I love the NY Times but don't understand them. Their business is failing; they risk the financial collapse of the world's leading institution of journalism (IMHO), and they are investing resources in republshing old stories that hardly anyone reads and already are available to the public, in a different layout (if I understand correctly).
The resources they are diverting to this project are IT resources (along with management attention, organizational focus, and precious funding), and IT is their greatest challenge. I'd guess that a better use of those resources would be to focus them on the core, existential issues: The website and app. Or at least cut the expenses and improve the bottom line. Imagine if you were an investor in some other business, similarly precarious, and saw projects like these announced.
From the outside they seem to live in the past and to be obsessed with their history and prestige. Could there be a better symbol of that than their attention to what 30 year old stories looked like on paper? Ah, the good old days, the province of history books - but not of successful businesses. The Times' future depends 100% on how well they deliver the news, on computer screens, today and tomorrow.
I know little about the NY Times business so maybe it's not as crazy as it seems, but they sure worry me.
I work at the New York Times and sit very close to the main developer of this project.
The NYT brand is one of the most valuable - if not the most - in investigative journalism and so the pedigree of the institution is important in maintaining both culture and a tradition of higher standards. This project was worked on by a very small, dedicated team and the reason why it is championed is because it showcases some of the best facets of the NYT's image: using new tech to illumine the past and bring new insights. I find Times Machine incredibly useful for research and recommend it to a lot of my friends who work in academia.
I don't understand how you can say that the Times is 'living in the past'. Their tech adoption is insane - developers are given a lot of leeway in what technologies they choose, new options are constantly being evaluated, and the Times is continually experimenting with novel approaches to displaying informative content.
The Times is a profitable endeavor and in fact is growing quite a bit - we reached one million online subscribers and still going. Your worries are unfounded and honestly a bit myopic. The form of journalism is forever changing and adapting with the era in which it reports. The Times is a hotbed of innovation and new ideas about how news should be produced and consumed (the R&D lab - http://nytlabs.com/ - is awesome) and I would hate to see that change in order to honor the so-called 'bottom line'.
I don't work at the NY Times or any publication; I'm just a concerned reader; so maybe an outside perspective from a IT professional, news junkie and dedicated reader has a little value:
> it showcases some of the best facets of the NYT's image: using new tech to illumine the past and bring new insights. I find Times Machine incredibly useful for research and recommend it to a lot of my friends who work in academia.
With due respect, I worry this reflects the insular point of view that concerns me:
Will this have any impact on the organization's finances or journalism? Very few people do that kind of research and all the data was available already in a different layout, if I'm not mistaken.
Also, "using new tech to illumine the past and bring new insights" is not a 'facet' of the Times' image for me - I've never thought of that before and I've never sought the Times for that purpose. I see the Times as a leading producer of news/journalism; I imagine almost every reader sees the Times the same way; I've never heard otherwise. I suspect people inside the NY Times place far, far more importance on the publication's history than readers do - for readers, you're as good as today's articles. I'll literally go read the Wash Post or FT right away if yours aren't doing the job.
> Their tech adoption is insane - developers are given a lot of leeway in what technologies they choose, new options are constantly being evaluated, and the Times is continually experimenting with novel approaches to displaying informative content.
That's happening behind the scenes, and I do read about it occasionally in the tech world; it sounds fun. But I rarely see it significantly improve what is delivered to me as a reader, and that is all that matters - again, I worry that an insular perspective loses sight of that: 'we're doing great things' (that have no great impact on the outside world). The dynamic graphics are sometimes nice, but sometimes gimmicky and rarely technically impressive - dynamic visualizations are not an innovation at this point.
Which brings up another concern: The Times still seems to lack fluency (the best word I can think of) with non-text mediums, from multimedia to visualizations. What I mean is that the Times still speaks in text - a relic of the limitations of paper. Other mediums are foreign enough that they still are special events (look at our special interactive graphic!) rather than part of the ordinary means of communicating every story. And the other mediums are appendices or decorations to text rather than just another part of a unified narrative: I don't recall a story saying: 'here was the scene in Bagdhad: <short video or even animated gif> Highlighted on the right you can see security forces rushing in before the explosion, not after ... but here is the Prime Minister saying otherwise <short video>' or even seeing multimedia integrated in art reviews, which often are very visual subjects; for example, 'here is the how the Bolshoi handled this complicated step last night <short vid>; and you can see the NY City Ballet doing the same sequence a year ago. <short vid> Watch the ballerina's right foot ...' How about, 'here is Hilary Clinton's reaction to the vote count <short vid>', so readers can see her expression and hear her voice, rather than just read a dry, pro forma quote drafted by her staff? I see bloggers do it, but not the Times (or other 'old media' organizations).
> The Times is a profitable endeavor and in fact is growing quite a bit
From what I've read, the Times has had large layoffs and other cuts, revenue is a fraction of what it was ten years ago (AFAIK due to loss of advertising - an industry-wide problem in newspapers), and my understanding is that it is not sustainable in its current form but looking hard for a solution. I don't have time to look up the details, but I don't think my description is far off the mark. I hope I'm wrong! Best of luck to you guys.
> Their business is failing; they risk the financial collapse of the world's leading institution of journalism (IMHO), and they are investing resources in republshing old stories that hardly anyone reads
They're actually profitable – not enormously so but the situation doesn't warrant the hyperbole:
NYT is one of the highest quality newspapers and has one of the best websites. They are doing great stuff, still do a lot real journalism. Their apps on AppStore, Amazon fire, etc are popular.
Battling over which news org as the best app or website is a muddy and confused field and is not one in which an organization can distinguish itself -- let alone distinguish itself for very long. Do you currently use Flipboard? Current? Any of the other darling news apps that won marketshare because of the smart and sharp design ethos? I'm taking a liberty here in saying that you most likely don't.
Apps and websites and gleam are ephemeral. They are very important to people (and especially tech-world people like ourselves), but they are still ephemeral and our tastes are fickle.
What NYT is doing here is providing the continuity of news it has reported as a means of shoring up its reliability as a source and its reputation as a journalism organization.
When people search for news, or read something on a blog and search for stronger evidence, where do they go? Do they go to the app/website/organization with the best website or the best app? Sometimes, maybe; but more often no, they choose the organization with the best reputation for truth (even if leaning in one direction). You can disagree with the politics of the NYT, but I don't think people tend to dispute much outside of the Opinions/Editorials (and if they do, it's generally something other reputable sources would be disputed on).
The website experience of the NYT is great, in my opinion. The long-form, js-augmented pieces are incredible. Are you so unhappy with them that their expansion of available archives is such a diversion from what you think their goals should be?
News is about events in context, and context includes the history. If you are lambasting them over their opening up of a trove of near recent archives, then you have a blinded view of the world. "[T]he province of history books - but not of successful businesses" -- could there be a better symbol of the lack of contextual understanding than the utter dismissal of news from the last 30 years? Can we not look back at history to make determinations as to causes of current news? Is ISIS a being conceived and borne entirely out of thin air from the present on? Is the news of 10 years ago so worthless that we shouldn't have easy access to see what happened or was talked about in the days when the Iraq War was first debated or when the first Persian Gulf War happened?
The newspaper industry is failing, but the Times is still profitable. Now is not the time for them to sell stock of what makes them -- as you say -- the world's leading institution of journalism. Archives are important, and it is sincerely disheartening for the top comment about this new source lambasting them for not focusing on bettering an app.
The resources they are diverting to this project are IT resources (along with management attention, organizational focus, and precious funding), and IT is their greatest challenge. I'd guess that a better use of those resources would be to focus them on the core, existential issues: The website and app. Or at least cut the expenses and improve the bottom line. Imagine if you were an investor in some other business, similarly precarious, and saw projects like these announced.
From the outside they seem to live in the past and to be obsessed with their history and prestige. Could there be a better symbol of that than their attention to what 30 year old stories looked like on paper? Ah, the good old days, the province of history books - but not of successful businesses. The Times' future depends 100% on how well they deliver the news, on computer screens, today and tomorrow.
I know little about the NY Times business so maybe it's not as crazy as it seems, but they sure worry me.