Hi everyone. I'm so pleased to welcome Joseph Khan, the executive editor of the New York Times to our stage. Welcome, Joe.
It's been an eventful week.
I'm sure all of you know, but Donald Trump sued the New York Times for $15 billion. Legal experts say that this lawsuit is frivolous and meritless. I just want your gut reaction to it.
Well, he's wrong on the facts. He's wrong on the law. And we'll fight it and we'll win.
So, that's a great answer. In terms of 'we'll fight it and we'll win,' do you feel confident that the Times is all aligned around that strategy of 'we're going to fight it and win'? Could you see the Times ever being in a position where it would settle?
And what do you think that's going to look like? And I asked because, you know, we had Daisy, the CEO of the AP, here before, and they're in this very lengthy legal battle. They don't, and it probably won't go to court, if it does, till maybe January or next year.
Are you prepared to be in this for how long?
It's a different kind of legal battle that AP is going through. That's a battle about whether or not they have the right, you know, to access within the White House, which we've supported AP in that fight. I think that's very different from being sued for libel by the president of the United States, for which I think there is no settlement. I don't think the president of the United States should be suing media organizations for libel. Full stop. I think that's wrong. But I especially think it's wrong when he's wrong on the facts, when he's wrong about the story, when he misunderstands the protections that the law offers to media organizations under the Supreme Court's interpretation of libel law. And I think it's incumbent on us to fight that to the end.
The New York Times is so well positioned to fight that. Such, you know, success commercially allows you to have the legal resources. You know, when you think about what precedent it sets, if you fight and you win, do you think that helps, you know, maybe smaller outlets possibly dodge these types of efforts by the president?
I hope so. And I think also that it is true that smaller outlets, at a minimum, have to have the resources to be able to defend themselves over a lengthy court process. And some of them don't, and that's a real challenge. We do, and we're lucky in that sense. So I hope that further establishing this legal precedent will be of some help.
I think about when you first took over for this role, and one of the things I didn't expect was that underneath you, the Times was going to be shifting to be so multimedia. When I think about Joe Khan, I think about the, you know, international China expert editor. I didn't recognize that you had that focus. Is that an accurate portrayal of what your priorities are? Like, what is the news report supposed to look like under you?
We have a, I mean, I'm very lucky to have, you know, a much larger and much more capable newsroom in terms of skill sets than really any of my predecessors had. And we have, you know, enormously capable sort of visual teams, graphics, we're building up our video team. And I do think one of the distinguishing characteristics, one of my top priorities, is to build out this promise of a true multimedia news organization that will tell stories in the forms that people want them. You know, if you like to listen, if you like to watch, we will give you a full journalistic experience in those forms. Sometimes we'll mix those forms. If you look, actually, we've had an app for decades, I guess, a couple of decades. Anyway, if you look at the New York Times app today, it looks nothing like it did even a couple of years ago. It is a showcase for digital media in its best form. We're rolling out now a watch experience where if you prefer to watch TikTok style, but with really good journalism to watch, you can do that inside the New York Times app. If you want to play a game after you read the top stories, games is right there. It's sort of building out that app experience as the ultimate destination in digital journalism is a big priority.
