Jeff Jarvis notes that there's a power struggle going on at the Times - and the issue is over future direction and focus:

So now the hedge funds pushing New York Times Company management own about as much as the Sulzberger family. I don’t know whether they’ll win their effort to elect directors to the board, but I do think this has reached a critical mass and that the family and management will be forced to make strategic changes. So I’m curious: what would you change? The hedge funds are urging the company to divest some assets and concentrate on the Times, investing in digital.

I'm not at all sure what the Times ought to do in order to cope with the changed environment for newspapers, but it's clear that "business as usual" is no longer one of the options...