IHT ends era with last edition before re-brand
Newly appointed New York Times editor for Europe Dick Stevenson poses, on Oct. 14, 2013, in Courbevoie, outside Paris. Stevenson will be in charge of European coverage, including the soon to relaunch International New York Times. AFP
PARIS—The International Herald Tribune published its final edition under its own name on Monday, marking the end of an era for the 125-year-newspaper that was a lifeline for American expatriates.
The newspaper, headquartered in Paris but printed throughout the world, will be rebranded on Tuesday as the International New York Times.
The New York Times Co., which took full ownership of the daily in 2003, announced earlier this year that it would be re-branded, both in print and online.
In a 24-page special report to coincide with its final edition, the IHT’s editorial page editor Serge Schmemann said the re-branding was only the latest in a long line of name changes.
“Whatever the name, the connection between the paper and its audience has long been clear,” he wrote.
“Of course, a lot of people will lament the latest name change, just as they do any change.”
Founded on October 4, 1887, by New York Herald publisher Gordon Bennett, the newspaper aimed to provide American expats living in Paris with news from home, from stock prices to the latest baseball scores.
Under several owners and different names, it became a link to home for the rising number of Americans traveling abroad, suspending publication only once for the Nazi occupation of Paris from 1940 to 1944.
It also became a symbol of US expatriates, with actress Jean Seberg playing an American who sells the paper on the streets of Paris in Jean-Luc Godard’s influential 1960 New Wave film “Breathless.”
It settled on its current name in 1967, after the New York Times and Washington Post took stakes in the paper following the collapse of the New York Herald Tribune.
It expanded globally and is now printed at 38 sites and distributed in more than 160 countries, with a circulation of about 226,000 in 2011.
