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. Since July 2006 the paper has been owned and published by the American real-estate mogul Jared Kushner.
Published every Wednesday, the newspaper's editorial team is led by Elizabeth Spiers with other writers and editors including Rex Reed, Una LaMarche, Brian Gallagher, Lee Siegel, Matt Chaban, Dan Duray, David Freedlander, Nate Freeman, Drew Grant, Adrianne Jeffries, Elise Knutsen, Megan McCarthy, Michael Miller, Ben Popper, Kat Stoeffel, Nitasha Tiku, Hunter Walker and Emily Witt. Aaron Gell is executive editor.[1].
Previous writers include Joe Conason, Alexandra Jacobs, Tom McGeveran, Peter M. Stevenson, Doree Shafrir, Hilton Kramer, Andrew Sarris, Richard Brookhiser, Michael Thomas, Michael Tomasky, John Heilpern, Robert Gottlieb, Nicholas von Hoffman and Steve Kornacki.
The paper 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. It is visually distinctive because of its salmon-colored pages and sketch illustrations, in the style of La Gazzetta dello Sport. Henry Rollins once described it as "the curiously pink newspaper."
The fourth and longest serving editor for the newspaper, Peter Kaplan left the newspaper on July 1, 2009. Interim editor Tom McGeveran was replaced by Kyle Pope in 2009.[2]
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: Betabeat, PolitickerNY and GalleristNY, as well as the culture, media, and real estate blogs on Observer.com.
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 a B.A. 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. 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. In April 2007 Bob Sommer became president.[3] In December 2011, The New York Post reported that The Observer Media Group had been profitable for the first time ever.[4]
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