Who (Truly) owns the New York Times?

Ever wonder who owns the media, specifically newspaper companies?

And before your mind goes there, No, No, No... Just Don't..  Don't follow the path of the simpleminded by believing a specific religious denomination that tends to get blamed for everything under the sun (you know which one we mean) controls the media...

This is a serious question and too important to be answered by Kooks.

Who Truly owns the media?

Because they are corporations which are usually publicly traded entities, the answer is Investors. All decisions made by corporate media are in the best interests of the stockholders.

Thus, it is They, the Investor who own the newspapers, TV networks and the like...  Just like they own governments who bow down and cater to their every money-making need.

But who specifically are these Investors?

We will provide information on all the newspaper corporations in time via future postings, but for today, the focus is on the New York Times.

The complied list of NY Times' biggest investors is as of Dec. 31, 2010:

           Top Investors                         Shares Held       Shares Value

Optimum Investment Advisors, LLC   10,715,274       $105,010,000

T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.           10,572,400       $103,610,000

Slim Domit Helú (Carlos)                   10,050,000         $98,490,000
  ***  Mexican business magnate and philanthropist; ranked as the richest person in the world in 2012

ValueAct Capital Management, L.P.     7,000,000          $68,600,000

Vanguard Group, Inc.                            5,673,932         $55,605,000

BlackRock Trust Company, N.A.          4,707,110         $46,130,000
  ***  American multinational investment management corporation and the world's largest asset manager

Global Thematic Partners, LLC            4,308,465         $42,223,000

Harbinger Capital Partners                 3,747,386         $36,724,000

Baron Capital Management, Inc.         3,644,030         $35,711,000

Franklin Global Advisers                   3,573,665         $35,022,000

State Street Global Advisors (US)     2,912,676         $28,544,000

Goldman Sachs Asset Management    2,402,878         $23,548,000
   ***  Ahh, Good ole' Goldman Sachs owning the media

BNP Paribas Asset Management        1,627,450         $15,949,000
   ***  An asset management company headquartered in Seoul, Korea

Statens Pensjonsfond Utland                  921,876          $9,034,000
   ***  The Government Pension Fund of Norway

~ The above companies retain what are called Class A shares.   Arthur Sulzberger Jr. controls 90.2% of Class B voting shares through family trusts.

So if you wonder why the New York Times, while pretending to represent the interests of the reader, always seems in their writings to take the side of Wall Street, banks, hedge funds, investors and investing firms, etc..., the answer is quite simple --- Their largest shareholders ARE those entities.