‘NYT’ national editor admits Twitter addiction, remains confident in newspapers’ role, future


Sam Sifton, the former restaurant critic-turned-New York Times national editor, was at Biscayne Bay Campus March 22 to deliver the final lecture in the Student Government Association-BBC Lecture Series for Spring 2012.

The writer discussed “Election 2012: How The New York Times Covers the Run for the Presidency” with a full house of students, alumni and faculty at the Mary Ann Wolfe Theater.

Sifton focused a great deal of his time discussing how journalism has evolved and, in particular, how social media like Twitter have changed the way journalists cover stories. (Look up #SiftonAtFIU on Twitter to see how we covered the lecture.)

“We cover the election in print – and online every 10-15 minutes,” he said of how “the Old Gray Lady” is adapting to the ever-changing landscape in media. Analysis in print, he says, remains the paper’s paramount goal, but time is an issue because The New York Times isn’t just competing with other newspapers. “Now we have to beat the guy at home in his underpants with a blog.”

Twitter, Sifton recognizes, is a useful tool when used wisely.

“I’m addicted to Twitter,” he said, “but you can’t report off it.” Especially not when it comes to an election. “People die on Twitter all the time.”

Fact checking remains all-important. So does balanced coverage of the candidates.

“You work it [equal coverage] every day. You think about it every day,” he said. “When you really do your job well, everybody’s pissed off at you.”

That includes the readers.

Differing opinions

Peggy Russell is pursuing a certificate in the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Five years ago, the Chicago architect retired to Key West, where she lived until late last year. She finds the Times “suspect.”

“I’m from the Midwest, so I’m more conservative…more practical, as I like to say. “I recently lost everything in this economy,” she said. “I don’t think the Times was as challenged before as it is now by this cycle of 24/7 reporting with bloggers, and I think that…they were part of the problem. They were too lofty.”

Although Russell said she is not fond of the paper, she was happy to hear Sifton say that the New York Times is, now more than ever, striving “to get it right.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m glad that newspapers are being challenged and more open to all truths. Everyone has a different perspective, but the truth is messy and it comes out there in layers. It’s getting harder for them to pick which truth to tell now.”

On the other hand, Sifton did manage to walk away from his lecture with at least one new fan for the Times and himself.

Ami Nakagawa, a 22-year-old international business junior, said she was impressed by Sifton’s lecture and his grasp on what’s going on and how her generation comes to learn about it.

“All that social media talk – he gets it,” she said. “That’s how we get our news. So I was curious to hear what he had to say, especially because I knew he used to be a food critic.”

As much as Sifton is keen on social media and cognizant of the fact that that’s where younger readers get their news, he remains enthusiastic of the print medium and its future.

“I’m an optimist,” he said. “I’m not convinced these new media are going to cave in on us.”