Can The New York Times Rescue Journalism From AI?

For most chief executives, spending over $20 million on a single lawsuit with an uncertain verdict would require a serious justification to shareholders. But for A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, the rationale is straightforward: this is the price of protecting journalism,not just at his paper, but across the industry.

Sulzberger, who stepped into the publisher role roughly a decade ago and has been a driving force behind the Times’ celebrated digital transformation, now finds himself defending the institution on multiple fronts. Nearly three years ago, the Times filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies illegally used Times journalism to train their AI models. That case, still in the early stages with motions pending over discovery requests, represents just one battle in a wider war. The Trump administration continues its assault on press freedoms,most recently with an unprecedented attempt to subpoena Times journalists over their reporting on the president’s Qatari-gifted jet, intended for use as Air Force One,while AI companies fundamentally reshape how people discover and consume news online.

As a business, the Times has arguably never been more formidable, recently surpassing 13 million subscribers. Its newsroom is widely regarded as one of the most stable and well-funded in the industry. Yet Sulzberger sees existential threats everywhere: an administration willing to target reporters, AI firms whose products depend on the journalism they risk eroding, and media companies being crushed by the very changes they helped unleash on the open web.

I sat down with Sulzberger in late July at WIRED’s offices. We discussed the Times’ lawsuit, how AI is already changing reporting inside the newsroom, and why he believes journalists and media executives must unite,even as they continue to compete. The full conversation is below; a podcast version is also available.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

KATIE DRUMMOND: AG, welcome. Thanks for being here.

A. G. SULZBERGER: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

I want to get into AI, but I’d be a terrible journalist if I didn’t start with recent news affecting your paper. I’m talking about the subpoenas the Justice Department issued to several Times journalists regarding their reporting on the Air Force One jet gifted to the Trump administration by Qatar. The DOJ also subpoenaed third-party phone providers for text messages and call records involving those journalists and their family members.

Thanks for starting there. It’s yet another disturbing escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to punish and undermine the free press.

First, I have so much admiration for the reporters who did this work, and who are doing it under a kind of pressure we haven’t seen in generations. By any objective measure, this is the biggest attack on the press from a White House since Woodrow Wilson,over a century.

These reporters just kept their heads down, day after day. They didn’t get baited by the hecklers or the cheerleaders. They just did their work. That work includes reporting things the President of the United States doesn’t want the public to know because they’re unflattering or embarrassing.

In this case, they reported a story about the Qatari-donated jet,and it’s still unclear whether it was donated to the Trump administration or to Trump personally. A donation worth hundreds of millions of dollars.