Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism

The first time I met A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, I tried to hire him.

That was back in the heady days of digital media in 2014, and I was at BuzzFeed News, one of a handful of start-ups preparing to sweep aside dying legacy outlets like The Times.

Times stock was still sputtering, and the company had sold off everything but its furniture to keep paying for journalism.

Mr. Sulzberger, then the heir apparent to lead The Times, politely declined my offer. And today, after eight years as BuzzFeed editor in chief, I find myself in his employ as the new media columnist.

I’m stepping into the space opened a decade ago by David Carr, the late columnist who chronicled an explosion of new online outlets. My focus will probably be the opposite: The consolidation of everything from movies to news, as the media industry gets hollowed out by the same rich-get-richer, winner-take-all forces that have reshaped businesses from airlines to pharmaceuticals.

And the story of consolidation in media is a story about The Times itself.

The gulf between The Times and the rest of the industry is vast and keeps growing: The company now has more digital subscribers than The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the 250 local Gannett papers combined, according to the most recent data. And The Times employs 1,700 journalists — a huge number in an industry where total employment nationally has fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 38,000.