NY Times promises coverage of Trump will be 'fair'

"The Times is certainly not afraid -- our investigative report has demonstrated our courage many times over," he wrote in a note to staffers posted on the paper's website.

"But we also approach the incoming Trump administration without bias," he added. "We will cover his policies and his agenda fairly."

The paper's main task, he said, is "to serve as a watchdog to the powerful; and to hold mighty institutions accountable, without fear or favor."

During the campaign, the New York Times published several major articles investigating the real estate billionaire's apparent manipulation of the tax code to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars in personal income taxes.

It also broke stories on women's accusations of Trump's sexual harassment, and the bankruptcies of real estate and gambling businesses he claimed as successes.

Conservative critics regularly condemned the newspaper, saying its coverage was biased, and Trump himself posted dozens of raging tweets excoriating his hometown newspaper.

Among them: "Really disgusting," "no longer a credible source," "very dishonest," "every article is unfair and biased," "false, malicious & libelous."

More generally, critics have accused the Times -- along with the country's other major news media -- for failing to take the measure of the anger among white working-class voters in the country's declining Rust Belt whose support helped propel Trump into the White House as a political outsider.

Without referring to the criticism, Sulzberger said his reporters would look "beyond Washington to explore the roots of the anger that has roiled red and blue America," speaking of Republican and Democratic voters.

"If many Americans no longer seem to understand each other," he added, "let's make it our job to interpret and explain."