So unlike a modern tech company, they sit farther apart and at least have barriers between their desks?

No, thats just the core newsroom which is floors 2 and 3. Rest of the floors are a little different.

agree on the bigger desks bit, but what difference does a 12" tall barrier make?

> agree on the bigger desks bit, but what difference does a 12" tall barrier make?

It keeps your neighbor's shit from spilling over onto your desk, necessitating an awkward conversation (at the minimum). It also gives you a surface to attach taller, jury-rigged barriers, if you're so inclined.

COVID? Not a lot. But normal office work? Just a little bit of privacy. Enough so that casually glancing at what someone else is doing is discouraged. But also, not enough so that communication is too discouraged.

At the last open office I worked at, you could hear people have conversations 8 desks down. I would have quite liked 7 barriers between me and them.

In addition to the privacy aspect, it probably helps reduce the travel distance of any particles that one exhales

> In addition to the privacy aspect, it probably helps reduce the travel distance of any particles that one exhales

Maybe a little bit, but I'd think you'd want barriers that are at least head-height if you wanted to to that.

All the tech offices I have worked in or visited for Meetup groups are long shared benches. How much linear space you get depends on how fast the team is hiring, whether there are interns right now, etc.

That's actually pretty outdated. The newsroom (and all other floors at 620 8th Ave) have gotten standing desks that are slightly wider apart.

Source: used to work in that newsroom

I wonder if that's a great representation? They're all posing for the photo, there may normally be less people there.

I just meant desk setup. Context of the photo was a celebration of Alissa Rubin winning a Pulitzer in April 2016.

It was on the first page of a Google Image search.

That honestly looks more cramped than any office I've ever been in.

I thought the same thing initially; it looks terribly cramped.

But the longer I look at the picture, the more I realise that they have more personal space, sound isolation and visual privacy than I have in my office.

They have their own desks, instead of "clean" desks, so that's something.

What a nightmare.

Now imagine half of them being on the phone....terrible.

It's surprisingly quiet actually. It's not a trading floor with people screaming at each other.

Source: am a former NYT and worked in that exact room.

FYI, most trading floors are very quiet as well, for mostly the same reasons.

You're probably right, my imagination of trading floors is born from financial movies set in the 80s.

Seconding. Other than 10 minutes surrounding 9:30 and 4, the trading floors I've worked on have been quieter than any tech company I've worked for.

People are on the phone much of the day in lots of jobs. And the newsroom in that picture isn't some modern open office fad. Go look at any film that's concerned with the newspaper business. It's more or less how newsrooms have looked for many decades.

I don't think they do the same kind of work that we do.

They certainly do not.