By AMY SACKS
Special to Poynter.org

New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. says he is committed to making the paper the leading content provider for what he calls the "knowledge economy."

"Information isn't knowledge," Sulzberger told a group of Columbia University journalism students Thursday. "Information isn't power. Only knowledge is power."

Sulzberger, who is also chairman of The New York Times Company, held up a copy of the paper from 1911 to demonstrate how far the paper has come in the 150 years since its inception. The headline: "Martians Build Two Immense Canals in Two Years"

While sharing bagels and juice with the forty students, Sulzberger listed two events, a century apart, among the paper's biggest successes: its 1871 reporting on Tammany Hall, a group of corrupt New York City politicians, and its 1971 publishing of the Pentagon Papers, the previously secret history of the Vietnam war. The Times, he said, was not indebted to the political establishment and was able to report the truth.

Since the first printing of The Times on Sept. 18, 1851, Sulzberger said one of the biggest failures was not alerting the world to the atrocities of the Holocaust.

As he spoke about the principles that continue to guide The Times today, Sulzberger said the most important lesson the students should take away from the discussion is "that principles and values count."

"All I can urge is that you make sure that you agree with your employers’ journalistic vision of their journalistic mission," Sulzberger told the students, who are about to graduate with Masters degress in journalism. "I don't think there is anything more important than that, and I don't think you should settle for anything less than that."

Sulzburger also stressed the importance of journalistic freedom.

"We must recognize the critical necessity of zealously defending our First Amendment freedoms," Sulzberger said.

Just last Fall, he said Congress tried to limit First Amendment freedoms with a bill that would have made it illegal for government officials to provide classified information to the media. Fortunately, he said, The Times and other media outlets lobbied President Clinton, who vetoed the bill, called the Intelligence Authorization Act. Had it been the law of the land 30 years ago, Sulzberger said the people who had provided the Pentagon Papers to the media would have faced criminal charges.

Sulzberger also contended that journalism must matter.

"There are two words," he said, noting news and paper. "Which one do you want to define which business you're in?" he asked himself. "I'll take 'news.'" The challenge, he added, is to be responsible and to realize that news can change the course of events in people's lives, whether it is transmitted by satellite, print, or on the Internet.

Reflecting the rapid change in how news is distributed, Sulzberger refers to his audiences as readers, listeners, viewers, and browsers.

But he noted that change does not come as easy in the newsroom.

He described the military and hospitals as two cultures that closely resemble newsrooms in America. They are all mission-driven, he said, and places where cultural change does not come easy. The mantra in the military is that the mission comes before the individual, and that is why people die. The mission of the hospital is to save lives. The newsroom's mission, Sulzberger added, is for information and knowledge to keep democracy alive.

Asked to explain the role of a publisher, Sulzberger said, "In my experience, most newspaper publishers are scared of their editors. It's really crazy."

Similar to hospital administrators who fear the head of surgery, Sulzberger says that publishers often fear their editors. "It's one of the things that shocked me as I've become more a part of the newspaper publisher's world," said Sulzberger, who has held the title of publisher since 1992. As a reporter and editor for nearly a decade, Sulzberger comes out of the newsroom, and says he has perhaps a greater sense of responsibility and enjoyment of dealing with news issues than many other publishers.

Sulzberger left the students with one more principle to take with them as they embark on their new careers. The most important reason why journalists are still essential, he said, is to continue their constitutional role of ensuring a well-informed democracy.

"This last bit is not just puffery," Sulzberger said. "It is something that everyday must motivate publishers, editors and reporters. We have a special charter in society and damn us if we forget that."