How the Trib lost its soul

They said the 'International Herald Tribune' wouldn't change, but it's become a 'New York Times' foreign edition. Be honest about it, says Mary Dejevsky

It is often said of American election candidates that if they say their campaign is not about money, you can bet your bottom dollar it's about money. Something similar could be said of proprietors who insist that a takeover isn't about change. Of course it is.

On the first day of the new year, The New York Times completed its purchase of the International Herald Tribune, paying $65m (£40m) to buy out the 50 per cent share held for the past 35 years by The Washington Post. The buyout, announced in October, was accompanied by all manner of assurances from New York that change was the last thing on any executive's mind.

Howell Raines, the executive editor of The New York Times, has said that there are no plans to "re-make" the operations or management of the Trib, as it is affectionately known. Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the chairman of Times Co, said: "We are not jumping into this to change the IHT. We are jumping into this to understand a marketplace that we don't understand the way we should." Meanwhile, Peter Goldmark, the publisher of the IHT, told the staff: "A change of ownership is intended. But there will be no change whatsoever in our commitment to quality, independent journalism."

Superficially, between the issue of 31 December/1 January and that of 2 January, which inaugurated the new era, little did change. The familiar masthead looked as it always has; the typeface was the same, as were the page order and mix of international and American stories. There was no getting away from the change of ownership, though; The New York Times had stamped it all over the paper, where it mattered. The name of the publisher, printed in small type beneath the masthead on 31 December, read: "The New York Times and The Washington Post", as it did at the head of the editorial column. From 2 January, both read: "The New York Times".

In the list of editors for 31 December, the executive editor is named as David Ignatius, who had occupied the chair on secondment from The Washington Post since 2000. In the issue of 2 January, it was as though Mr Ignatius and a couple of other senior editors had never existed. The executive editor's post has vanished. The managing editor is now Walter Wells. He had worked for the Trib for 20 years, before leaving in 2001. Crucially, he is also a Times man.

Since 2 January, you can look down the editorial column in vain for attribution of the editorials, which used to be reprinted from the Times and the Post in almost equal number. Now, they carry no attribution; unless, occasionally, one is drawn from a foreign publication. In fact, most are reprinted directly from The New York Times of that day, or the day before. It is as though The Washington Post has become a non-newspaper in the paper it had jointly owned for so long.

It hardly need be said that the buyout was not amicable. The Times's brief announcement on 23 October, which described the decision as "mutual", was contested by a longer report in the Post, which said that the decision to sell its stake had been taken with "extreme reluctance and sadness – and little choice". The Post also let it be known that it had been strong-armed into selling. The Times had presented it with a choice; sell, or the Times would produce an overseas edition to compete with the loss-making Trib in Europe – so "threatening the future of the newspaper and the staff". Either way, the European partnership between the two premier US East Coast papers was dead.

Under the terms of the sale agreed last year, The New York Times has access to Washington Post articles syndicated by the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post news service for six months, but that arrangement may be ended after three months. The early indications are that this is exactly what will happen. The Trib is continuing to use the few correspondents it employed in its own right and is commissioning some comment articles from outside contributors. Soon, though, the IHT will in effect be the overseas edition of The New York Times in all but name.

Mr Wells is included in The New York Times's daily editorial conferences. Times staff correspondents will be encouraged to file at least a preliminary version of their copy in time for deadline at the Trib's headquarters in Paris. One of the paper's team of New York-based leader writers will also work to the Paris deadline. The next question must be – how much longer will the venerable name survive?

The answer is probably for as long or as short a time as The New York Times considers it a brand that will draw more readers outside the United States than a publication calling itself The New York Times (overseas edition). For this European reader, however, the soul of the paper seems well on the way to transferring its allegiance. By the day, the IHT seems to be becoming an American paper for Americans abroad, rather than the cosmopolitan distillation of the US and Europe that we non-American devotees fancied it to be.

Arguably, the start of this shift predates the change in ownership. It can be traced to the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks and the diverging assessments of the continuing terror threat in the US and Europe. Through 2002, the paper's news priorities and features seemed increasingly to reflect an American view of the world, rather than one that educated readers elsewhere might share. That shift now seems to be accelerating.

There is no reason why a New York Times International should not succeed, and no reason why it should not call itself the International Herald Tribune. Perhaps the days of the old Trib are past. For the sake of honesty, though, it must make one last change to the masthead. It is no longer "the world's daily newspaper".