For the Ochses and the Sulzbergers, as this exhaustive account makes plain, the Times is far more than a family business. It’s a family religion–which may explain why it’s lasted so long and done so well. When Adolph Ochs bought the paper in 1896, it was distinguished for its honesty and seriousness, but it was also on its deathbed. He built up the financial news, added a Saturday “Review of Books and Art” and a substantive Sunday magazine, and was rewarded with a lifesaving infusion of new readers and advertisers. But in a city full of cheap scandal sheets, Ochs was determined to be known for independent, fair-minded reporting on the city, the nation and the world. He was proud when the Times made a profit, and prouder still to plow those profits back into the paper. His heirs didn’t just inherit a newspaper, they inherited his fetish for quality. Modesty is not a reigning virtue in this family–judging from “The Trust,” the Ochses and Sulzbergers spend so much time contemplating their own greatness, it’s a wonder they manage to put out a paper–but loyalty runs deep. Their patriarch promised he would cover the news “without fear or favor,” and to a remarkable extent, the Times still does.
Now the family will learn what it’s like to be on the other side of a team covering a story without fear or favor. The Times gets full credit for its longstanding principles and extraordinarily high standards. But by the end of this fascinating family portrait, the reader has just one question: how on earth did this bunch of self-important, undereducated, prejudiced skirt-chasers ever produce the Times? Take Adolph, the founding father. He grabbed at women all his life, including his new daughter-in-law, who spent a couple of nights in the Ochs home fleeing from him in her nightie. In love with his own stature, he commissioned Times buildings so grandiose they never worked, and for his family mausoleum he hired the firm that designed the Empire State Building. Or take Adolph’s son-in-law, Arthur Sulzberger. Despite being Jewish, he downplayed Holocaust news and let the Times run ads for hotels identifying themselves as “Restricted” (which meant no Jews), until the local district attorney forced him to stop in 1943. A shameless misogynist, he celebrated his 20th year as publisher with a black-tie stag party at 21. His wife, Iphigene, Adolph’s daughter, was furious–knowing full well that if not for her sex, she would have inherited the job herself. Then there was Julius Ochs Adler, who ran the business side of the paper for years. He came back from World War II insisting that everyone call him “General,” instituted two weeks of military training for executives every summer and forced the (male) receptionist on his floor to stand up and snap to attention when he passed by.
Other family members suffered from various inherited disorders, including dyslexia and manic-depression. Many marriages broke up; even some that endured seem to have been unhappy. One of the rare appealing characters on this crowded stage is Effie Ochs, Adolph’s long-suffering wife. Early on she simply dropped out and led a quiet but mysterious life of her own. When the family bought a gigantic Westchester mansion, she gave a party in the ballroom–for all the neighborhood dogs. She fed them hot dogs.
How did they produce the Times, instead of a successful but forgettable rag? By stepping aside. When you read a great paper like the Times, you don’t read the publishers, you read tireless reporters, classy writers and sharp editors. For all their egomania, the Timesmen knew enough to let their employees do their best work. Too bad other cities don’t have an Adolph Ochs–preferably more of a gentleman than the original– to yank their papers up to the level of their readers.
