Tension at The Times

On Tuesday at 11 a.m., the New York Times Guild will return to the bargaining table to negotiate the details of a new contract. Decked in red to show unity, the Guild, which represents more than 1400 staffers at the Times, has highlighted five priorities they would like management to address: significant wage increases to meet the cost of living, a guarantee that union jobs remain staffed with Guild members, remote work flexibility, meaningful A.I. protections, and affordable healthcare.

The Times remains among the strongest journalistic institutions, under the leadership of publisher and chairman A.G. Sulzberger and chief executive Meredith Kopit Levien, adding 460,000 digital-only subscribers for quarterly results released in November, and beating its earnings estimate. Yet the paper is nevertheless heading into a period of tension as bargaining with the guild kicks off, with growing unease inside the newsroom, according to Times staffers, about leadership that goes beyond the contract talks.

Among those issues, Status has learned, is the role of Patrick Healy, the assistant managing editor overseeing Standards and Trust, which has become a flashpoint of internal friction since occupying that position last year.

At the same time, the Guild contends that management appears more concerned about expediting the work to hammer out a contract than the specifics of the deal, working against a Feb. 26 deadline, when the current contract expires.

In October, the company’s bargaining committee attempted to initiate negotiations early, offering to address certain union concerns—namely, wages and healthcare, while framing the negotiation process as evidence of their commitment to getting a deal done. The offer, however, came with a significant condition: If they are unable to reach an agreement by Feb. 26, their proposal will “expire.”

That deadline didn’t sit well with the Guild. “Starting out with a threat is not exactly a way to have productive talks,” Jim Luttrell, unit chair for the Guild and a senior staff editor, told Status. “We’re going to proceed at a pace that covers our issues and is beneficial to us, and not by some arbitrary deadline.”

The Times pushed back in a December memo, arguing “we’re not trying to rush the process, nor making a 'threat’ as we understand the Guild’s leadership has framed it.” Indeed, the company has said they are willing to engage in a longer negotiation process, if necessary, in good faith, but Luttrell said he worries about a “lack of sincerity” in the messaging from leadership and whether they are truly willing to engage on the issues the union is prioritizing.

The contract talks aren’t happening in a vacuum. Conversations with half a dozen Times staffers suggest that Healy’s goal of building public trust in the newspaper has been complicated by his lack of it within the newsroom itself, prompting some staffers to ask: Trust for whom?

Several staffers contrasted Healy’s approach with previous Standards leaders, who carried out the assignment in a more low-profile manner. Healy has taken a far more public-facing posture since taking the job in May, publishing explanatory stories about the Times' reporting process. Indeed, that was the role he was hired for, with leadership arguing in a note announcing his promotion, “In today’s environment, we often need to take a more active role in showing and explaining how and why we do our work. And we need a creative, forward-thinking editor to lead that effort.”

However, according to multiple people, Healy has irritated many staffers with his heavy hand in editorial oversight, providing extensive notes on stories ahead of publishing, often late in the process. One staffer described Healy as bringing “more havoc” to the standards process, and another described him as a general “thorn” in the sides of many across the newsroom.

The frustration with Healy isn’t confined to Times reporters, but also editors, who have raised their concerns to those higher up, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Healy’s perceived ambition has also rubbed some the wrong way. “He’s a very classic Times animal,” one former staffer told me, citing the paper’s internal politics. Others noted that they believed he was eventually aiming for a higher post than Standards, using the position to make his mark on the newspaper. It’s “like the Patrick Healy show,” a current staffer told Status.

In another notable change, Edmund Lee, a Times editor who helped launch the Trust team that Healy now leads, quietly left the paper last year, Status has learned, with his Times website bio updated to note he was at the paper “through 2025.” A Times spokesperson confirmed Lee’s departure, but when reached, he declined to comment on the nature of his exit. The Times also declined comment, both about internal matters and the upcoming Guild negotiations.

Taken together, the labor fight and the unease surrounding Standards and Trust reflect a newsroom entering the new year facing stress tests on two fronts. As the Guild presses management for concrete commitments on pay, staffing, and A.I., staffers are also grappling with questions about how authority is exercised within the newsroom itself.

For the Times, whose work invariably draws an inordinate amount of scrutiny, it has become a familiar challenge: managing trust externally while struggling to maintain it internally.

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