The New York Times earned $ 455 million profit last year. Unfortunately that was not enough to save his award -winning children’s section. On Sunday, the New York Times for Kids published its last monthly Insert – the last song after eight years and almost 100 publications.
The staff, which had been quietly reduced from about a dozen people up to half who have received new functions within the company over the years. An insider says that the shift is a way to invest more resources in the New York Times Magazine (which were children), because the publication is planning to have a more important digital presence.
“We now have new priorities that force us to make difficult decisions about where we can commit resources,” says the editor-in-chief of the New York Times magazine Jake Silverstein.
But the decision to publish a rare, analogue piece in an era in which parents are looking for resources for their children to link loose remarkably short-sighted.
August 2025. Illustration by Zohar Lazar. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]Build the New York Times for children
In 2016, Caitlin Roper was face-to-face in the Newsroom with a tough critic. He had just listened to her line -up for the new children’s part of Times that she intended. It would not talk to children, she explained. It would have international news, how-tos and stories about style. But it would also be delicious, with Rich Magazine illustrations inflated to the poster scale of newspaper magazines.
Her critic was not a grizzled editor with red ink-stained fingers. It was the 13-year-old son of a colleague. When hearing the full line -up of inaugural stories, he said solemnly: “You should have a story about mucus.”
May 2017. Illustration by Kelsey Dake. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]
Roper knew he was right. Mucus Get really big. And the young man scored his first writing assignment.
“That was not the point of a children’s area – to create a place in time to publish children – but [it was a goal to] Let children vote in every song and story, “says Roper.” For a story about flooding we would interview young people who have been struck by the flood. ”
It is just an example of how Roper-Die founded the section together with illustrator Deborah Bishop and her team solved some of the greatest shortcomings of publishing children.
April 2023. Illustration by Super Frank. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]Creative play area
Roper came from Wired. Bishop had done a stint in Martha Stewart Magazine and Martha Stewart Kids. They knew that the publications of children children were very little among them. These magazines are often less designed for children than for adults. In some cases this means that they become superficial art projects that do not miss dust. In others they are offensive pedantic.
Feb 2023. Illustration by Armando Veve. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]
“People who don’t understand the design don’t get that, but you can talk visually … And to be honest, what I hated about child magazines,” says Roper, who describes a trope language of photos and Starburst -Graphics. ” Here is a naked Molrat! It has 763 wrinkles! “And that’s the whole story. ”
Roper and Bishop received a considerable latitude of Silverstein. “His assignment for me was … it is not a magazine. And it is not a newspaper. You are somewhere in the middle,” Bishop recalls. “It was a great idea because we immediately innovated … and much less quiet than the newspaper.”
March 2025. Illustration by Armando Veve. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]
As Bishop explains, the canvas of the entire newspaper offered its incredible scale – the front page was an illustration the size of a poster. (And in the case of the body issue, the edition contained a complete “Panel Acht”, so that children could place a huge anatomical model on their wall.) The preference for illustration was creative, but also respectful for budgets. Illustrators are usually cheaper to hire than photographers.
At the top, each cover sets the tone by leading the classic logo of the paper. Sometimes the logo can be presented stoically, other times, covered with popcorn or dripping with Goo. In all cases, designers added a brutal “for children” (this add-on can be held by an octopus), as part of an implicit ignorance intended to channel hints from Mad Magazine and old monster cards.
March 2024. Illustration by Jimi Biscuits. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]
“I think that is exactly what it needed for smart children,” says Bishop. Subsequently, the story selection corresponded to its funny but intellectual ambitions.
In one edition – the Battle of Cats vs Dogs – it contained a cat cover and cat stories. But turn the paper over and it contained a dog shift and dog stories. Stories of scientific research essentially met in a fight in the middle. Although the style was joyful, and often animal -filled (children of animals), the Times Journalists still wrote stories for children on topics such as blockchain and January 6. It contained an interview with two children who survived a shooting at school.
“There is so much visual pleasure in the section, but also no fear of dealing with real stories,” says Roper.
Oct 2021. Artwork by Mark Ryden. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]The strategy
New York Times for Kids was first launched as a one -time number, a gift for subscribers of the printed edition of the Times. After a praised reception, it became a monthly product.
“Was part of the idea, can we put more innovation in pressure?” Roper remembers. It followed a series of experiments from the Times as a cardboard AR headset made with Google, and other one-off projects such as a quiz filled Puzzlemania. But although excellent as an added value for printed subscribers, there is no doubt that publishing more things in analogue form in 2016 did not feel precisely as the future in a world that was trending in the direction of video and social media.
Oct 2024. Illustration by Travis Louie. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]
Over the years, time investigated how the part of the children could scale. Can the subscriptions sell directly to schools? It also worked on his own digitization. The section built a successful Instagram -pageAnd it also spent about two years creating a completely New York for Times for Kids app, similar to how the standing apps built for cooking and games.
June 2019. Illustration by Alemberna Skarina. [Image: courtesy The New York Times]
The newspaper in general has remained partly for the curve for the curve due to its deep investments in digital platforms – it just launched a fully overhauled app last year. The Kids app provided how-tos and weekly activities for families, but the project was closed when the Times priority gave other projects.
The staff of the children was warned last month that the section would fold, and the general reaction was a sense of abandonment from the Greater Times machine. A team of journalists created a popular product that has never been fully promoted by the Times to fulfill an extensive range or income.
April 2024. Illustration by Katharina Kulenkampff [Image: courtesy The New York Times]A new era
It is no secret that journalism is struggling. Over the past 20 years, a massive extension event has represented for publishers, because the technical industry has stolen the attention of the public and the Gamified interruption at the expense of the truth. Since 2002, 75% Local journalists have been wiped out in this transition.
But the large has still become bigger in this environment. Companies such as the NYT are among the only remaining power brokers in “Legacy” media – who can withstand the growing subscription income that can endure the storms of fickle algorithms and afford to publish culturally valuable projects, even if individuals seem to work with losses.
[Image: courtesy The New York Times]
The company claims that it will “pursue other possibilities to serve a younger audience in the future.” But the New York Times for Kids was a love letter to the craft of analog publication. It was a gateway to get children interested in the larger world. And it was simply quality media for a demography that already loses PBS and will learn differently about the world through social feeds.
There was and is a market for the New York Times for children – I say as a parent with two children I work to stay interested in a world outside screens. It seems that the pursuit of this market was not worth a very profitable listed company.
The current slogan of the NYT is: “It’s your world to understand.” For children I might be able to imagine the modificator, ‘alone’.
#York #Times #stupid #killing #childrens #area