My two weeks in New York Times

Dear Fellows


It’s hard to share feelings being in New York and harder is to write my experience being in New York Times. To understand the city and the paper, one has to be here. Both are marvelous and matchless. City is capital of capitalism and the paper is capital of international journalism. And The Times staff……….please tell that gone are the days when they were considered cynics, aloof and too serious to be with. They are amazing, warm, friendly and embodiment of brotherhood. From publisher to editorial staff, all of them are full of life, down to earth (be mindful, it is not Sopan’s home publication, joking). After all they are New Yorkers, understand the difference.
When I got off the train and stepped out of the station on March 30, I took sometime to understand where I am. Magnificent, tall buildings greeted this new comer. The hustle and bustle in the city gave me a new life, full of excitement. And when I reached my apartment in Executive Plaza, new life dawned upon me. A dreamy place located on the 7th Avenue in Manhattan, at five-minute walk from Times Square. Many of my Pakistani friends are caught in disbelief hearing the place where I am living in. The Times have got on lease a number of apartments in this plaza to accommodate outstation guest and one of them is in my occupation, fully facilitated. Refrigerator, oven, all kitchen articles, six month stock of towels, cable and internet connection, name anything, all are there. I was badly lacking one thing, laptop. The moment I wished to buy it, my mentor got it arranged from the office up till August.
March 31 was my first day in The Times office. The paper owns one of the tallest buildings in the city with 54 floors, 18 of them are being used by The Times and who does what in rest of the floors, I am least bothered, sorry for it. But any way there are offices there but of whom I do not know. Of 18, three huge floors are housing the editorial staff.
By 10:30 am on March 31, I was attending the page one meeting; all heads of different sections were present including the executive editor, Bill Keller. I was introduced and then seated behind as observer. I had a lunch with Metro Editor, Joe Sexton, a highly sophisticated and cooperative person who asked about my plan and told what he could do for me. Cutting the long details short, I had a guided tour of the building with senior editor training & development, Mike Smith. In evening I went to Columbia University’s School of Journalism, had got my visiting scholar card and attended a lecture delivered by former publisher of Wall Street Journal on declining readership of newspapers.
The first two weeks in The Times, I have spent in orientation, learning computer technology; getting briefed about graphics department, photographic section, book review section, week in review section, travel/ sports/ food/ real estate/ economy sections, attending luncheon and dinner with two of them were thrown in honor by the publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. and managing editor Jill Abramson.
Before publisher, the managing editor had hosted the dinner and an interesting situation occurred there. At editor Jill’s residence there were many people invited, some of them were not The Times staffers like office bearers of South Asia Journalist Association (SAJA) and Association of Arab and Middle East Journalist. A young man in his late 30s’ was listening me carefully and kept throwing different questions about world affairs and Pakistan’s perception about US foreign policy, I made causal replies thinking he would be some reporter on Metro Desk. Although he introduced me in beginning when I was shaking hands with different people, my weak memory coupled with noisy atmosphere, failed me to identify him properly. Also his dress was too casual to be specially noticed. But during the conversation, when he casually mentioned that he would be hosting a grand lunch the next week then I realized that he is the publisher since I had read about this feast in sechdule. It led me feel embarrassed but he tried it to overcome. And when I shared him with the common perception about The Times’s dry natured atmosphere, Arthur laughed loudly and said in a whispering manner: “We are living in a brotherhood but we don’t share it with others nor there is any need for this”. Another interesting incident took place during the luncheon hosted by Arthur when a new comer from technology section shared with him the tragic love story of his grand uncle. The guy said his grand uncle was in deep love with the sister of a former publisher of The Times and wanted to marry her but the then publisher did not let it happen. Arthur, instead of getting serious, gave a big laugh.
During my two week orientation, I have learnt a lot about The Times working, its ethical issue, and policy matters. Initially I felt bored reading The Times and whenever I was asked about my opinion regarding the paper’s contents and style, I gave a long list of objections but they neither felt frowned nor rejected my opinion. But now I found out the reason of my disinterest in reading The Times, was my unawareness about the issues they write. The more I am getting familiar with the issues, the more interesting reading the papers makes to me.
I also had meeting with metro reporters covering police department, it was a great learning for me to understand the crime culture here and draw its comparison with the situation existing in Pakistan.
Notwithstanding all good things about The Times, the point of my concern is how to make struggle for getting my work published. Because given the contents of the paper and the stories they display in metro, I find it very challenging to create space for myself in paper. And when generally 7-8 stories get space on metro section and most of them are long pending issues. By average, a metro reporter gets space, I think, twice a week.
No short stories like wreck, rat control program. More often they are about the major city issues being covered by senior reporters of metro section.
My serious business, I mean, going to field started from April 14 when I went to cover a rally of Indian-American Sikhs that they had organized to highlight the discrimination they are facing due to their religious identity. I covered it and filed a report over it that has yet to be checked by assignment editor. The purpose of sending me over there was to get me through an exercise as otherwise such stories are published in form of news feature in some weekly edition.
The current week I would spend working on general assignments like attending some press conferences and discussions, a kind of material that I have so far not seen publishing in The Times’s metro pages. But I hope my assigning staff would make out some way for getting my work published.
From the next week, I would be spending times working with police department reporters and then get to know how to make efforts for getting my work published.