Nieman Foundation at Harvard
In Spiegel, the International Herald Tribune’s Stephen Dunbar-Johnson and Dick Stevenson discuss its upcoming namechange to the International New York Times:
The International Herald Tribune is our brand name in print. We have for some time now not had an International Herald Tribune website, our website has been nytimes.com. In the digital world, and this is where we want to grow, the New York Times is the stronger brand name. And we believe that we have to have one single global media brand in order to compete for readers and advertisers…
The same people who have produced the paper are still in place, the same reporters, and this is not going to change. We aren’t reducing our staff, we aren’t changing our perspective. The new brand name is a promise to bring readers more of what they like, not less!
I have to highlight this question from interviewer Isabell Hülsen:
SPIEGEL: Is the Bezos deal [to buy The Washington Post] the final victory of online over print, an ultimate humiliation?
Sigh.
One comment:
A full read of the Spiegel interview is instructive. If the logic of the two IHT/NYT execs is to be followed (that the NYT is the stronger brand – which btw it isn’t in the ex-USA print market and which in digital is a non-issue because primarily for cost reasons, some time ago, iht.com was shuttered) then the new brand should not be ‘The International New York Times’ but ‘The New York Times International” or simply ‘The New York Times’. (The Guardian approach). Neither alternative precludes a print offering that is geared for an international audience. If the future is digital, then any remaining growth or even hope of profitability for the IHT in print is going to come from younger readers worldwide who know the NYT brand – from online – and don’t know or care about the IHT. That being the case, if the NYT is the key, driving brand, then why call the international print edition something else?
In truth the decision with the new INYT brand is trying to kill two birds with one stone: a misguided attempt to try to assuage the concerns of existing readers of the IHT with the retention of the word ‘International’ (which incidentally many of its core readers never used, referring to the IHT as the Herald Tribune or the Trib) and also have the words NYT which is supposed to speak to the Internet generation who only know the NYT brand. INYT is muddled thinking that doesn’t stand up to even a cursory consideration.
Whether you have a good understanding that the NYT has tremendous international reporting or not, one thing NYT does scream is American. If it’s not a problem for NYT digital why should it be for the print edition?
As regards their remarks on Bezos and millionaires saving flagship titles like the WP, the IHT execs’ memories are short: clearly they have forgotten the life saving multi-million dollar loan made to the NYT by non other than…? The richest man in the world, Carlos Slim.
As for irritation at still being asked if the NYT might sell – irritation that stems from just 2 of the many family owners saying they’re not for sale – they have similarly short memories. I well remember the family owners of the WSJ repeatedly saying they weren’t for sale right up until the moment that…they sold to Murdoch.
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