For some time now, the New York media world has been waiting breathlessly to see who would be anointed as the next publisher-in-waiting at the New York Times. On Tuesday, the waiting ended when the paper said Arthur Gregg Sulzberger had been chosen as the new deputy publisher, and thus the expected future publisher.
There wasn’t any white smoke from a chimney the way there is with a new Pope, or anyone waving from a balcony the way the royal family likes to do it in Britain. But in New York media circles it was pretty much the same thing, since the Suzlbergers are about as close to royalty as you can get.
The winning candidate, AG (as he likes to be called) has been just one of the potential kings in waiting, since there are several branches of the family, each with an heir interested in the top job.
This competition among cousins is one of the reasons why media watchers have been awaiting the naming of a successor to current publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. Would it be AG, who is the current publisher’s son? Or Sam Dolnick or David Perpich, who are his nephews?
Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017
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