The New York Times Goes All-In On Video

There are about to be a lot more faces in the New York Times’ coverage as the paper of record is forging ahead with its pivot to video strategy, aggressively expanding its short-form video team.

“We’re in a race against time to make sure that good-quality journalism competes with AI-generated slop and influencer-generated non-original journalism out there on the internet,” said executive editor Joe Kahn in a July interview with Business Insider.

The expansion comes as the Times, like many outlets, struggles with a decline in search traffic and slower-than-expected subscriber growth in the age of A.I., following 16% growth in digital subscriptions revenue, adding 280,000 net new digital subscribers in its most recent earnings call, down from 310,000 in the first quarter.

The New York Times has posted at least 25 positions on LinkedIn that require short-form video skills, including eleven video journalist roles across general news, investigations, enterprise, opinion, international, NYT cooking, NYT Magazine, and Popcast, it’s weekly music and culture podcast.

A scroll through the Times’ homepage reveals the “Watch Today’s Videos” section, which features everything from an opinion reporter breaking down how A.I. could lead to “utopia,” a Times cooking demonstration, or a reported news segment.

The Times’ first “pivot to video” was nearly a decade ago in an attempt to chase Facebook metrics. This time, the Times is no longer aiming for social video monetization, at least for now. Kahn said his company simply has to make videos to keep pace with viewership and cultivate relationships with audiences against a competitive and noisy media ecosystem — an investment that has increased operating costs by 10% year over year, said the company’s president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, in the company’s second quarter earnings call.

Veteran Times journalists have noted the move feels “different” from the company’s last pivot to video stint. Adam Ellick, previously the Times’ executive director of opinion video, has transitioned from the role to heading the paper’s first foreign bureau for video in Brazil. 

“[It’s] real trust and real resources to make video reporting the main event, not an add-on,” Ellick wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Times stock fell 13% immediately after its most recent earnings call, with slowing subscriber growth lowering investor confidence in the company’s goal of 15 million subscribers by 2027. The company emphasized its continued investment across its games, sports, and now multimedia offerings as a bundle to entice subscribers.

“We believe we have a lot of levers to get people to engage with the bundle. And the point here is that the news cycle is going to ebb and flow, news engagement is going to ebb and flow,” said Levien.