under a rock for the last few years to NOT have heard about this, but in 2019, the Times released the 1619 Project. Now a book, the 1619 project originally appeared as a New York Times Magazine special edition. The 100 page periodical focused on the topic of slavery and the impact on American history through a new lens and was released on the 400 year anniversary of the first slave ships arriving in the country. The book remains a high point of debate and only further put the Times’ legacy into the spotlight. 

Today, the Times isn’t just a daily newspaper. It has proliferated seemingly everywhere, which is quite the feat considering the overwhelming decline in journalism revenues over the last few decades. The Times officially joined the world wide web in 1996, and launched their first of several podcasts, The Daily in 2017. They are also in the docuseries industry, with The New York Time Presents on FX. 

A newspaper started by a politician and a banker in the middle of the 19th century has evolved into one of the most well recognized and criticized daily newspapers in the United States. In an era where so many journalists and news organizations are struggling to earn a living, it is a testament to the Times’ ability to adapt and change to ensure their organization remains relevant. I think not even Henry Raymond or George Jones could imagine such a fate. 

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Thanks peeps. I’ll see you next week.

Thanks for tuning and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Civics & Coffee. If you want to hear more small snippets from american history, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and I look forward to our next cup of coffee together. 

OUTRO MUSIC