NYT publisher and chairman warns against ‘anti-press push’, talks AI

New York Times chairman and publisher Arthur Gregg Sulzberger spoke at CEMEX Auditorium on Tuesday about his career in journalism and the challenges facing The Times as it navigates political and technological pressures.

The event, moderated by Amira Weeks MBA ’26, was hosted by Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) View From the Top speaker series. 

“We really believe strongly in a model of leadership we call stewardship, [which] is recognizing something is part of the long term,” said Sulzberger, who’s great-great-grandfather Adolph Ochs acquired The Times in 1896. 

For Salzberger, Ochs’ will — which “called on his family… to protect the editorial independence and integrity of The New York Times, and to ensure that it remains a fearless newspaper” — continues to serve as the “North Star for [him] and [his] work,” he said.

Despite his family legacy (Sulzberger’s father Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. preceded him as the Times’ chairman and publisher), Sulzberger spoke about his uncertainty about working directly for the Times. That changed in college, when a journalism professor set him up with a job at The Providence Journal. 

While at The Journal, Sulzberger published an investigation into the Narragansett Lions Club’s refusal to accept women. Despite facing threats and bribery, Sulzberger stood firm in his reporting. He described the experience as valuable for his future journalistic career.

“[This] is exactly what happens when a titan of Silicon Valley calls me,” said Sulzberger. “Or exactly what happens when it’s a foreign leader… [or] just the President of the United States.”  

When he arrived at The Times in 2009, however, Sulzberger was determined to succeed on more than just name alone. He set three personal ground rules: accept every assignment, work hard and value candor and developmental feedback. 

Those principles shaped Sulzberger during the Times’ digitization process in 2013. 

“It wasn’t that we lacked ideas. It was that the ideas were systematically being suppressed inside The New York Times,” he said. He described how digital leaders were treated as “second-class citizens” within the newsroom, and were frequently denied even business cards.

In response, Sulzberger authored a 150-page memo that sought to “kill the status quo” by introducing data into the newsroom, connecting web developers and journalists and getting their work in front of a digital audience. 

“The best ideas flow upwards,” said Sulzberger. “There are way more ideas down there that are bottled up than you can come up with yourself.” Simultaneously, he warned against “fetishizing change.”

“If you want to get legacy [and] a mission-driven culture, you need to be really clear about what is not changing,” he said.  

Sulzberger also spoke about the role of The Times as a civic institution. Stepping into the role of publisher during the beginning of President Donald Trump’s first presidency, Salzburg was tasked with addressing journalism through the “most significant anti-press movement we have had in this country in this century”.

Trump’s anti-press rhetoric eventually escalated to accusing The Times of treason. A crime, Sulzberger noted, that “the federal government is charged with prosecuting, and that carries the death penalty.” The increased security threats resulted in The Times heavily increasing funding in security.

Sulzberger cautioned against the “anti-press push,” which he described as “being embraced by aspiring strongmen all over the world.” 

At the same time, Sulzberger emphasized that the Times’ reporting on Trump was not a personalized agenda. 

“In a moment when a lot of the press has become nervous about recording critically on this administration, we’re an institution that has built the single biggest body of accountability reporting ever produced by a single news organization. But we’re no one’s opposition,” he said, citing that the Biden Administration clashed with The Times as well.

Sulzberger also highlighted the Times’ relationship with artificial intelligence (AI), and its ongoing lawsuits against OpenAI and Perplexity for copyright infringement. 

“If you are spending a lot of time and money to create intellectual property, you have the legal right to determine where and how it’s used, and to set the market value on it,” he said. 

Furthermore, Sulzberger stressed that “the integrity of systems [such as] democracy, capitalists and markets rely on the transparency and accountability that the press provides.” 

“It was very engaging, said Mary Clark, a Fellow at the Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI). “It made me a proud New York Times reader, and a proud consumer of journalism.”

“He carried himself with a lot of conviction,” said Jason Hu ’26, another attendee. “I found the talk very compelling when he articulated the mission of what The Times was supposed to do.”

“The New York Times is one of the most important non-governmental institutions in our country,” said John Slavsky, another DCI Fellow. “I thought [Sulzberger] was a very particular and compelling advocate for that organization [as] an institution.”

Several audience members, however, wished that Sulzberger had been asked tougher questions.

“[There was] not enough accountability in the questions,” said JJ Yore, a DCI Fellow. “He referred to that when he was talking about private business, and the need for accountability journalism, and I didn’t think that this had enough accountability in terms of the interview.”

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