NWSA vs NYT: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. NWSA and NYT share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined NWSA and NYT exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

News Corporation is a diversified media and information company built out of the 2013 separation from Twenty-First Century Fox, and it now runs four reporting segments. Dow Jones is the largest profit engine, with fiscal 2026 revenue of ~$2.50 billion and segment EBITDA of ~$663 million, 84% of it digital, spanning The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance (~$392 million, up ~16%) and Dow Jones Energy including OPIS (~$301 million, up ~8%). Digital Real Estate Services holds a 62.0% interest in ASX-listed REA Group (realestate.com.au) and an 80% interest in Move, which operates Realtor.com, together producing ~$2.02 billion of revenue and ~$741 million of segment EBITDA. Book Publishing is HarperCollins at ~$2.29 billion of revenue, and News Media covers News Corp Australia, The Times and Sunday Times, The Sun, the New York Post, the newly launched California Post and News Broadcasting, at ~$2.23 billion of revenue but only ~$139 million of EBITDA. Foxtel left the group in the DAZN sale that closed in fiscal 2025 and sits in discontinued operations, so prior-year comparisons look odd unless you separate continuing operations.

Full NWSA guide

The New York Times Company publishes The New York Times and operates a family of subscription products around it: the core news report, Games (Wordle, Connections, the Crossword), NYT Cooking, the sports site The Athletic, the product-recommendation site Wirecutter, and a growing audio and video slate. Almost all of the money comes from consumers rather than distributors: subscription revenue was about $481 million of the roughly $763 million the company took in during the quarter ended June 30, 2026, with digital-only subscriptions alone at about $408 million. Advertising (about $134 million in the quarter, now majority digital) and affiliate, licensing and other revenue (about $76 million, including Wirecutter referral fees and AI content licensing) fill in the rest. Print still exists and still declines, but it is a shrinking tail on a digital business.

Full NYT guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• NWSA drivers: Dow Jones as a professional-information business, not a newspaper; REA Group and Move, the property half of the company.
• NYT drivers: The bundle and subscriber compounding; Digital advertising built on first-party data.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: News Media is the obvious drag: revenue rose ~3% in fiscal 2026 only because of a ~$81 million currency tailwind, adjusted revenue actually fell ~1%, and segment EBITDA declined ~9% to ~$139 million against ~$2.23 billion of revenue, a margin that leaves no room for further print decline or for the cost of new bets such as the California Post. For NYT, the most immediate risk is cost discipline: adjusted operating costs rose about 10% year over year in the June 2026 quarter against guidance of 8% to 9%, and free cash flow margin dropped to roughly 1.3% from 15.1%, which is what actually triggered the roughly 15% single-day fall in early August 2026.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick NWSA if you believe its drivers more; NYT if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the NWSA and NYT guides.

NWSA. Figures are approximate, tied to August 2026 and drawn from the fiscal 2026 10-K and Q4 earnings release, so check live data before acting on any of them. The multiple looks full at first glance and cheaper on a parts basis: 62.0% of REA Group's ~A$23.2 billion market value is roughly ~A$14.4 billion, or about ~US$9.4 billion at ~0.65 US dollars per Australian dollar, which implies the market is assigning something under ~$6.5 billion to Dow Jones, HarperCollins, 80% of Move and the entire newspaper estate combined. Two caveats keep that arithmetic honest: ~$170 million of fiscal 2026 net income belonged to noncontrolling interests (mostly REA minorities and therefore not News Corp's to spend), and the Class A share class has no mechanism to force the discount closed.

NYT. Figures are approximate and tied to August 2026; check live data before acting on any of them. At roughly $63.80 the stock carries a trailing price-to-earnings ratio in the high twenties on ~$382 million of trailing net income, which is a growth multiple applied to a business the market now expects to grow revenue closer to 7% than 11%. The clearest way to read the valuation is as a bet on whether the reinvestment cycle in video, audio and AI distribution converts back into free cash flow, because the June 2026 quarter showed margin expansion at the adjusted-operating line and a collapse at the cash-flow line at the same time.

Headline figures (approximate, August 2026): NWSA shows revenue (ttm) ~$9.03 billion for fiscal 2026 (year ended June 30, 2026), up ~7% from ~$8.45 billion; Q4 revenue ~$2.34 billion, up ~11%, earnings Net income from continuing operations ~$743 million (up ~15%); diluted EPS from continuing operations attributable to stockholders ~$1.03 versus ~$0.84, adjusted EPS ~$1.18, segment profitability Total Segment EBITDA ~$1.63 billion (up ~15%): Dow Jones ~$663 million, Digital Real Estate ~$741 million, Book Publishing ~$287 million, News Media ~$139 million, Other ~-$203 million, cash generation Operating cash flow ~$1.24 billion (up ~26%), capital expenditure ~$426 million, free cash flow ~$811 million (up ~42%), a free-cash-flow yield near ~5.2% on the current market value; NYT shows revenue (ttm) ~$2.90 billion, with the June 2026 quarter at ~$762.5 million, up ~11.2% year over year, net income (ttm) ~$382 million; June 2026 quarter adjusted EPS ~$0.69 versus ~$0.58 a year earlier, subscribers ~12.8 million digital-only (~13.35 million total) after ~280,000 net digital adds; digital ARPU ~$9.94, profitability Adjusted operating profit margin ~20.4% in the June 2026 quarter, up ~90 basis points; full-year 2025 adjusted operating profit ~$550 million.

NWSA and NYT are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined NWSA and NYT exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.