23-03-2025
Saving the Paper, and Our Memory of the Pandemic
Old newspapers are a common sight in the art department at the New York Times Building. They lie around on tables and countertops.
On a recent walk through the second-floor space, a visitor could see the issues of The Times printed on April 11, 2019, with the first-ever image of a black hole on the front page, and the paper from Dec. 19 of that year, with a large banner headline: Trump Impeached.
'These are just transitory in case a designer might need something,' said Deborah Auer, an executive assistant at The Times who has worked in the art department since 2006. The copies were just for reference, and would most likely end up in recycling.
But Ms. Auer has a set of old papers that will stick around.
She has led an effort to archive every print issue of The New York Times published in 2020, when Covid-19 changed the world. The collection, Ms. Auer believes, allows viewers not only to see The Times's coverage of the first year of a pandemic but to relive those days of fear and uncertainty as journalists and readers experienced them.
'You see the context of what the editors were thinking that day,' she said of the print medium. 'Digitally, it's gone. Here, it's here,' she added, gesturing to several issues from the archive.
Five years ago, in late March 2020, Ms. Auer and almost every other Times employee were working from home. That was during a wave of illness that would ravage New York City for months.
She would not walk the corridors of the art department again until August 2020. By then, a few other newsroom employees had returned to perform a hodgepodge of office tasks, including the practice of maintaining back copies of published newspapers. The Times keeps a rolling 12-month collection of its newspapers. Most papers older than that are tossed away to make room for new ones.
Ms. Auer thought that something should be done to preserve the work her colleagues were doing.
'It was this huge historical event, but also there were ongoing banner headlines — there were major design explorations done,' she said, referring to the unorthodox front-page compositions that editors and designers used to convey the intensity of the death and upheaval.
So she began her own collection, saving a few copies of the daily paper and recouping issues of The Times that had been printed between March and August. 'I just started organizing it,' Ms. Auer said. Soon, colleagues pitched in.
It became clear to Ms. Auer that she was not just preserving a print record of the pandemic, but of journalism during a tumultuous year in American history. On May 25, George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, igniting weeks of unrest in cities across the country. President Trump was seeking re-election. In print, those stories weren't isolated. They were laid out as they happened: next to each other, at the same time.
Jenni Lee, who at the time was a member of The Times's product and design team, is one of the colleagues who pitched in to help Ms. Auer preserve the collection. In an interview, she described herself as always collecting books, newspapers, magazines and intriguing examples of graphic design.
'I just saw helping Deb as a really hands-on way of understanding the importance of print,' said Ms. Lee, who is now a digital news designer.
With a few editions of every day's newspaper set aside, Ms. Auer, Ms. Lee and a few other colleagues began the work of preservation. Newsprint is manufactured to be inexpensive and disposable, and it degrades easily. The art department bought acid-free Gaylord archival newspaper boxes, which keep out light and dust and minimize yellowing. They placed the best-looking copy of each issue unfolded in the boxes, about two weeks' worth of news per unit.
The 2020 archive, which extends through January 2021 to include Mr. Trump's denial of the presidential election results and the riot at the Capitol, totals 24 boxes. Today they are stacked on a counter in an art room on the second floor. The collection's final destination is uncertain.
Ms. Auer said she had thought about trying to place her 2020 papers with a library, an archive or a university. But more important to her than a dignified home is a purpose: She wants reporters, editors and designers at The Times to use the collection for reference and inspiration — to turn the pages of a harrowing recent past and remember the work of their colleagues.
'I'm going to get little gloves,' she said. 'Cotton protective gloves.'
