The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Can Journalism Survive AI? — with NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO of the New York Times, joins Scott Galloway to break down the future of media. They discuss the Times’ subscription strategy, the battle between AI companies and publishers, and why high-quality journalism is still a human business. Plus, a candid conversation on parenting in the digital age. We’re also now live on Substack. Subscribe at profgmedia.com to get ad-free versions of all our podcasts, the full archive of Scott’s newsletters, and exclusive content including deep dives, livestream conversations, and subscriber Q&As. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for the show comes from VCX, the public ticker for private tech. The U.S. stock market started history's greatest wave of wealth creation. From factory workers in Detroit to farmers in Omaha, anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But today, our most innovative companies are staying private longer, which means everyday Americans are missing out. Until now. Introducing VCX, a public ticker for private tech. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com.

carefully considered the investment materials before investing, including objectives, risk charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the funds perspective at getvc.com. This is a paid sponsorship. Episode 388, Prozac was introduced to the U.S. market. Depression for me is like having a huge dick. It's just something I've learned to live with. Welcome to the 38th episode of the Prop GP

What's happening in today's episode, we speak with Meredith Kopet Levian, the CEO of the New York Times. I'm a big fan of Meredith. She's, he's done a great job there. It's not an easy, God, I, so I don't if you know if you know this or not. I was on the board of the New York Times, and being a CEO is a shitty job, uh, because 50% of America hates the New York Times. It's also in a business that's just not a great business. They do it better than anybody, but it is long form journalism that's fact-checked. is just very expensive and a shitty business in the world of Google and Facebook. But Meredith has done. It's not a great job.

Anyways, we discussed with Meredith, the future of media, the impact of AI, trust, polarization, and the evolving role of journalism. So with that, here's our conversation with Meredith Kopet Levian. Meredith, where does this podcast find you? I am in Washington, D.C. today, which is unusual for me on a Tuesday coming to you from the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. Actually, let's use that as a jumping-up point because it's kind of a tale of two cities in terms of the Times and the Washington Post. The Times, this is kind of the mother of all softballs, but it's true. The Times just posted its strongest year in recent memory. 13 million subscribers, your revenue approach with revenues approaching $3 billion. Meanwhile, the Washington Post is laid off around a third of its staff. And it seems that generally speaking, legacy media companies are in a bit of a crisis mode right now. And the Times is, I think on any objectionable measure or objective measure, what have you done right or what do you think is working that's not working at other legacy media companies? That's a big one to start off on. Let me start by saying, you know, I'm rooting for all high quality independent journalism. I think the Post is still doing plenty of high quality independent journalism, particularly original reporting on big, important topics.

and there are a number of outlets doing it. You know, I can talk to you about what we are doing and what I think has gone right so far at the times. Probably the biggest and most important part of the story of the results that you just described is that we have made a sustained and very deliberate investment over a very long period of time in original independent journalism. That's in journalists.

and in, you know, the support system structure around them to make sure they can do extraordinary work. We've got the largest newsroom in the history of the New York Times now. It's 2,300 people. We have 3,000 total journalists and content makers at the Times, and they are pursuing in just an extraordinary range of coverage. You know, things that are of great civic and geopolitical consequence. and also stuff that's just deeply relevant to people in their personal lives. And I think, you know, the Times has invested sort of throughout its history in that and recognizes that that's, you know, where the value is most derived. And that's the thing we do best in terms of long-term value creation. I'll add to that, that we have had a very clear strategy that we've been out now for, you know,

in some ways, multiple decades, but I can at least speak to the last decade. And we've given that strategy to be the essential subscription to curious people everywhere. You know, we've given it the time and the space and the resources to play out. And I think we also have a long history of using tech and format innovation to make our work more and more accessible to people. So I think all those things are working. And I just want to say, And we will be, you know, hard FM for years to come. I mean, it's not that this is a high-quality independent journalism is a hard business. Doing the kind of work I just described is hard work, particularly the journalism part of it.

And you're going to, you know, I will be talking about the deliberate investment in that and the fight to keep doing it for years to come. So you're the studio of a public company and public investors want growth. What do you see is the biggest avenues for growth for the New York Times company? I always say I think our best days are still very much ahead of us, and I say that as the CEO of a company that's been around for 175 years. Growth, we see growth in news and in our lifestyle products, and I hope we get a chance to talk about those too. We see growth domestically and internationally, and we see growth in an opportunity to, to, to, take so much of the extraordinary work we are doing and push that work into new formats and modalities where lots and lots of people are getting their information, and particularly this year video,

we are very, very focused on making the times. So take us some time to do it, but making the times as preferred a brand for watching the news than the other things we do as it is for, for for reading and listening to it. So my understanding is you have sued several AI companies. At the same time, you have just signed a deal with Amazon. How are you, what is your strategy and approach to AI? Yeah. I would regard the two things you just said in forcing our rights in court and also doing the deal we've done with Amazon as kind of of a piece.

The idea here is this is a business that is grounded in making high-quality, original independent journalism and other kinds of content that is intellectual property. And copyright law protects that intellectual property from its use by others without our permission and without control over our work. So, you know, that's what the lawsuits are about enforcing the rights around our intellectual property, and I'll just say there, the companies that are making the LLMs are spending, in many cases, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on things like talent and power and compute, all the stuff that goes into making models. And one of the things that goes

into making models is high-quality information. And we'd like to see them pay a fair wage for that. as well. And at the same time, the Times has a long track record and history of, you know, forging partnerships and doing deals with companies where we feel like we're getting sustainable fair value exchange for our work and where we have control over how our work is used and where it comports with our strategy. And that's what you've seen us do with Amazon. It strikes me that, so there's essentially two or three LLMs that dominate the market, and there are just a ton of media companies that they're crawling, or I would argue, hijacking their information. Would the times be open to either participating in or leading a coalition similar to what the music artists have done that demands or speaks with one voice?

Because one of the flaws I see in the ecosystem, Meredith, is that each media company, has a tendency to overestimate its importance in the ecosystem, recognizing that no one company, no one company is indispensable for alphabet or meta, or in this case, OpenAI. It strikes me that the, and I remember arguing this 20 years ago at the Times, that you shouldn't go it alone.

You might get $10 or $20 or $50 million, so one of the LLMs or companies can brag put out a press release saying that they're, you know, they have a licensing agreement with the New York Times company. But it's in some, isn't part of the problem that companies, including the Post, the Times, Condonass, Niki, you know, name all these media companies, News Corps, that you guys just don't play well together. And as a result, having created a coalition to push back on big tech, which has absorbed so much of the market capitalization and attention that used to be the domain

of those traditional media companies. Quite frankly, I'm saying this as an ecosystem that you're part of. Aren't you guys the perfect enemy, and that is you don't get along informed coalitions? So many questions in there. No, no, let me try and get it at least a few of them. The first thing I want to say is I think everyone running a business doing high-quality, independent journalism, doing original journalism, thinks of the other companies doing that sort of first as in the same pursuit and thinks about protecting that pursuit. And I want to say as it relates to the enforcement of our intellectual property rights, we, you know, we have taken the actions we've taken to benefit the times, but we've also taken them because we think we've got a really strong,

we've got a really strong story in terms of how much intellectual property we have, how long we've been doing it, how much of it is copywritten. And we think that that is quite important to how things go from here. And we thought we had a big opportunity to do something here that was important for the Times, but also important for journalism more broadly. And, and, and, important for society in terms of, you know, there being a continuously sustainable model for high-quality independent journalism. And by the way, over time, probably important for the LLMs, because the LLMs need high-quality information sort of coursing through their models as well, for the models to actually be good. So that's the first thing I would say. And then I would also say,

if you look at the issues that kind of animate collective interest in the industry, and I mean sort of small C collective, we're all, many of us are focused on the protection of, you know, the rights and safety of our journalists. And we go at that together when the, when America was leaving Afghanistan, the Times worked with a number of news organizations who you would consider close competitors to, and to help get people, journalists and the people who supported them for 20 years safely out of Afghanistan. And when we think about defending the rights of journalists to do their work in an unfettered way,

you see a lot of support coming out from other organizations. So I don't totally agree with you on the characterization of, you know, we're such enemies that we can't do things together. And even having said all that, I do think that every company's intellectual property rights really matter, and companies should be in a position to control how their content is used. And I think individual companies having that control really, really matters. Okay, so Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers Pictures, New Line Cinema, DC Studios, Miramax, CBS, the CW, CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, True TV, Cartoon,

Adult Swim, Discovery Channel, HGTV, bear with me, Food Network, Travel Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Investigation Discovery, ID, Science Channel, and the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the Magnolia Network, in addition to Paramount Plus, HBO Max, Discovery Plus, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, CBS News, CNN, CNN, and Españ, HLN, I'm almost done here, CNN International, Warner Bros, Discovery,

Paramount International channels, and that a variety of production companies are all about to be under the control of one family, the Ellison's. Your thoughts? I wondered where you were going with that. Listen, I don't have much to say, you know, I run this company, and I said I've been doing that. You're an iconic leader. What would you say to the FTC and the DOJ right now? Do you think this is good for the media, ecosystem to have all these brands under control of one family? Look, I think I care a lot about work that is kind of first human-made, creative, expressive work that drives our culture, and that includes news and includes the work of all the

companies you just named. And I am for whatever conditions are going to allow that work to flourish, you know, what the control structures are, who sits atop of them. I'm sort of, you know, not spending a whole lot of time thinking about that. You know, I do care a lot about news in particular in that context, and I am for a very healthy market of other news competitors, and that's good for the time, it's good for journalism, obviously good for the public. I'm not sure what to take from that.

Does this consolidation worry you or you just think it kind of plays out the way it plays out? I think what I'm really saying is I have not spent a whole lot of time thinking about, nor is it my work to think about how that will affect the Times business. I am intently focused on how the Times can keep hiring journalists, deploying those journalists in ways that help them get to the best work and making the other extraordinary lifestyle products we make. And, you know, that's where my focus is. I'm sure there are other people at the times,

including our media reporters who will have a lot more to say about that. We'll be right back after a quick break. When Westcham first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s,

One thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Support for the show comes from Pipe Drive. If you're running your business, you know the deal with most CRMs. They're packed with endless features you'll never use, interfaces that feel clunky and you end up spending way too much time just trying to find basic information. That's exactly what Pipe Drive is trying to solve.

Pipe Drive is a simple sales CRM tool for small and medium businesses. is pipe drive brings your entire sales processes in one dashboard, giving you a crystal clear complete view of the sales processes and customer information so you stay in control and close more deals faster. It all centers around the visual sales pipeline where you can see every deal, what stage it's in, and what needs to happen next. Since everything is in one platform, PipeTripe makes it easy to unite your team,

keep track of sales tasks and stand top of your leads. Plus, Pipe Drive is powerful enough to scale with your business, but simple enough that your team can actually use it effectively from day one. You can switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies overusing PipeDrive. Right now, when you use R link, you'll get a 30-day free trial. No credit card payment needed. Just head to PipeDrive.com slash ProfG to get started.

That's Pipe.com slash PropG, and you can be up and running in minutes. Support for the show comes from VCX, the public ticker for private tech. For generations, American companies have moved the world forward to their ingenuity and determination. And for generations, everyday Americans could be part of that journey through perhaps the greatest innovation of all, the U.S. stock market. It didn't matter whether you were a factory work in Detroit or a farmer in Omaha. Anyone could own a piece of the great American companies.

But now, that's changed. Today, our most innovative companies are staying private rather than going public. The result is that everyday Americans are excluded from investing and getting left further behind while a select few reap all the benefits. Until now. Introducing VCX, the public ticker for private tech. By FNX by Fundrise gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the company's leading the AI revolution, space exploration, defense tech, and more. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, discharges, and expenses.

This and other information can be found in the fund's perspective at getvc.com. This is a paid sponsorship. One of the things I use AI for the most is I use it, I don't use it to write. I find that, you know, I thought my next book I would just put in a very thoughtful prompt and boom, I'd have my next book. Get a book out of it, right? Yeah, and it isn't panning out that way. I find that so far it's kind of all chip no salsa, that there's no real voice there. It sounds like what it is and that a computer wrote it. But at the same time, I do use it a lot for editing and for fact checking. If you were to estimate, what employment or the number of people will be, not only just in New York Times newsroom, but other big newsrooms. Do you think AI, what do you think the impact of AI is? Because I have generally found that it is, it does, while it doesn't replace the written word

or your ability to write, it does, in fact, increase efficiency. What are you thinking in the back of the ad? What is the size of the newsroom right now? Where do you see it in two or three years? So 2,300 people in the kind of core newsroom working on what you think of is coming from the New York Times proper, and then 3,000 total, including the 500-plus journalist's athletic and the journalists working at wirecutter and cooking and so forth. So roughly 3,000 people. Let me say, I feel very strongly, and again, I run a public company, and I say this to everyone who will listen. I don't think the sort of core, you know, the work at the essence of what journalism is meant to do and sports journalism and shopping advice and high-quality recipes

and even the production of games, I think that's like first and foremost a human endeavor, you know, buy humans for humans. And I'll just say, I don't think people talk enough about the idea that, you know, what is it that journalists do? They, um, reporters go out into the world and with expertise in the domain that they're covering, they unearth new facts and they, you know, work with editors to, to make sure they do that in as full away as possible. And then they, you know, they bear witness to things. Sometimes in very difficult, um, circumstances, They bear witness to important things that are happening that the public should know about. And then they translate that with sensitivity and judgment and a very careful professional process in a way that's meant to get people to understanding.

And you've got human beings like in all parts of that equation. And I certainly think that technology, including AI, will help make parts of that, to your point about what's going to help to help you write your book. It will help make parts of that, you know, go better, maybe be more efficient. But I don't think it replaces the sort of thing at the core that we're doing. That is certainly true for high-quality independent journalism. I think it is also true when you think about sports journalism, you know, are you going to send a bot into a locker room to talk to a team that's, you know, just got not made the tournament because they didn't win their, they're. They conference or, you know, I think we're starting to see what recipes made by AI that have not

been sort of tasted and tested by chefs do. And I could go on and on across the New York Times portfolios. So I have real confidence that we'll find ways, as we always have, to use technology to make aspects of the work even richer or more, more efficient and maybe give time back to the human journalists doing the things I've just described, but I absolutely do not believe there will be wholesale replacement. If the New York Times Company were to be accredited with any, like, huge strategic transformation, that is, you know, the company has a market cap of $8 to $9 billion, which is pretty substantial.

The stock performance has been strong. What you're doing about, it looks like, $200 to $250 million a month in subscription revenue, and 75% of your revenues come from subscription. I would just, if I put myself into your head, it's like, okay, subscription, subscription, subscription, subscription. And what do you find is a really drives gets people to subscribe and not churn? And two, when you look forward, what new channels, and I'm going to assume, you know, continue to invest in a world-class newsroom. All right, let's assume that's a given. 10 million digital subscribers. At some point, you're going to have to have a board deck that says, this is how we get to 15 million in the next five to seven years. What are the areas and what type of new types of content do you think will drive incremental subscriptions?

Let me start by saying we are playing in really big spaces already where hundreds of millions of people spend time. And that's news broadly defined. And I always caution people to say news is not just kind of war. in politics. It's science-backed health and wellness and its culture and its lifestyle and it's how we live today and so many other business, it's tech, it's so many things. It's what will be impact of AIB on companies and jobs. So news is a really big thing that has persistent demand and there's kind of nothing else like it in terms of bringing in new audiences every day, especially in big news moments. So that's in a giant. space. And then let's go through the other spaces. Sports, Scott, I think you're a sports fan. I do listen to you. And I think you're a sports fan. We've got the largest sports newsroom on earth

with the athletic. We're, you know, more than 500 journalists covering every major team in league in the United States and European football and sort of growing into a number of other things. Sports is a giant category. We are in really early days. We've been in the athletic for four years. So lots of running room there. We've got 11 games now. Tens of millions of people play some of our games every single day. Games has done extraordinary things for the times. And I would just say, you know, we, since we, you know, we had crosswords and the mini and spelling bee,

and then we acquired Wordle. And then after we acquired Wordle, we made connections and strands, which are two of our biggest games, and we've just put out two new games. We've got Pips, and now we've got our first multiplayer game in crossplay. So, like, that is an engine where there's still tons of running room, and that keeps giving. And I often say, you know, wirecutter, the shopping advice that wirecutter does, you know, human tested product reviews, where there is, like, a professional process that goes into, how do you pick, this is the right thing if you want the less expensive version, this is the right thing if you're willing to pay more for it. I think in all, and cooking,

you know, 25,000 human-tasted tested recipes, I would say, Scott, for growth in every one of those areas, we see real running room. And often the work is, how do we prioritize to get to the biggest things first? But I can tell you, in every single one of those products, There are kind of ample places for more growth. And then I'll just say all of those products are getting more visual. They're getting multimodal. They're getting more sort of video-oriented. And you and I both know that you've just listed off a huge number of companies that mostly work in television or video.

They make things that people watch. And the more we can make the times into something that is cross the portfolio as preferred for watching as it is for reading and listening, I think the more growth we can have. So I was with a TV producer this weekend, and they said that the chill, that the FTC's aggressive actions against media companies and the president constantly interfering

and issuing statements that this company should go away or this company should succeed or the Secretary of War or the Department of War stating that, you know, picking favorites saying that the Ellisons are doing a great job and others aren't. And this producer said that the chill has been pretty dramatic, and that is everything they do now has to go through vastly more legal checks. And quite frankly, there are some things where they choose different words for fear that they're going to be sued by the Trump administration or be intimidated.

Have you found, do you sense this chill at the times? short answer, the time does not being chilled or cowed or in any way, shape, or form coming off of the work of, you know, pursuing the truth wherever may lead, even when that is to an uncomfortable place for a subject for some part of the audience, period. My longer answer is the encroachments on the independence of news outlets is, you know, it's awful. awful for the news outlets. It's awful for society. You know, why, why does the times cover the actions of the Pentagon and the military? Because it is our job to help the public hold power to account and to help the public understand if, if the country is going to war or if, you know, series of geopolitical actions are being taken. Why? What is the context for those actions? What are we to know about them? That is, you know, we do that work not in service to our own interest.

We do it for the public, as do other news outlets. And I think any encroachment on that, anything that makes it more difficult for journalists to unearth facts and get them to the public is really problematic. And I think the thing that doesn't get talked about enough is, you know, press freedom has been something, it's not a left-right issue. It's something that has enjoyed bipartisan support in this country for many, many years. And I think we have gone from a time when there was real institutional sort of reinforcement of the importance of a free press, even from leaders who most definitely didn't like the way that they were covered. I think we've gone from that to having leaders and institutions actually do work to sowed out in the press. That's what a lot of these actions are happening for their own interests. And I think it's terrible for the country. But are you spending additional resources on legal review to try and make yourself more immune? The Times has an extraordinary team of lawyers because of the need to protect.

protect our press freedoms on behalf of ourselves and the rest of the industry because of what we talked about before with AI. Probably have more lawyers today than at any point in our history. But I want, you know, the thing you're really asking me about is does the reporting change? The answer is no, right? No, I'm not. I'm not. More interesting things are happening.

Even if it was, I wouldn't expect you to own up to it. And I see no evidence that there has been a show. What I'm asking is, is it increased the extent? expense around legal review and ensuring, you know, when you have a target, when you have a target on your back on an active shooter, you have to spend more money on security. You know, the example that I think sort of demonstrates how much we spend or how much goes into this is, you know, we've had people with the war in Ukraine is now in its fifth year. We've had people there continuously the whole time, some spending, you know,

unbelievable amounts of time there. And every time we put a reporter on the ground in Ukraine, there are security experts, there are translators, there are logistics people making it so that as safely as possible and you can't eradicate all the risks, that person can do their job. And if you think about any storyline, including the Washington storylines, just making sure we have the right legal and editing support structure around our journalists. It's a huge part of, of how the time goes about its work. And yes, we are spending lots and lots of money and effort and resources on it.

No doubt. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. It's a shame when the best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong audience. Like, imagine running an ad for cataract surgery on Saturday morning cartoons or running a promo for this show

on a video about Roblox or something. No offense to our Gen Alpha listeners, but that would be a waste of anyone's ad budget. So, when you want to reach the right professionals, you can use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers according to their data. That's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role seniority, skills, company

revenue, all suit can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn ads boast one of the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash Scott. That's LinkedIn.com slash Scott. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate lunch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence. And access one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks.

Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. We're back with Moore from Meredith. So I want to transition. We actually ran into each other this weekend, and we were talking about our sons. I have two sons. You have one son.

17. Is that right, Meredith? My son is almost 15. I'm sorry, 15, almost 15. Oh, wow, you're in the thick of it. Talk to us a little bit about observations on raising a 15-year-old son and a digital age and with all the, you know, obviously the obstacles. I mean, what advice would you have for other mothers in your position with a 15-year-old son?

Well, I'll say one of the, first of all, my son is extraordinary. His name is JJ. He is a, he's just like a winner of a kid. He's a really kind person. I, in his, if you'll indulge me for a minute, when I, you know, gave a speech. to him at his bar mitzvah. I said, my son is the best judge of character and goodness, I know. And if my son doesn't like someone, it always makes me think twice. And by the way, he likes most people, but it makes me think twice because he's such a, he's such a sensitive, emotionally evolved

human. And I'm super proud of that. And he's great communicator. Look, I think I'm terrified by the amount of time he and his friends spend, you know, with their face attached to a phone. And I've got a kid who's a four-sport athlete. And so he is really busy. He does not have time for want and use of screens. But if I could make all of it go away, even in that limited time, he has, I would. He teases me that, you know, if he called me from a party and said there was stuff happening at the party, that no parent would like.

He jokes that my first question would be, did you give yourself more? time on Instagram when you know you shouldn't. So, you know, I really, I think I've got a really sensible kid and we talk a lot about making good decisions as a teenager. I think the attachment to the device that's always there and to the things that happen on those devices. Do you have rules around springtime? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And the algorithms feeding things to him that sort of match the things they think he already likes. I think that. I think that. That is a, of all the things going on in my kids' life, that's the thing I worry about the most. What has surprised you most about, like, two or three things around, I mean, obviously, being present, but in this age, any advice for people, I mean, beyond the screens about parenting 15-year-old boys?

I mean, you have a very demanding career. You are not in a 40-hour-a-week job, and obviously a lot of benefit comes from that. But how do you manage? And not only that I especially think that, look, I still think a great deal, regardless of how good the co-parent is, that the majority of domestic and emotional labor still just happens to typically fall to the female in the relationship. How do you balance the tension of trying to stay very involved in a 15-year-old boy's life with what must be pretty serious demands of running a public company? Yeah. Listen, I will say my son is always on my mind. Sometimes that is frontal lobe, and sometimes it's somewhere in the subconsciousness, but there is no hour of a day that I am not worried about something that he's dealing with or thinking about the thing he's going to do that afternoon or, you know, wondering, did I sign that piece of paper he needed to go do the thing? I mean, that's just, and, you know, I don't know if that breaks differently along gender lines, but my experience as a mom is there is no moment.

when your children are not on your mind. That is my experience. Look, I have to work hard because of my demanding job to be physically present. And then when I am physically in the same place with him, to put my own devices away and to really be like looking at him in the eye so that I am seeing him and hearing him, I also think, Scott, I wonder if you have this experience. But, you know, I talk all day long. And I'm not. the boss of a lot of people. And so people sort of, you know, some number of people probably feel like they have to listen to me. And I have to work really hard at work to be a good listener. I have to work even harder at home in an environment where I'm used to being listened to make sure I'm the one.

So our sons are not impressed. They do not believe we can fire them or give them a bonus. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's, and nothing, you know, I tell everyone who'll listen. Um, nothing makes me. me feel more vulnerable, more insecure, more anxious than an important decision about my son or an interaction with him. Did that go okay? Did I land with him the thing I want him to take away from that? And so I guess what I would say to you is making peace with the idea that there are no shortcuts and substitutes for that. And that like often I'll say to him like, eyes on mom, eyes on mom, I'm saying something, and sometimes he'll say something to me after where he was like, you didn't have eyes on me, you didn't hear me say this thing. And so a lot of it is just like,

how do I make sure I'm not just physically with him when the important things are happening, but like that my mind is totally there. Where you said it really resonates is I'm at my most insecure around parenting and my interactions with my sons. For better or for worse, I think I get it mostly right at work. And I, not every decision, but a lot of decisions when I'm speaking to their mom about what we do here, you know, how much agency do we give them, not give them, when do we discipline, what does discipline look like, what are the right incentives around the screen. I have never been less sure about any decision in any domain as the ones I make around my kids. And I thought that some instinct was going to wash over me where I would just know

what was right. And I have found that it's just not the case. I couldn't agree with that more. And it's interesting, my dad is gone. He's gone. He died when my son was just under two. And he was a teacher and he taught teachers and he studied early childhood development. And I am like constantly sort of in my mind seeking what would my dad tell me to do. I, I've been my, my, my son is entering high school next year. So like this is the period where you're saying, is this the right school? And how will he fare there? And there's, and like I said, he plays all these sports. There's a million things to talk about. And I literally called my mom, who I'm lucky to live near on Saturday. And I was like, I'm driving JJ to this place. Will you meet me and just have dinner with me? And I literally

sat at a bar with my mother on Saturday night. And I said, you're the only person who, like, I just know unequivocally has both of our best interest at heart. And am I, like, am I thinking about this high school thing the right way? And just, you know, and that, like, just speaks to, you know, I needed help. And, like, the only part, you know, I have so much vulnerability about it. Yeah. And then I think, how must my kid feel, right? There's, like, we all feel so much vulnerability about our family relationships and our most loving,

relationships. And so I try and carry that into, you know, how I do discipline him or when I do ask more of him in some way, I think about that too. Yeah, we're, we have boys that are exact same age and we're going through a high school search now as we contemplate moving back to the U.S. And we struggle with how much agency to give him such that he feels invested, but at the same time, ensuring that he feels a sense of security that parents know what they're doing. And we're not just flailing around. It's just, it's so hard to strike, or we're struggling with striking that balance. And my view is, I think kids want to feel seen and noticed, but it's up to us to give him a sense of security that we know what we're doing. And at the end of the day, we're going to make

these decisions for him. You know, I talk a big game and then he gets upset and I go to the other decision. But anyways, last question here, Marith, you've been generous with your time. At some point, like all CEOs, you'll decide to hang up, hang up your pen or your cleats or whatever the appropriate term is. What would you like to do next? What a fun question. Well, listen, my shoes are like glued to my feet at the moment, so I'm not hanging them up right now. I feel so lucky. I don't get to talk about this.

I feel so lucky every day. This is my job. I've been at the times for almost 13 years, and it's like, it's unbelievable. to get to do this work and to get to represent this newsroom's work and to get to do it in this moment when, like, to your earlier point, everyone's being, you know, sort of asked to pull their punches and the Times just isn't doing that. And to get to, you know, be a part of building these extraordinary lifestyle products that are, you know, or games are, like, their cultural sensations. Like, it just, we're having a ball. And that said, I am pretty upset.

with the development of other people. I think one of the great untold stories of the kind of last decade at the times is just how many extraordinary leaders in news and in business have been developed. And I think that's a really deliberate thing. The company takes that very, very seriously. And, you know, hard to imagine

that I won't continue for a long time to do things that are adjacent to, you know, journalism and or sports, because I think both of them make society better. You're not on the publishing side. You're on the business side. But when they say your name and they want to say, oh, yeah, what is the one thing that you feel has been your biggest? Is it an increase in subscription?

Is it an increase in the newsroom? What is, quote unquote, what would you like on your career tombstone, if you will, at the N. Y.T. If it could only be one line, what would you like it to be? ensuring that we are in a position to always find and grow the widest possible audience for the work of the New York Times. And by the way, every business question at the New York Times, like the first and last answer is, can we keep growing the engaged audience for the work? That's it. It's what it always comes down to. Meredith Kepid Levian is the presidency of the New York Times.

She's joined us from her office in our nation's capital. Meredith always appreciate seeing you. Thanks for your good work. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Jenaire. Cammy Rieke is our social producer, Bianca Rosario Ramirez, is our video editor. And Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from PropG Media.