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Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. Free Expression Dinner: Lifetime Achievement Award

Newseum, Washington, D.C. / April 17, 2018

Thank you, John, for that generous introduction. It’s a pleasure to be back at the Newseum, and to be with all of you on this very special evening. The Newseum reminds us that great journalism has many purposes. To inform. To enlighten. To challenge. To surprise. But on occasions like this, as I reflect on my 40 years at The New York Times, I keep coming back to one purpose — and it’s this: the highest and noblest role of the free press is holding power to account. That’s been true throughout our nation’s history, but it’s especially important to remember today. So, I’m going to use this opportunity to share some notes from the field – some stories about when I, and those at The Times who came before me, stood up to presidents and powerful interests.

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My goal is not to brag or wax nostalgic. God knows The Times hasn’t always gotten it right. But in a room full of people committed to the fundamental quest for truth, I hope my words will inspire you to continue the extraordinary work you’re doing — to continue fulfilling our profession’s democratic responsibility to expose wrongdoing and call out abuses of power. Not long ago, I tried to stress this imperative to someone who hasn’t always been keen on the idea of a free press. On November 22, 2016, exactly two weeks after Donald Trump stunned the world by winning the presidency, I arranged for him to come to The Times for his first on-the-record interview as President-elect. The day began inauspiciously. At 6:16 am, Trump announced on Twitter that he was canceling his interview with, quote, the “failing New York Times.” After hours of back-and-forth, at 10:40 he tweeted that the interview was back on. By the time the afternoon was over, he had praised The Times as “a great, great American jewel.” It was dizzying.

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Just prior to sitting down with our journalists, the President-elect and I had a brief one-on-one conversation. As I was walking him into our boardroom, where our reporters and editors waited to ask him tough questions, I said: You’ll notice that we have many signed photos on the wall, including every president since Teddy Roosevelt. I want to draw your attention to one in particular, not because of the photo, but for what he wrote underneath. "To The New York Times: Some read it and like it. Some read it and don’t like it. But everyone reads it.” Signed, Richard M. Nixon. I then said to the President-elect: That was the last president who took on a free press. Think how it ended for him. With that, we walked into the boardroom and the first on-the-record interview of the Trump era began.

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I can’t say whether the message registered, but I can say that The New York Times, and our, is working every day to find the truth and share it with the world. Our task is not to be supplicants courting access. Nor is it our job to be the voice of the resistance. Our job is to report the facts, without fear or favor. That’s been our mission for 165 years, no matter which party’s been in power. During JFK’s first year in office, the Kennedy administration was bullying our new White House correspondent, giving him evasive answers, not being forthright, not being respectful of the press’s prerogatives. So, Scotty Reston, our legendary Washington bureau chief, called up Ted Sorensen, one of President Kennedy’s closest advisers, to defend the reporter. Sorenson would have none of it. He brusquely told Reston that The Times needed to know our place. "We do know our place,” Scotty replied coolly. “We were here before you got here, Ted, and we’ll be here when you’re gone." That lesson was on my mind during what was perhaps the highest-stakes meeting of my tenure as publisher.

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In the spring of 2004, a whistleblower revealed to The Times shocking details of the Bush Administration’s secret program to spy on American citizens without a warrant. The White House pressured us not to publish the story, saying it could cost lives and invite another terrorist attack. With the memory of 9/11 still so raw, there was no easy answer. But after a year of holding the story, we decided that, in the final calculus, the nation had a right to know the truth. We informed the Administration of our plans to publish our story on the secret NSA program. President Bush responded by playing his final card: He summoned me, executive editor Bill Keller, and DC bureau chief Phil Taubman to a tense Oval Office meeting on December 5th, 2005. We were told that if we ran the story, and there was another terrorist attack, The Times would be complicit. I was told, in effect: You, Arthur Sulzberger, will have blood on your hands. But after the meeting, standing on Pennsylvania Avenue, Bill, Phil and I made the decision that Americans needed to know their civil liberties were being violated. We concluded that while we must always take concerns about national security seriously, in this case, we had a duty to reveal the truth.

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The Times learned this lesson the hard way. In 1961, we got wind of the Kennedy Administration’s secret plan to invade Cuba. But rather than run the story prominently on page one, and reveal the invasion’s imminence, my uncle, Orv Dryfoos, who was then publisher of The Times, made the difficult decision to dial back the story. Orv’s intentions were good — he was concerned for the safety of the men preparing to risk their lives on the beaches of Cuba. But with the benefit of hindsight, even President Kennedy said The Times made the wrong call. In a letter, JFK said that if we had run the story as originally planned, the Bay of Pigs operation might have been canceled and disaster averted. Throughout my years as publisher, that episode served as a somber reminder that the commitment to holding power to account could be the difference between life and death. Resolving the tension between national security and the public’s right to know often makes for tough calls. But when it came to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, my father, Punch Sulzberger, never wavered in his journalistic courage. Our lawyers warned Punch that if he released the documents—chronicling decades of government deception and wasted carnage—he himself could be hauled to jail and The New York Times could be visited by financial ruin.

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But dad was undeterred. Even after the Justice Department threatened suit, he continued to publish the papers, believing in his bones that the world needed to know about the government’s lies. Not only was the publication of the Pentagon Papers my father’s proudest moment, I can think of no decision that better captures our profession’s shared values. And let me also congratulate Kay Graham for her courage in picking up that story when the courts blocked The Times from continuing to publish. Of course, the responsibility to hold power to account isn’t confined to the political realm. As journalists, our task is to smoke out wrongdoing wherever we find it. That means reporting aggressively no matter who the subject of the story is, whether a foreign leader, a business titan, or, yes, an advertiser. No relationship, no amount of advertising revenue, no threat of retaliation comes before our journalistic mission.

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During my 40 years at The Times, and quarter-century as publisher, our company — and our profession — have changed in dramatic ways, often at breakneck speed. But our values remain immutable. These values, shared by so many of the nation’s great news organizations, are critically needed today. Around the world, powerful forces are sowing seeds of distrust in the news media. From Russia, to Egypt, to Turkey, to China, and, of course, to the United States, journalism is under attack. Too often, journalists risk their freedom — and in some cases their lives — to report the truth. It’s up to all of us in this room to fight for the free press; to stand tall in defense of “truth and trust,” as Tom Friedman said with characteristic eloquence in a recent Times column — and in defense of our profession’s responsibility to hold power to account. I consider that my life’s work.

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But I also know that Scotty Reston’s words are as true today as they were 50 years ago: Great journalism was around long before I got here. And looking out at the faces in this room, especially those of the reporters honored tonight for their groundbreaking work exposing sexual abuse, I know you will continue holding power to account long after I’m gone. Thank you, again, for this wonderful honor.