America Diary: Meeting the Pope in New York
Executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller is one of America’s most powerful opinion leaders.
When we met Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, I told him that for journalists it was equivalent to meeting the Pope.
He laughed loudly and stated that this was more funny given his religious beliefs or the lack thereof.
Keller is one of America’s most powerful opinion leaders. And under him, the paper is transforming to cope with the changing times. At the Page 1 meeting which is held every day at 10AM, one could clearly see the amount of planning that goes into each edition and also the level of competence of the staff who seem to be ahead of the news.
But disappointing for me was the fact that in this collection of over 30 senior editors, almost all were white Americans, many of them middle aged men. I hoped that their experience and education is what makes the difference in the paper, to which I have become addicted.
Another worry is that the print edition which I like to hold in my hands may be an endangered species, I am told. People want to get their news on the go and the NYT is investing heavily in its online edition. It is still not talking about its pay-wall, where the paper has introduced charges for access to parts of the web edition. But what is clear is that it is gearing up to meet the challenge of new technologies.
This month is what Americans call a game-changer for the media industry. The number of smart phones will exceed the number of PCs in the US, says Amy McCombs of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. And the media is investing in technology.
There have been job cuts in the media industry owing to not only the poor state of the economy but also the fact that advertising dollars are now moving away to other technologies. Also, circulation numbers of newspapers are falling. News is becoming more specialised and there is a fear that Americans will only read what they want, which means that international news will suffer.
Coming from a country where newspaper numbers in the regional and Urdu press are rising and that there are so many newspapers that one has lost count, one can only wonder what the future holds in store for the vibrant newspaper industry as well as media in general for Pakistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 24th, 2011.