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One Million Words. In providing the "example of a responsible press," the Times has long since become the most influential paper in the nation, and since the U.S. became the No. i democratic power it has become the most influential in the world. It is not the biggest (even in New York City), the best-written, the best-edited, or the easiest to read (although last week it won its second consecutive Ayer award for typographical excellence). But the Times carries more news, prints more noteworthy and important journalistic beats, and has won more journalistic prizes, than any other U.S. paper. It has also shown a consistent sense of responsibility that few of the world's big newspapers can match.
The President of the U.S. feels he has to read the Times (circ. 544,000) every day; so does Pope Pius (who gets the International Air Edition), and so do thousands of diplomats and officials in Washington and around the globe. When roving Times Columnist Anne O'Hare McCormick once asked a top State Department official whether he could add any information to what the Times had on a crucial international problem, he replied with more candor than humor: "Good heavens, no, Anne. Where do you suppose we're getting our information?" A woman who lived in a cabin under the brooding cliff of a canyon in New Mexico had the Sunday Times lowered 800 feet to her door. "The Times," she said, "is my only contact with the outside world."
To keep its readers in touch with the world, the Times receives a million words of news a day from 47 full-time foreign correspondents, 50 part-time foreign correspondents, ten full-time domestic bureaus, 400 part-time domestic correspondents, 158 full-time New York City reporters and specialists and 19 news services (including A.P., U.P., Reuters and Canadian Press). From this vast intake, the Times publishes a daily average of 145,000 words (about 180 columns), and an average of 450,000 words (560 columns) in its Sunday editions.
The Times has won its reputation as "the newspaper of record" by printing such things as the full text of the Versailles Treaty (83,300 words) the even 'longer Pearl Harbor Report (247,000 words), most other significant state papers and speeches. Once a copy of the bulky Sunday Times which was being delivered from a plane in a rural area accidentally hit an ox and killed the beast. Daily and Sunday, the Times is sold in 12,041 cities and towns, thus is the nearest thing to a national daily newspaper in the U.S.
45 Seconds from Broadway. Incongruously, the gentlemanly Times forced its name on Times Square, a tabloid jungle of bright lights, noise, garish signs, dirt and rowdy manners. But though the flashing news sign still girdles the Times Tower at the south end of the Square, the present home of the paper, its sixth, is not on the Square but in a $13.5 million, 14-story, air-conditioned building at 229 West 43rd Street.