The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times [Hardcover]

Susan E. Tifft (Author), Alex S. Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1999

The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. With full cooperation from the families and unconditional access to the Times archives, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones have written the first insiders biography of the most powerful media clan in North America. When Adolph Ochs, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, bought the bankrupt New York Times in 1896, he transformed it into North Americas most respected and powerful newspaper. His familys values and prejudices set the agenda for the paper. The Trust is a dramatic saga set against a backdrop of world events, succession battles, and the burden and privilege of wealth and power. Spanning four generations, The Trust tells the story of Ochs, a visionary plagued by depression and insecurity; his daughter Iphigene, who fiercely guarded the family mystique; her husband, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the papers most controversial publisher; their son Punch, whose amiable nature masked a steely toughness; and Arthur Jr., the brash successor, who is leading the Times into the future. Despite the authors access, The Trust was written independent of family control.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This mammoth history of the dynasty that created and controls The New York Times is as epic in its scope as is the role of the newspaper in America. Like any good epic, this story is filled with its fair share of personal ambition, disappointment, competing heirs to the throne, fierce loyalties, and powerful intrigue. The story of The Times starts in 1896, when Adolph Ochs, a young German Jew, buys the undistinguished and nearly bankrupt The New-York Times (the dash was later dropped). He worked hard to distinguish its style from the florid journalism that marked rival papers, and soon Ochs's paper, with its straightforward reporting, became the favorite of the Wall Street and Uptown sets. He toiled, too, to ensure that The Times never earned the moniker "too Jewish." Ochs assiduously declined to promote Jewish editors and was an outspoken opponent of the free state of Israel. And writers Susan Tifft and Alex Jones argue persuasively that in its drive to appear absolutely objective about Jewish issues, the paper (under the leadership at this point of Ochs's son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger) underreported the Holocaust--keeping stories of Hitler's early maneuvers off the front page, failing to name concentration-camp victims as Jews. Though significant, World War II was just one moment in the hundred-year-long history of the paper thus far. The Trust vividly chronicles some of the The Times's most famous moments--the controversial publication of the Pentagon Papers and its transition to a publicly held company in the late '60s are just two--along with the personal histories of four generations of Ochses and Sulzbergers. With its strong foundation of well-researched facts, thoughtful analysis, and excellent narration, The Trust is itself a great work of journalism that does its storied subject proud. --Anna Baldwin

From Library Journal

Tifft, a former Time magazine associate editor, and Jones, who won a Pulitzer while working for the New York Times, offer a collective biography of the family behind "all the news that's fit to print."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 870 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T); 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316845469
• ISBN-13: 978-0316845465
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,368,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Trust is terrific!, September 11, 1999

By 

Richard Goodman (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times (Hardcover)

I think The Trust is absolutely riveting. It's worth reading for the chapter on the Pentagon Papers alone--a drama that has you on the edge of your seat, even though you know what happened! But The Trust is a lot more than that. The decisions behind what runs, and what does not run, in The New York Times are complex and difficult. For the first time--as far as I can tell--the authors, with the skill and caring of fine novelists, show us who these people are and why they do (and did) the things they do. If you want to know how The New York Times came to be what it is, read this book. It's a story of human courage, frailty, jealousy, ambition, loss and success. In short--the story of a family. It's right out of Balzac. I really loved it.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly entertaining family biography, January 14, 2001

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times (Paperback)

This exhaustively researched and really gripping book tells the story of Sulzberger/Ochs family and their relationship to the New York Times. As the family behind the Times, they were players on the stage of American history for most of the twentieth century. The family itself and the characters in it are fascinating-- the subjects range from Iphegene Ochs frustration that she as a woman would never be considered the heir to the throne, to the way that Adolph Ochs wheeled and dealed his way into building the NYT, to the hard family choices behind the publication of the Pentagon papers, to modern attempts from within the company to break the family power. It's a wonderful glimpse at one of the most powerful families of our time. It's worth noting that this book is not a business case history and that the reader will not find an explicit overview of any of the strategies that made the Times what it is.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A thorough and revealing portrait of a eminent family, September 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times (Hardcover)

Tifft and Jones have written a well researched and interesting piece on one of America's most powerful, yet low-key, families, the Sulzbergers. The book is very objective, presents much of the family's quotations and answers without unecessary comment, and is historically significant. Although the family cooperated, Tifft and Jones do not have an awe or devotion to any particular slant or image. The power of the Times rests in its historical and present ethics and standards, and the guidance of a family that continues to regard it very much as sacred. A highly recommended book for anyone wishing to learn about this remarkable family!