Associate
editor Mary J. Loftus visited five Emory alumni in
the City of Light last summer. Her interview with
Michael Golden 84MBA, publisher of the
International Herald Tribune, anchors our special
section, Emory in Paris. The following links will
bring you to stories about fellow alumni Syed
Hoda 96MBA, Marilyn
Kaye 71C-74G, Marcio
Mendes 98B, and Ronnie
Rubin 76C.
Golden
Opportunity
A
scion of the New York Times family wants
to make the International Herald Tribune
required reading worldwide
Just
outside the Paris headquarters of the International
Herald Tribune, at 6 bis rue des Graviers, the
days paper is displayed behind glass so passersby
can read the top news stories.
On
this humid morning in late July, the Herald Tribunes
front page is a reader-friendly mix of politics,
business news, and current events. Headlines read:
In Europe, passionate cheering for Kerry;
Google is bullish on its own worth;
Russians take aim at imitators of the AK-47.
Datelines pepper the pages from London, Mexico City,
Cairo, Berlin, and Moscow.
Inside,
publisher Michael Golden
84MBA (left) strides through the
first-floor newsroom, where editors and reporters
are busily transcribing notes and reading wire copy.
A vice president of The New York Times Company and
a member of the family that controls the newspaper,
Golden was named publisher of the International
Herald Tribune in November 2003 and was charged
with revitalizing the century-old paper, which bills
itself as The Worlds Daily Newspaper.
Though distributed in 185 countries, it had been
losing money for several years.
A
paper has to be a financial success in order to
survive, says Golden. Theres no
such thing as a successful, nonprofitable newspaper.
Golden,
fifty-five, has worked in management positions at
The New York Times Company for the past twenty years,
largely in the companys magazine group, serving
as production manager of Family Circle and
publisher of McCalls and Tennis magazines.
He became vice chairman and senior vice president
of The New York Times Company in 1997.
Upon
being named publisher of the International Herald
Tribune, Golden and his wife, Anne, moved from
New York City into a furnished Left Bank apartment
in the Sixth Arrondissement. He has spent the months
since working to make the International Herald
Tribune required reading around the globe.
Although
the Herald Tribune is competing with the
likes of the Financial Times and the Wall
Street Journal, Golden doesnt intend it
to become strictly a business publication. Indeed,
the Herald Tribune offers plenty of lighter,
brighter fare: this days style section is
anchored by an article on demure swimsuits
coming back into fashion, accompanied by photos
of high-fashion models in retro tanks, and the culture
pages mix movie and book reviews with tidbits of
Hollywood gossip. Even the grey listings of stock
quotes from the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ,
and other world markets are capped off by a half-dozen
American comic strips, from Dilbert
to Doonesbury.
We
want to be a must-read as well as a
want-to-read paper in the office and
at home, Golden says. Were of
interest to people who want to gain the broader
business perspective, which includes politics, economics,
cultural trends, and fashion.
Golden,
who has a masters degree in journalism from
the University of Missouri and an MBA degree from
Emory, has the demeanor of a confident newsman who
is comfortable with all sides of the business. As
well he should: he was born into a family with newspaper
ink coursing through its veins. His great-grandfather,
Adolph S. Ochs, the son of poor German-Jewish immigrants,
bought the Chattanooga Times in 1878 and
the New York Times eighteen years later.
Goldens grandfather, Arthur Hays Sulzberger
(Ochs son-in-law), was the publisher of the
New York Times from 1935 to 1961. His mother,
Ruth Sulzberger Golden Holmberg, was the publisher
and chair of the Chattanooga Times for almost
thirty years.
The
sense of the Times as a family enterprise persists:
fourth-generation descendants, Golden among them,
own a large portion of New York Times Company stock,
control the board of directors, and set policies
on everything from making charitable donations to
involving the next generation.
The
company has been a real point of cohesion for us,
says Golden. We realize the reason the family
is still together into the sixth generation, who
are really just babies at this point, is because
of the business.
Shortly
after Ochs bought the New York Times in 1896,
he established the papers slogan, All
The News Thats Fit To Print, as a jibe
to competing papers known for yellow journalism.
The paper had gained such popularity by 1904 that
when it relocated to a new office on Forty-second
Street, the area was named Times Square. A century
later, The New York Times Company is a publicly
traded multimedia conglomerate with annual revenues
of $3.2 billion. Among its marquee holdings are
the New York Times, the International
Herald Tribune, and the Boston Globe,
as well as sixteen other newspapers, eight network-affiliated
television stations, two New York City radio stations,
and more than forty Web sites, including NYTimes.com
and IHT.com.
Until
recently, the International Herald Tribune
had been owned in a 50-50 partnership by the New
York Times and the Washington Posttwo
competitive family dynasties sharing an unlikely
joint venture. In 2002, according to an article
in the Posts financial section, the
Times Company forcefully maneuvered
the Washington Post Company into selling its half
of the paper for $65 million, leaving Post
company executives bitter.
It
was more contentious than a business deal,
Golden admits. You could characterize it as
a divorce. But we were absolutely convinced that
dual ownership wasnt working. Instead of two
owners, there was no owner.
In
the seven years since Goldens first cousin,
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., took over as publisher of
the New York Times from his father, the company
has aggressively expanded the New York Times
brand across various media, from the Internet to
television stations. The purchase of the International
Herald Tribune and the placement of Golden at
the helm were intended to expand the companys
influence across continents.
The
New York Times had become a national newspaper,
Golden says, so we started turning our attention
toward a global-international newspaper.
Michael
has a deep and rich understanding of the newspaper
industry in general and The New York Times Company
in particular, Sulzberger said when announcing
the appointment in 2003. I am confident [he
and his team] will bring the papers quality
journalism to an even larger global audience.
Golden,
for his part, was eager to take up the challenge.
He speaks French, having spent a few years teaching
English at the Franco-American Institute in Rennes,
where he lived with Anne after receiving his bachelors
and masters in education from Lehigh University
in 1974.
When
Michael first told me of his new job opportunity,
it was, obviously, a complete surprise. And a bit
of a shock. We were leading a very comfortable life
in New York, says Anne Golden, who met Golden
in college and married him in 1971. But my
very first reaction to the question, How would
you like to live in Paris? was basically an
immediate and unqualified yes.
They
talked at length about the pros and cons over dinner
that night, but with both their daughters growntwenty-eight-year-old
Margot is a student at Arizona State University
in Tempe, and twenty-five-year-old Rachel is a marketing
coordinator at the Denver Newspaper Agencythere
was little hesitation.
We
knew, says Anne Golden, that this would
be a fascinating adventure.
She
firmly believes her husband is the right man for
the job. Michael is a very good listener and
he likes looking at the big picture. He is really
good at synthesizing other peoples opinions
and making sense of long conversations or meetings.
He understands the need for compromise and is quite
good at recognizing peoples strengths.
Golden,
who, like many executives, relies on knowing when
to delegate and to whom, says many of the skills
he learned in Emorys executive MBA program
have proven essential.
Having
that base of knowledge was useful because it broadened
my field of vision and allowed me to engage with
the business side of the newspaper, he says.
I can follow pretty complicated accounting
conversations. And Im able to [detect] whether
other people are blowing smoke or not.
Golden,
who served on the board of directors of the International
Herald Tribune for five years and was familiar
with its operation, has skillfully guided the paper
through this difficult transition, says Alison Smale,
deputy foreign editor of the New York Times,
who came to the Herald Tribune to serve as
its managing editor in January 2004.
Under
Times-Post ownership, there had been no court of
adjudication between what the business side and
the journalism side felt was right for the paper,
and they were left to tussle it out, Smale
says. The paper lacked a single, unified vision.
Michaels a very balanced individual, quite
secure in his own skin. He used classic management
techniques to inculcate a firm sense of mission
across the board.
That
mission, says Golden, is one shared by the entire
New York Times Company: to enhance society by creating,
collecting, and distributing high quality news,
information, and entertainment.
We
have to be lively and engaging as well as informative
and thought provoking, he says. The
scarce resource today is time. Whether its
watching CNN, reading Newsweek, or taking the kids
to school, people have a lot to do. If your product
is not high enough on their list of priorities,
its not going to make it.
His
values, says Golden, are still based on those held
by his great-grandfather long ago.
We
follow a lot of the same principles that Adolph
Ochs articulated, he says. The New
York Times was a failing paper when he bought
it. But he reduced the sale price from three cents
to two cents while increasing the quality. He believed
strongly in the separation of news and advertisingthat
one didnt influence the other. And he recognized
that the only thing we have to sell is the credibility
and reputation of the paper.
One
of the internal debates at the International
Herald Tribune has long been, Is the paper
too American? In fact, the intent at first
was to rename the International Herald Tribunewhich
began as the Paris edition of the New York Herald
Tribune in 1887 the International
New York Times. But market research showed
widespread resistance to the reflagging.
The
report back was clear, says Golden, drinking
coffee in the rooftop conference room where such
decisions are often hashed out. The International
Herald Tribune was seen as an independent international
newspaper, and the International New York Times
was seen as American. The decision was easy.
Since
many of the Herald Tribunes stories
are supplied by the New York Times
fifteen hundred reporters, the paper can hardly
avoid an American flavor, but Golden is instituting
changes both large and small to make the paper more
globalsuch as increasing coverage of world
markets; including more soccer, cricket, and rugby;
and adding a variety of voices to the op-ed pages.
Hes also overseeing general editorial improvements,
such as extending deadlines to accommodate more
breaking news, expanding the amount of news space,
and adding color to the front and back pages.
The
Herald Tribune strongly courts elite international
executives and opinion leaders, as well as readers
who consider themselves global citizens.
The biggest markets for the Herald Tribune,
which has a daily circulation of about 245,000,
are France, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Switzerland.
The
audience of the International Herald Tribune
is fundamentally different than the audience of
the New York Times, Golden says. They
are both affluent, well-placed in their careers,
and interested in a wide range of information. But
the International Herald Tribunes readership
is one-third American expats and Americans traveling
abroad, one-third expats from other countries, and
one-third [French] nationals.
The
IHT may have an American style of journalism, but
it is an international publication. We create our
own face and our own scoops, Smale says. We
just did a series on the European Union that were
very proud of, and we have taken the lead on talking
about what constitutes the new Europe and the limits
of European unity. Its amazing to me that
from the western shores of Ireland to the borders
of the Ukraine, people voted to send representatives
to the same democratic legislature.
At
the same time, she says, Europeans and others
are thirsty for news about the United States and
its participation in the world at the moment. I
cant imagine that will abate. And, through
our ever-closer attachment to the New York Times,
we have access to the best Washington reporting
there is.
Publishing
an English-language newspaper owned by an American
company for a world readership is often an exercise
in diplomacy. But Golden harbors no doubts.
The
International Herald Tribune is one of the
worlds great newspapers, Golden says.
The breadth of its news report is unique among
daily global papers and it is valued for its strong
and independent voice. We are building upon an already
strong base.
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