Few family institutions have endured for more than a century and maintained themselves at as high a level of quality as has the New York Times. While other newspapers were wallowing in the muck of the day's news in order to gain an audience, the Times was establishing high standards for journalism and creating for itself an audience of movers and shakers in governments all over the globe. If people wanted to know what their leaders were thinking, they turned to the New York Times.

When Adolph Ochs purchased the New-York Daily Times (as it was originally named when founded in 1851) on August 13, 1896, he promised to produce a newspaper without fear or favor, a newspaper of record, one that published, as the motto on page one has said since February 10, 1897, "All the News That's Fit to Print." So while the Times leads...