The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and publishing industries.
It is perhaps best known for publishing Candace Bushnell's column on Manhattan's social life on which the hit television series Sex and the City was based. Published every Wednesday, the newspaper's editorial team is led by distinguished ex-PBS journalist Peter Kaplan, with other writers and editors including Joe Conason, Alexandra Jacobs, Tom McGeveran, Tom Scocca, Peter M. Stevenson, Doree Shafrir, Hilton Kramer, Andrew Sarris, Richard Brookhiser, Michael Thomas, Michael Tomasky, John Heilpern, Jason Horowitz, Robert Gottlieb, Nicholas von Hoffman, Steve Kornacki and Rex Reed. It is visually distinctive because of its salmon-colored pages and sketch illustrations, á la La Gazzetta dello Sport. Henry Rollins once described it as "the curiously pink newspaper."
On April 22, 2009, Kaplan announced that he planned to leave the paper June 1 after fifteen years[1]. A replacement has not been announced.
The New York Observer asserts to advertisers that it delivers Manhattan’s most affluent, educated and influential consumers, with the average net worth of its readership exceeding $1.7 million and 96% of readers being college graduates. It has a paid circulation of 51,000. The Observer operates several blogs: The Politicker, the Daily Transom, the Media Mob, and the Real Estate.
Ownership
The publisher and original owner, Arthur Carter has had other publishing interests in the past including the Litchfield County Times. At one time, he was a part-owner in The East Hampton Star. Carter received an A.B. in French literature from Brown University and an M.B.A. in Finance from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He spent twenty-five years in investment banking until 1981, when he founded the Litchfield County Times in New Milford, Connecticut. He owned it for twenty years until selling to Journal Register Company, later also selling his 50-percent interest in The East Hampton Star in 2003. He has been an adjunct professor of philosophy and journalism at New York University and is currently a trustee. He is also a sculptor of some acclaim. Despite his "registered opportunist" political beliefs, from 1985 to 1995 he owned The Nation.
In July 2006, Jared Kushner, a 25-year-old law student and son of a wealthy New Jersey developer, Charles Kushner, purchased the paper for just under $10 million. Kushner, a Harvard graduate, is currently pursuing a M.B.A./J.D at New York University. In April 2007 Bob Sommer became president.[2]
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