The New York Times

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The New York Times

The January 9, 2008 front page of
The New York Times
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner The New York Times Company
Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.
Staff Writers 350
Founded 1851
Price USD 1.25 Monday-Saturday
USD 4.00 Sunday
USD 4.00/5.00 Special Editions
Headquarters New York Times Building
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Flag of the United States United States
Circulation 1,077,256 Daily
1,476,400 Sunday[1]
ISSN 0362-4331

Website: nytimes.com

The New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed internationally. It is owned by The New York Times Company, which publishes 15 other newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. It is the largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. Nicknamed the "Gray Lady" for its staid appearance and style, it is often regarded as a national newspaper of record, meaning that it is frequently relied upon as the authoritative reference for modern events. Founded in 1851, the newspaper has won 98 Pulitzer Prizes,[2] more than any other newspaper.[3] The newspaper's title, like other similarly-named publications, is often abbreviated to the Times. Its motto, always printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is: "All the news that's fit to print."

The publisher is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., a member of the family that has controlled the paper since 1896. Sulzberger is widely seen as being under increasing pressure lately as dissident investors have pressed the company for board representation as the company's circulation figures have plummeted amidst an industry-wide circulation downturn and a migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet.

Contents

[edit] History

The New York Times was founded on September 18, 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker George Jones as the New-York Daily Times. The paper changed its name to The New York Times in 1857. The newspaper was originally published every day but Sunday, but during the Civil War the Times, along with other major dailies, started publishing Sunday issues.

The paper's growing influence was seen when, in 1870 and 1871, a series of Times exposés targeting Boss Tweed ended the Tweed Ring's domination of New York's city hall.[4]

In the 1880s, the Times transitioned from supporting Republican candidates to becoming politically independent; in 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential election. While this move hurt the Times's readership, the paper regained most of its lost ground within a few years.

The Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, publisher of The Chattanooga Times, in 1896. In 1897, he coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print," interpreted as a jab at competing papers in New York City (the New York World and the New York Journal American) known for lurid yellow journalism. Under his guidance, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, and reputation.

The paper moved its headquarters to 42nd Street in 1904, giving its name to Times Square, where the New Year's Eve tradition of lowering a lighted ball from the Times building was started by the paper. After nine years in Times Square, the paper relocated to 229 West 43rd Street. It remained there until spring 2007, and is now three blocks south at 620 Eighth Avenue. The original Times Square building, known as One Times Square, was sold in 1961.

During the next two decades, the Times used new technology to obtain news and deliver it to readers. In 1904, the Times received the first on-the-spot wireless transmission from a naval battle, a report of the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Yellow Sea from the press-boat Haimun during the Russo-Japanese war. In 1910, the first air delivery of the Times to Philadelphia began. The Times' first trans-Atlantic delivery to London occurred in 1919. Finally, in 1920, a "4 A.M. Airplane Edition" was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening.

In the 1940s, the paper extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the fashion section in 1946. The Times began an international edition in 1946. The international edition stopped publishing in 1967, when it joined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to publish the International Herald Tribune in Paris. The paper bought a classical radio station (WQXR) in 1946.

The New York Times reduced its page width to 12 inches (300 mm) from 13.5 inches (340 mm) on August 6, 2007, adopting the width that has become the U.S. newspaper industry standard.[5]

[edit] Times v. Sullivan

The paper's involvement in a 1964 libel case helped bring one of the key United States Supreme Court decisions supporting freedom of the press, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.

The United States Supreme Court established the actual malice standard for press reports to be considered defamatory or libelous. The malice standard requires the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove the publisher of the statement knew the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and difficulty in proving what is inside a person's head, such cases against public figures rarely succeed[citation needed].

[edit] The Pentagon Papers

Further information: History and background of New York Times Co. v. United States

In 1971, the Pentagon Papers, a secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971, were given ("leaked") to Neil Sheehan of The New York Times by former State Department official Daniel Ellsberg, with his friend Anthony Russo assisting in copying them. The Times began publishing excerpts as a series of articles on June 13. Controversy and lawsuits followed.

The papers revealed, among other things, that the government had deliberately expanded its role in the war by conducting air strikes over Laos, raids along the coast of North Vietnam, and offensive actions taken by U.S. Marines well before the public was told about the actions, and while President Lyndon B. Johnson had been promising not to expand the war. The document increased the credibility gap for the U.S. government, and hurt efforts by the Nixon administration to fight the war.

When the Times began publishing its series, President Nixon became incensed. His words to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger included "people have gotta be put to the torch for this sort of thing..." and "let's get the son-of-a-bitch in jail." After failing to get the Times to stop publishing, Attorney General John Mitchell and President Nixon obtained a federal court injunction that the Times cease publication of excerpts. The newspaper appealed and the case began working through the court system.

On June 18, 1971 the Washington Post began publishing its own series. Ben Bagdikian, a Post editor, had obtained portions of the papers from Ellsberg. That day the Post received a call from the Assistant Attorney General, William Rehnquist, asking them to stop publishing. When the Post refused, the U.S. Justice Department sought another injunction. The U.S. District court judge refused, and the government appealed.

On June 26, 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take both cases, merging them into New York Times Co. v. United States 403 U.S. 713. On June 30, 1971 the Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the injunctions were unconstitutional prior restraints and that the government had not met the burden of proof required. The justices wrote nine separate opinions, disagreeing on significant substantive issues. While it was generally seen as a victory for those who claim the First Amendment enshrines an absolute right to free speech, many felt it a lukewarm victory, offering little protection for future publishers when claims of national security were at stake.

[edit] Pulitzer Prizes

Further information: Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the New York Times' staff.

The Times has won 98 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper.

[edit] Historical controversies

New York Times headlines on the mass murder of Armenians and Pontic Greeks
New York Times headlines on the mass murder of Armenians and Pontic Greeks[6]

The paper, like many news organizations, has often been accused of giving too little or too much coverage to events for reasons not related to objective journalism. One of these allegations is that before and during World War II, the newspaper downplayed accusations that the Third Reich had targeted Jews for expulsion and genocide, in part because the publisher, who was Jewish, feared the taint of taking on any "Jewish cause."[7]

Another serious charge is the accusation that the Times, through its coverage of the Soviet Union by correspondent Walter Duranty, helped cover up the Ukrainian genocide by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s.[8][9]

In 1965, the Times published a story about a Jewish man turned neo-Nazi, Dan Burros. Burros killed himself minutes after the paper came out with the story.[10]

The Times has been accused by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting of giving partial coverage of events in the 1980s in Central America, in particular by insisting on human rights violations committed in Nicaragua, to the detriment of other abuses during the Salvadoran Civil War, the Guatemalan Civil War or under the dictatorship in Honduras.[11]

Until 2004, the Times had a policy of not using the term Armenian Genocide.[12] Despite publishing dozens of articles about the Armenian Genocide,[13] the Times shied away from using the term in its articles as part of its editorial policy. The Turkish Government denies genocide occurred. Times columnist and former reporter Nicholas D. Kristof, who is of Armenian descent, has criticized in his Times column the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government.

[edit] The Times today

The new New York Times headquarters building.
The new New York Times headquarters building.

The New York Times trails in circulation only to USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is currently owned by The New York Times Company, in which descendants of Adolph Ochs, principally the Sulzberger family, maintain a dominant role.

The Times has been going through a downsizing for several years, offering buyouts to workers and cutting expenses,[14] in common with a general trend among print newsmedia. At the end of 2005 it had over 350 full time reporters and about 40 photographers, in addition to hundreds of free-lance contributors who work for the paper more occasionally.

In addition to its New York City headquarters, the Times has 16 news bureaus in New York State, 11 national news bureaus and 26 foreign news bureaus.[15] It has sought to strengthen its status as a national newspaper by increasing printing locations to 20, allowing early morning distribution in additional markets.

In March 2007, the paper reported a circulation of 1,120,420 copies on weekdays and 1,627,062 copies on Sundays.[16] In the New York City metropolitan area, the paper costs $1.25 Monday through Saturday and $4 on Sunday. Elsewhere the Sunday edition costs $5. New home delivery subscribers receive a discount.[17]

The newspaper continues to own the classical music radio station WQXR (96.3 FM) and formerly owned its AM sister, WQEW (1560 AM). The classical music format was simulcast on both frequencies until the early 1990s, when the big-band and standards music format of WNEW-AM (now WBBR) moved from 1130 AM to 1560. The AM station changed its call letters from WQXR to WQEW. By the beginning of the 21st century, the Times had begun leasing WQEW to ABC Radio for its Radio Disney format, which continues on 1560 AM. Disney became the owner of WQEW in 2007.

The Times had a separate television guide from March 1988 to April 2006. It was the last major newspaper to outsource its television guide's editorial to a syndication service such as Tribune Media Services, though the latter company compiled the guide's TV grids. Blurbs (short, haiku-like summaries) for the listings of theatrical and television movies were based on the opinions of Times critics but edited to succinct form by the former film critic Howard Thompson[18] from the section's inception in 1988 until a year before his death in 2002, then by Lawrence Van Gelder, Gene Rondinaro, Tim Sastrowardoyo, Neil Genzlinger, and Anita Gates.

A new headquarters for the newspaper, New York Times Tower, is a skyscraper designed by Renzo Piano. It was occupied in June 2007 and is at 620 Eighth Avenue, between West 40th and 41st Streets, in Manhattan.[19]

[edit] Modern controversies

Jayson Blair was a New York Times reporter who was forced to resign from the newspaper in May 2003, after he was caught plagiarizing and fabricating elements of his stories. Critics point that Blair's race was the motivating reason for the Times initial reluctance to fire him. [20]

The Times has been accused of having a liberal or a conservative bias.[21][22][23][24][25][26] According to a 2007 survey of public perceptions of major media outlets, 40% believe the Times has a liberal slant and 11% believe it has a conservative slant.[27] In summer 2004, the newspaper's then public editor (ombudsman), Daniel Okrent, wrote a piece in which he concluded that the Times did have a liberal bias in coverage of certain social issues, gay marriage being the example he used. He claimed that this bias reflected the paper's cosmopolitanism, which arose naturally from its roots as a hometown paper of New York City. [28] Okrent did not comment at length on the issue of bias in coverage of "hard news," such as fiscal policy, foreign policy, or civil liberties. Okrent noted that the paper's coverage of the Iraq war was, among other things, insufficiently critical of the George W. Bush administration.

[edit] Web presence

The Times has had a strong presence on the Web since 1995, and has been ranked one of the top Web sites. Accessing some articles requires registration, though this can be bypassed by using a link generator or in some cases through Times RSS feeds.[29] The website had 555 million pageviews in March 2005.[30]

The domain nytimes.com attracted at least 146 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.[31] NYT Company consolidation (which includes About.com) is the 12th most-visited parent company, with 37.7 million unique visitors as of March 2006.[32]

In September 2005, the paper decided to begin subscription-based service for daily columns in a program known as TimesSelect, which encompassed many previously free columns. Until being discontinued two years later, TimesSelect cost $7.95 per month or $49.95 per year,[33] though it was free for print copy subscribers and university students and faculty.[34][35] To work around this, bloggers often reposted TimesSelect material,[36] and at least one site once compiled links of reprinted material.[37]

On September 17, 2007, The Times announced that it would stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight the following day, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.[38] In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, Times news archives from 1987 to the present are available at no charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.[39] [40]

Times columnists including Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman had criticized TimesSelect,[41][42] with Friedman going so far as to say "I hate it. It pains me enormously because it’s cut me off from a lot, a lot of people, especially because I have a lot of people reading me overseas, like in India ... I feel totally cut off from my audience."[43]

The Times is also the first newspaper to offer a video game as part of its editorial content, Food Import Folly by Persuasive Games.[44]

The Times Reader is a digital version of the Times. It was created via a collaboration between the newspaper and Microsoft. Times Reader takes the principles of print journalism and applies them to the technique of online reporting. Times Reader uses a series of technologies developed by Microsoft and their Windows Presentation Foundation team. It was announced in Seattle in April 2006 by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., Bill Gates, and Tom Bodkin.

[edit] Major sections

The newspaper is organized in three sections including the magazine, some like the Metro Section, are only found in the editions of the paper distributed in the Tri-State Area and not in the national or Washington, D.C., editions:

1. News 
Includes International, National, Washington, Business, Technology, Science, Health, Sports, The Metro Section (almost always section B), Education, Weather, and Obituaries.
2. Opinion 
Includes Editorials, Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor.
3. Features 
Includes Arts, Movies, Theater, Travel, NYC Guide, Dining & Wine, Home & Garden, Fashion & Style, Crossword, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, and Week in Review

[edit] Style

When referring to people, the Times generally uses honorifics, rather than unadorned last names (except in the sports pages). The newspaper's headlines tend to be verbose, and, for major stories, come with subheadings giving further details, although it is moving away from this style. It stayed with an eight column format years after other papers had switched to six, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography, with the first color photograph on the front page appearing on October 16, 1997. In the absence of a major headline, the day's most important story generally appears in the top-right hand column, on the main page.

The typefaces used for the headlines are custom variations of Cheltenham. The running text is set at 8.7 point Imperial.[45]

[edit] Comics

Aside from a weekly roundup of reprints of editorial cartoons from other newspapers, the Times does not have its own staff editorial cartoonist, nor does it feature a comics page or Sunday comics section.

[edit] Ownership

The Ochs-Sulzberger family, one of the United States' great newspaper dynasties, have owned the Times since 1896. After the publisher went public in the 1960s, the family continued to exert control through its ownership of the vast majority of Class B voting shares. Class A shareholders cannot vote on many important matters relating to the company, while Class B shareholders can vote on all matters.

Dual-class structures caught on in the mid-20th century as families such as the Grahams of the Washington Post Company sought to gain access to public capital without losing control. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, had a similar structure and was controlled by the Bancroft family (it was bought by the News Corporation in 2007). Many regard family ownership as a way to promote journalistic excellence by insulating newsroom decisions from short-term financial pressures.[citation needed]

Major Class A shareholders, as of December 31, 2006, include the Sulzberger family (19%), T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. (14.99%), Private Capital Management Inc. (9.34%), MFS Investment Management (8.28%) and Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc. (7.15%).[46]

The Ochs-Sulzberger family trust controls roughly 88 percent of the company's class B shares.[46] Any alteration to the dual-class structure must be ratified by six of eight directors who sit on the board of the Ochs-Sulzberger family trust. The Trust board members are Daniel H. Cohen, James M. Cohen, Lynn G. Dolnick, Susan W. Dryfoos, Michael Golden, Eric M. A. Lax, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and Cathy J. Sulzberger.[46]

[edit] Current management and employees[47]

[edit] Publisher

[edit] Masthead

The News Sections[48]

 

Business Management[50]

  • Janet L. Robinson, Chief Executive Officer, The New York Times Company
  • Scott H. Heekin-Canedy, President, General Manager
  • Dennis L. Stern, Senior V.P., Deputy General Manager
  • Denise F. Warren, Senior V.P., Chief Advertising Officer
  • Alexis Buryk, Senior V.P., Advertising
  • Thomas K. Carley, Senior V.P., Planning
  • Yasmin Namini, Senior V.P., Circulation and Marketing
  • David A. Thurm, Senior V.P., Chief Information Officer
  • Roland A. Caputo, V.P., Chief Financial Officer
  • Terry L. Hayes, V.P., Labor Relations
  • Thomas P. Lombardo, V.P., Production
  • Muriel Watkins, V.P., Human Resources
  • Christian L. Edwards, President, News Services
  • Vivian Schiller, Senior V.P., General Manager, NYTimes.com
  • Michael Oreskes, Editor, International Herald Tribune

[edit] Department heads

  • Laura Chang, science news editor
  • Susan Chira, foreign news editor
  • Suzanne Daley, national news editor
  • Trip Gabriel, style editor
  • Lawrence Ingrassia, financial news editor
  • Tom Jolly, Sports editor
  • Scott Veale, Arts and Leisure editor
  • William McDonald, obituaries editor
  • Alison Mitchell, education editor
  • Katherine J. Roberts, editor, The Week in Review
 

[edit] Bureau chiefs

Domestic bureaus

 

Foreign bureaus

 

Foreign bureaus (cont.)

[edit] Columnists

Op-Ed Columnists

Business Columnists

 

News Columnists

Science Columnists

[edit] Other notable personnel

[edit] Former management and employees

[edit] Publishers

[edit] Executive editors

[edit] Other personnel

[edit] See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Saba, Jennifer (2008-04-28). New FAS-FAX: Steep Decline at 'NYT' While 'WSJ' Gains. Editor & Publisher. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.
  2. ^ New York Times Company : Company : Awards : Pulitzer Prizes : NYTimes Media Group
  3. ^ Pulitzer Prize on topics.nytimes.com
  4. ^ The New York Times Company: New York Times Timeline 1851-1880
  5. ^ "In Tough Times, a Redesigned Journal". "A long slow decline in circulation across the industry since the mid-1980s and the chance to save money have prompted other newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, to reduce size." 
  6. ^ The general pattern of related New York Times reporting for the period concerned can be captured here.
  7. ^ Leff, Laurel [2005-03-21]. Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper (hardback, paperback), New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81287-9. 
  8. ^ New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty. The New York Times Company. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  9. ^ Beichman, Arnold (2003-06-12). Pulitzer-Winning Lies. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  10. ^ "Parents Claim Body of Klan Leader Who Killed Self on Exposure as Jew", Washington Post, 1965-11-02, p. A4. 
  11. ^ Questionnaire for the New York Times on Its Central America Coverage, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), February 1998
  12. ^ "New York Times". Armeniapedia. Retrieved on 2006-07-04. 
  13. ^ "Armenian Genocide Contemporary Articles". Armeniapedia. Retrieved on 2006-07-04. 
  14. ^ Joyner, James. New York Times Fires 500 Staffers. Outside the Beltway. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  15. ^ a b The New York Times Company. Our Company: Business Units. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  16. ^ The New York Times Company (2007-03-31). Investors: Circulation Data. Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
  17. ^ Times home delivery discount
  18. ^ Feature: Howard Thompson | 12/25/2002 | Citypaper.com
  19. ^ New York Times Headquarters. SkyscraperPage.com (2007). Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  20. ^ Jayson Blair: A Case Study of What Went Wrong at The New York Times December 10, 2004 By Kristina Nwazota of PBS
  21. ^ Time: "The Next War in Iraq."
  22. ^ The Nation:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050418/baker
  23. ^ Russ Baker
  24. ^ Washington Post
  25. ^ Media Matters on William Safire: http://mediamatters.org/items/200410110010
  26. ^ Eric Alterman : http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2
  27. ^ New York Times, Washington Post, and Local Newspapers Seen as Having Liberal Bias. Rasmussen Reports (15 Jul 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-09.
  28. ^ Okrent, Daniel (2004-07-25). "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?" (Public Editor column). The New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-09-24.
  29. ^ New York Times Link Generator (presented by reddit)
  30. ^ The New York Times. The New York Times Company Reports NYTimes.com's Record-Breaking Traffic for March. BusinessWire. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  31. ^ New York Times attracts 140m visitors online yearly
  32. ^ The New York Times. Nielsen NetRatings NetView March 2006 for NYTimes.com. BusinessWire. Retrieved on 2006-07-24.
  33. ^ What Is TimesSelect?. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  34. ^ Who is eligible to get TimesSelect for free?. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  35. ^ TimesSelect is now free for University Students and Faculty. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
  36. ^ Farivar, Cyrus (2006-09-22). Goof Lets Times' Content Go Free. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  37. ^ Tabin, John. Never Pay Retail. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  38. ^ Why the New York Times is Free. Retrieved on 2007-09-17.
  39. ^ "Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site.", New York Times, September 18, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-14. "These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue." 
  40. ^ Archive 1851-1980: Advanced Search. The New York Times.
  41. ^ Kaus, Mickey (2006-06-18). Touting Mark Warner - Suellentrop's secret scooplet. Slate. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  42. ^ Stabe, Martin (2006-06-13). NY Times columnist hates subscription wall. Online Press Gazette. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  43. ^ Thomas Friedman at Webbys. Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  44. ^ McCauley, Dennis (2007-05-25). Cultural Milestone: New York Times to Carry Newsgames. GamePolitics.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-02.
  45. ^ History of NYT nameplate. Typophile.com. May 7, 2006. Retrieved on November 29, 2007.
  46. ^ a b c The Wall Street Journal. "How a Money Manager Battled New York Times", 2007-03-21. Retrieved on 2007-03-21. 
  47. ^ People http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/index.html Times Topics New York Times. Accessed on April 26, 2008
  48. ^ Questions and Answers for Times Editors http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/media/asktheeditors.html Talk to the Newsroom New York Times. Accessed on April 26, 2008
  49. ^ Clark Hoyt http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/thepubliceditor/index.html The Public Editor's Journal New York Times. Accessed on April 26, 2008
  50. ^ Corporate Officers http://www.nytco.com/company/executives/index.html New York Times Company. Accessed on April 26, 2008
  51. ^ Who's Who at the City Room? http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/whos-who-at-city-room/ City Room Blog New York Times. Accessed on April 26, 2008
  52. ^ Who's Who in the Baghdad Bureau? http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/whos-who-at-on-iraq/ Baghdad Bureau Blog, New York Times. Accessed on April 26, 2008

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links