The Man Who Made the New York Times

The Man who made the New York Times into the greatest newspaper in the United States, A.M. Rosenthal, has died aged 84.

And in his passing he has given us a glimpse of his achievement. The son of an indigent fur trader turned a stuffy metropolitan newspaper into a vibrant national institution. As Wes Pruden puts it in the Washington Times:

Abe died at 84 Wednesday in New York, where he made the New York Times in his image (for a time), writing the book on how a newspaper ought to cover the world, giving new life to a newspaper on its uppers, and winning Pulitzer Prizes as if they came from boxes of Cracker Jack.

Reading the obituaries lets you see the genius of the man. He was a great reporter, with the ruthlessness and the courage the job required and when he became an editor he ruthlessly and courageously rebuilt the Times. It is in the echoes of the praise that you can grasp how far the Times has fallen in the years since. William F. Buckley, Jr. tells the critical story.

I once posed a hypothetical question. What would be the discipline, at The New York Times back when he was its boss, against a delinquent reporter? He seemed mystified by the question. He thought he was answering it when he said that no reporter at the Times would be guilty of such an offense as I described: "They are all professionals."

They were all professionals when Rosenthal ran the paper. And the reason that Rosenthal could not imagine a “delinquent” reporter is that, on his watch, nobody would have dared.

You can say what you like about Rosenthal’s anger and his brusque treatment of employees. Under his leadership the New York Times was great.