Postscript: Donald Newhouse

A supportive media owner is rare because political and financial pressures make backing journalism that challenges powerful people inconvenient. Donald Newhouse, who died at ninety-six, was an exception who understood editorial independence. For decades, he supported many Newhouse family publications, including The New Yorker. The family’s newspaper empire began with the purchase of the Staten Island Advance in 1922 and expanded to multiple cities, later including the acquisition of Condé Nast in 1959, anchored largely by Vogue. Donald and his brother S. I. Newhouse Jr. entered the business early, worked closely, and expanded the privately owned company together, while pursuing different leadership focuses.

"If the contemporary media scene has proved anything of late, it is that a reliably supportive proprietor is as rare as a cool breeze in August. The political and financial costs of backing journalism that challenges the honesty or the competence of the powerful can be distinctly . . . inconvenient. Some owners show their mettle for a spell, then find adequate reason to knuckle under; others have no intention of even pretending to do what is hard or what is right."

"Donald Newhouse, who died last week, at the age of ninety-six, was among the exceptions. He understood the value of editorial independence. For decades, he was a stalwart supporter of the many publications owned by the Newhouse family, including The New Yorker. Donald and his older brother, S. I. Newhouse, Jr., who died in 2017, were born to a newspaper family."

"Their father created an empire of print that began in earnest with the purchase of the Staten Island Advance, in 1922, then extended to Newark, Cleveland, New Orleans, Portland, and many places beyond; in 1959, he bought Condé Nast, a struggling enterprise in those days which was anchored mainly by Vogue. It may be difficult in the current era to imagine what it once was to have a passion for newspapers."

"Both Donald and Si attended Syracuse University for a while but leaped impatiently into the family business well before graduation. The brothers were close, trading confidences all week long, then meeting for dinner on Sunday nights at Sette Mezzo, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. Together, over the years, they steadily expanded the family's privately owned company."

Read at The New Yorker