Does the New York Times Understand Blogs?
posted by Daniel Solove
Yesterday, Byron Calame, the public editor at the New York Times, celebrated the many new blogs of the NYT:
Blogging has made its way to The New York Times. Across the paper’s Web site, blogs run by assigned staffers are posting opinions and information they consider insightful on topics such as dining, wine, real estate and the financial world. And The Times has “a bunch on the drawing boards,” Jonathan Landman, the deputy managing editor, told me Tuesday.
Where are the blogs? It is nearly impossible to find the blogs on the NYT website.
Apparently, as Ann Althouse points out, the New York Times has a blog by law and literature scholar Stanley Fish. But the blog is part of Times Select, which is fee-based content. A blog you have to pay for? Huh?
Another “blog” is Andrew Ross Sorkin’s DealBook. It’s free, but it seems to consist mainly of short abstracts of news stories. Is it really a blog?
Through Calame’s column, I’ve located a few NYT blogs, such as Frank Bruni’s Diner’s Journal and Eric Asimov’s The Pour. Both are free and both seem to be the most bloggy of the NYT blogs I’ve seen.
But where are the rest the blogs? Where do you find them? It seems as though the NYT is only begrudgingly embracing blogs in a rather awkward way, rather than proudly featuring them on its website. I hope that the NYT will learn more in the future.
And is it just me, or does the new NYT website design demand super-human peripheral vision? I can barely look at it without getting dizzy.
April 10, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Posted in: Blogging
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Responses (6)
Bruce - April 10, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I like the new design. It looks more newspapery, like the Washington Post, the layout of which I prefered to the old Times. The new font seems a bit harder on the eyes though.
Re: charging for blogs, it does seem odd. But I don’t think it’s inconsistent with the definition of “blog.” (Then again, I lack a Ph.D. in philosophy.) It probably seemed weird when cable systems began offering new, non-broadcast channels that they charged a separate fee for.
Dave Hoffman - April 10, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Dan, give the grey lady a break. I’d be slow on my feet if I were being consumed by hundreds of thousands of parasitic bloggers too!
Ann Bartow - April 11, 2006 at 5:29 pm
I’m with Dan on the resign. It reminds me of “Weekly Readers” from childhood with a twist of “USA Today.”
And still no comics!
Jason Wojciechowski - April 11, 2006 at 5:46 pm
And I’m with Bruce on “free.” Where in the definition of “blog” does “free” come in?
Frank - April 11, 2006 at 7:23 pm
As for TimesSelect, I’m pretty troubled by it. Somebody’s got to pay for the “paper of record” as content migrates online, but is this the way to do it? seems to me that micropayments or targeted advertising are the real key. I just hope the MSM doesn’t all move in the direction of the WSJ re access.
Easton Ellsworth - April 13, 2006 at 1:50 am
Daniel, I echo your sentiments regarding the near-invisibility of blogs by the New York Times. I’ve run into the same problem at other newspaper websites and also at Google Finance company profile pages (where the blog post links are relegated to the bottom corner while the mainstream news links are given a top spot).
It will be interesting to see when and if these resources make it easier for folks like us to locate their blog offerings. I think they will, but that it will come sporadically.
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