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- Beginning in 1928, news bulletins flashed on an electric zipper in Times Square (The New York Times Photo Archives)
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- 1884 Vanity Fair engraving of James Gordon Bennett Jr. (IHT archives)
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- Printing forms were flown to Paris in 1951 to produce the International Air Edition (The New York Times Photo Archives)
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- The columnist Nicholas Kristof blogging via satellite phone from his hotel parking lot in southern Niger (Thomas Nybo for The New York Times)
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- Telegraphed reports were transcribed in the Western Union room in the 1940s (The New York Times Photo Archives)
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- The Times had its own radio station, WQXR, with studios in the headquarters building (The New York Times Company Archives)
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- The New York Times Building, which opened in November 2007, features numerous environmentally-sustainable innovations (Photo by Nic Lehoux)
Because we’re journalists, we’re impatient. We want to gather the news as quickly as possible, using any technological resource available. And when we’re as sure of the story as we can be, we want to share it immediately, in whatever way reaches the most people. The Internet didn’t plant these ideas in our heads. We’ve always been this way.
We Were Wireless a Century Ago
On Sunday, April 14, 1912, The Times learned through wireless telegraphy that Titanic, on her maiden voyage to New York, had sent out a distress signal at 10:25 p.m. On the strength of this and other transmissions, Carr Van Anda, the managing editor, deduced correctly that the liner was not just damaged, but doomed. Readers awoke on Monday to learn from a bold front-page headline that Titanic was “sinking by the bow at midnight,” even as the drama was unfolding 1,100 miles out at sea.
A World War I Version of Google Earth
Few military encounters have been as bloody and prolonged as the Allies’ 1916 campaign against German lines near the Somme River in France. A Times correspondent, Cyril Brown, took to the skies in a German warplane (the U.S. was not yet fighting) from which he could survey the entire 25-mile front as if it were in miniature. “A transcendental bird’s-eye view… fills you with a haunting sense of unreality which is hard to shake off,” he told Times readers by cable on Aug. 18.
Refreshing the Homepage, at Home
World events have never fit a convenient, once-a-day timetable. In February 1948, The Times experimented with a “newspaper delivered by radio.” This four-page facsimile edition was to be transmitted hourly to cabinet-style receivers in subscribers’ homes. For the trial run, consoles were set up at big department stores. The news cycle obliged: Czechoslovakia fell to Soviet control and the Arab League threatened to cut the oil supply if the U.S. kept pushing for the partition of Palestine.
Seizing the Moment
Today, as throughout our history, innovation permeates every aspect of our business. From the use of multimedia in our long-form journalism to the mission of our Research & Development (R&D) group to look around corners, identifying, explicating and demonstrating the impending changes in media technology that will affect our business and the customers we serve. We remain committed to innovation because it’s who we are, as deep in our veins as our commitment to maintaining the highest standards in our journalism.