Newspapers then got used to profit margins that were 20 percent or better, and the industry came to expect fat profits as the norm. In theory and practice, however, family ownership protected papers from the vagaries of the economy and the stock market. In the economic downturn of the 1970s, for example, the Sulzbergers invested in the New York Times and added new sections on culture and food, improving both the quality and the finances of the paper.
