The NYT is going to start charging money to read the NYT this month! Yikes, what the hell, they want money now, for whatever they do? We totally looked at that Black Swan ad with the Natalie Portman side-boob about seventy hundred times on the iPad edition because it was on EVERY PAGE for like two months, isn’t that “doing our part”? No? Oh.
And they don’t just want a little bit of money: The New York Times is demanding thirty-five dollars per month for Web/tablet/smartphone access. That is a ridiculous amount of money — $420 a year, in fact, because they are high. We pay just $120 for a whole year’s subscription to hundreds of channels of satellite radio, and it feels like too much. We pay $15 a month for wireless on the tablet and $30 a month for DSL, and those things allow you to reach an entire world of information and music and news. There’s nothing in the NYT that’s worth $35 a month or even $20 a month (the lowest subscription plan, for web only). The only reason we even read the Times is because it is, by default, the only semi-serious newspaper in this stupid country. It’s not particularly well-written, it’s often poorly reported, the iPad app is nothing special (just shovelware; it lacks even basic text formatting like italics, and NYT blog posts are just tossed over there without any links, etc.), the op-ed writers are for the most part an embarrassment, the arts coverage is icky, and the paper’s editorial/journalistic approach is often morally wrong or just plain spineless. Sorry, we’ll just switch completely to the Canadian and British papers now.
Whoops, what even was the point of this post? OH RIGHT:
Your former Wonkette editor Juli Weiner is helping with this painful transition by offering many completely free endings of New York Times articles, so you can glance at the headline and picture on the front page, and then pick a likely ending, and then you’re done!
- The cab driver’s homespun wisdom is borne out by geopolitical developments.
- Despite record college selectivity, admission was not as unattainable as these teens thought.
- Maureen Dowd disapproves.
This way, you can save your “free 20 Times’ stories” for the really important stuff, like this “think piece” by NYT pop writer Jon Pareles, about how some pop songs lately have a vulgar word in them, but he can’t write what the word is, because that’s not allowed in the NYT. Because you really want to read all of that one.
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Is there a reason to read the Times now that Frank Rich has left?
Krugman, and – no just Krugman.
A.O. Scott and Mahnola Dargis. Mr. Blow. Mr. Herbert. Ms Collins.
Crosswords. NYT has the best crossword puzzles. Not sure you can do them on your iPhone, though.
True dat, but the crossword subscription alone costs $40/year. We get them mailed here (at my socialist workplace), so on Monday I get to do Thursday's puzzle, etc.
Try Merle Reagle in the Sunday LA Times. Much more fun, better puns.
I don't have the brains, patience, vocabulary, or depth/breadth of knowledge for the c-word. My dad did them in pen. Decline and fall of the species.
Those little picture collages of fashionable Manhattan ladies in hats.
Frank Rich hasn't been worth reading since he started to take himself seriously.
"Despite record college selectivity, admission was not as unattainable as these teens thought"
Is the story: "Another Bush Kid Gets Into Yale"?
Brilliant! Wish I'd thought of this. Here are some more likely endings.
David Brooks says some people agree, and others disagree. Some of those people may be right, and others are likely to be wrong.
Frank Rich is fed up with something.whoops, too lateOpEd from a titan of industry describing himself as a populist.
Mets ownership promises to put a winner on the field this year.
Ross Douthat is forced to conclude, more in sorrow than in anger, that it's the fault of slutty bitches having "the sex".
p.s. It's more like "David Brooks says that republicans are actually right and democrats are wrong about X because *mumble* suspicious anecdote *mumble* handwave *mumblemumble* Applebee's salad bar."
. . . although at that price, some question the wisdom of adding whale semen to what is otherwise a very basic cocktail.
The cab driver’s homespun wisdom is borne out by geopolitical developments.
Former Libyan left to drive cab in New York because he knew all along his country was a complete shithole that would end up mired in a bloody civil war with a douchebag who nobody liked. Now he wishes he was home because America is even more full of douchebaggery than Libya and Americans are fat assholes.
Some of us have surprisingly slim assholes. I carry most of my weight on my stomach.
In other developments Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" isn't about poker…
Totally reminded me of Bernie X in National Lampoon, when it was funny.
"Fucking cops in this city are all on the take"
All young women today are sluts because of birth control, and I hate that because it makes it harder to deal with my repressed homosexuality. (Guess who?)
I'm guessing he shares a nom de douche avec Schwimmer in "Friends," amirite?
Aw, man, you beat me to it. Not that it wasn't a pretty obvious joke.
*BUZZ* Who is Ross Douthat?
Why does Ross do that?
/fixed
Worst. Atlas Shrugged fanfic. Ever.
Yes. That one writes itself, don't it?
If they really want my money they need some Page 6 girl type thingy.
And NO I DO NOT WANT NAKED DOWD.
So, do that and maybe…
Michael Bloomberg has decided to run for his 69th term in office.
This New Yorker, who earns $250,000 a year, is shocked that some people consider him rich.
would you hire me now please?
Do you need a footstool? I would be a fine footstool!
That headline is a might fancy way to describe the Ca$h Cab.
former Wonkette editor Juli Weiner is very very funny and i laughed outloud at least three times.
though i confess i was momentarily distracted by 'it's easy to be green' wherein random celebs don green hair. i am shallow that way.
Yeah I clicked through that too. Only what's her name had the sexy green wig. The rest were just old pictures of celebrities who happened to be wearing something kind of greenish.
VF's article ads with glamor shots of various hot celebrities in revealing clothing are rather distracting, in a good way.
But none of those are happy endings, so I'm gonna give them a pass.
I, for one, welcome our new digital overlords. Also, too, I subscribe to the print version of the NYT (as well as the Zell-ruined Chicago Tribune).
Why, you ask? (Okay, no, you don't, but whatevs.)
Here's why: I grew up on A.J. Liebling. I edited my high school paper and wrote for my college paper. For a brief and benighted period, I was a free-lance print investigative journalist. And, yes, the NYT bought a bill of goods from war-whore Judy Miller, even as its other journalists sounded the alarm.
But, BUT, somebody has to pay the piper for Bob Herbert and Charlie Blow. And without some kind of main-stream respected journalism in this country that asymptotically approaches scrupulous and independent, we would be even more fecked than we are now.
Feel free to ignore me and carry on.
I stopped reading them when they were enabling Judy Miller. I won't notice this.
I know. I hope they can drive us into a war in Libya before they go.
I stopped at the same time.I do like to take a page or two out of the recycling box now and then. "Oh, look. There was a sale at Saks just a few weeks ago." Otherwise I get all my newz right here. I'm sure there will be an ad for the DC Saks or whatever soon enough.
Most likely ending I'll read: "The Times regrets the error."
Didn't they try a paywall a while ago, and then rescind it because, guess what, nobody would pay to read Mo Dowd?
Who will tell us how to furnish our Hamptons beach houses? Who will tell us when important gheys are engaged?
Honestly it's worth $20 a month to get the Fri-Sat-Sun treated-wood-pulp editions so you can go around saying things like, "I'm fluent in three sections," like those weird douche bag actors in the teevee commercial. Plus the magazine has many, many ads for $10,000 watches. Who buys all these things — important gheys?
Yeah, it was an op-ed paywall … because that's what you want to hide, during an era of ENDLESS FREE OPINION, your op-ed writers ….
Topplebush stepped up and ran a weekly compendium, if one may use such a lofty word, of the op-eds we had missed, or just been too cheap to buy.
For some reason I read the men's fashion magazine tonight. And almost barfed. Who the fuck ARE these people?
I really want to know what that word is, but I don't want to use one of my twenty, so I'll just go with "Palin".
Why do so many pop songs use the word "Palin"?
print ↑ – pad ↓
better yet, subscribe to the FT. thank me later
Except herself.
And a good pipe-cleaning now and again, or so I am told.
Nothing wrong with that.
Other endings:
"Sarah Palin refused to comment, posting a link to her facebook page instead."
"Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized due to excessive anal leakage, but his show is still expected to air as scheduled."
"Liberals are reportedly dismayed at the President's lack of a response to this issue."
"In light of all this, many people are left shaking their heads at Michele Bachmann's actions."
"The Republican Congressman refused to step down, saying this was a matter between him, his wife, and the goat in question."
The latter item reminds me of the ongoing sketch in Little Britain, where the Tory MP is being interviewed outside his house and admits to slipping on the bathroom floor while simultaneously losing his pants and finding he had accidentally landed on a 16-year old's erect penis.
Agreed: they don't challenge/scare/unsettle their demographic as much as they might. But that's probably because they are their demographic.
There’s nothing in the NYT that’s worth $35 a month or even $20 a month (the lowest subscription plan, for web only).
You forgot to mention that the online NYT will now be full of porn. Easily the best $35 you can pay!
Order it by the Friedman Unit and save! Just $205 for 6 months.
Still no comic section. Die already.
Still the best newspaper in America*.
(*I realize saying that could be construed as "damning with faint praise.")
Yes, I agree but I got to have my Mark Trail.
I'll just throw on some pajamas and smother the emotional trauma with a pint of Ben & Jerry's© Chunky Reese Witherspoon™.
Well, if you can pull off that feat, I daresay some of your intellectual grunt is being misplaced.
(Also goes for Wonkette commenting too.)
Enghngh, Wonkette comments and X-word puzzle’re pretty much the same: random knowledge, randomly applied. Anyway last Sunday was the first time evah.
No the real problem is that sometimes they do want to have sex with him, and then he's forced to come up with a reason why this turns him off so much without undermining his masculinity or heterosexuality.
Now wait, the genesis of that whole meme was an op-ed bragging about how the zaftig slut did want to do him, but he found himself repulsed by that.
(Because he's gay, but not yet ready to admit it.)
He said he was repulsed when she said she was on birth control – so, if take his claim at face value, he can only get it up with a woman when there's a chance he could knock her up. Um…
I got it. Funny how we all know who we're discussing without mentioning a name–no lawsuits for Wonkette, yeah!
"Too many people are poor. It really sucks."
Now you never have to read Bob Herbert again. You're welcome.
Juli Weiner, you champion of the working man, you. No one will ever say "tl;dr" again!
NYT is doing it wrong. You don't increase revenues, you *cut spending* (just like to GOP) to finally run your tired-ass organization/society/business enterprise into the sweet, dark ground.
Start with Brooks' salary. Whatever they're paying him, it's way too fucking much.
But who will write America's homoerotic opinion columns about George W. Bush? We NEED those.
Did they sit around at a big conference table and say "how can we make ourselves completely irrelevant?"
I imagine it went more like this: "Fifteen dollars a month is quite reasonable! Why, my cab fare per day is much more! Meeting adjourned…see you at Yale Club!"
Basically I'm not payin' ! Last time I subscribed they always threw it under the damn rose bush. I'm not gonna risk having to crawl under there again. Fuck 'em.
Honestly, what the fuck are you talking about? The NYT is shitty and greedy??? This is a well known fact.
Tom "The world may be flat but I got 44 double-Ds" Friedman's with his intolerable columns, especially the ones where he is pretending to be Obama writing a letter or memo or some such shit, can fuck himself up the ass with a can of canned anus.
The LA Times is better written, and there is usually a Lindsey Lohan story (I know she'd steal from me and puke all over the couch, but she could still come live with me any time).
I think she could use a real friend. LiLo, I mean, not MoDo.
Don't forget the usual Ross Douthat column-
Some people think that's a good thing. However, since the rise of the Obama administration, more young people are doing just that, and it is clear as a result, that sex.
Russia Times and Al Jazeera lead the investigative journalist pack now. along with Rolling Stone and that other hippie rag Mother Jones.
Maureen Dowd's homespun wisdom is disapproved by a cab driver.
The cab driver’s homespun wisdom is borne out by geopolitical developments.
This ending would really only fit if the cab driver in question was an Afghan, the burqa was homespun, and the geopolitical developments were large-caliber ordinance bits being visited upon them by a target-hungry drone.
Very true. Somewhere they will be free.
I'd probably pay if it were (much) cheaper, and I still might buy Krugman's columns if I can, but here's my question. Where, besides Wonkette, are you guys going to read news now?
just read the British Socialist newspaper Guardian… it is the sanest news paper i can find in the interwebs for now,,,,
How about…
"Intrepid NYT writer finds something of interest to him or her in the interior of the nation, writes and then rewrites the same article on the topic every other month for a year." (see: Detroit ruin porn)
I swear, if I see another ruin porn piece from the NYT or national magazines….I know it may surprise everyone, but Detroit is still the second densest major city in the Great Lakes, still home to 800,000 to 900,000 souls leaving it the 11th or 12th largest city in the country, in a metropolitan area of at least 4.3 million (and a greater region of nearly 6 million people if you throw in Windsor across the river, and metropolitan Ann Arbor and Flint). [/rant]
The New York Times: At Least We're Better Than The Washington Post.
No one is going to read David Brooks' blog after this.
Wait, what?
A business model guaranteed to go down in flames. My only problem is what am I going to do with all this extra money that I wouldn't have spent anyways?
"Which, if true, means death for us all."
Ooh! Ooh! Can I do the Time magazine one??
"Blah Blah Blah Case for the historical Jesus"
"Back to the Kitchen: New Scientific findings Blah Blah basis for Gender Differences"
"The implications for Obama's future remain uncertain."
"We await further developments."
"Young people say crazy things online."
How do we know the NYT isn't actually the love-child of WonkBot & HAL?
LA Times crossword is the one my local fishwrap carries, so that's the one I actually do (sometimes).
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