Oh. My.

So, I'm wondering how it stacks up agains other newspaper stocks and the market in general?

A few months ago, a telemarketer called me trying to sell me a subscription to the New York Times. (I live in Pennsylvania.) I replied, very politely, that since I don't have a bird or a puppy, I really have no use for the Times. She laughed and said, "That's cute." I wished her a good night and hung up.

How does it stack up? Leading the rush to oblivion as usual.

Thank-you for this wonderful site that I so value.
The NY Times...?? "All the News That's Fit to call Treason...."
Sad ain't it?

Every so often I get a pleading letter from the Timesfolk asking what they can do to coax me into renewing my subscription (I had split the cost of one with my grad school roommate a few years back but canceled it after l'affaire Jayson). The last time one of these wretched things arrived, I dropped it on the floor while I was taking out the trash and didn't notice it until I came back upstairs-- couldn't miss it then because one of my cats had thrown up all over it. I should have mailed the envelope back to the Times with her editorial comment enclosed.

Wonder what the upward spike in September was all about?

That upward spike was probably influenced by the launch of TimesSelect. Lot of good that did, although it did get some annoying columnists off the web...

Clinton impeached-NYT headlines read "President Clinton Makes History."

The only way to save this turkey is to put it on the register of historic places.

It's hard to believe a midtown Manhattan based rag like the Times will ever get a wake up call. Pinch and the gang truly believe they are unbiased and produce the "newspaper of record". Poor performance can always be attributed to the right wing cabal (reference Air America).
TimesSelect has been a disaster, as far as I can tell. It has served the dual purpose of 1) limiting Krugman, Dowd and Rich to about 50 hardcore liberal readers; and 2) tubing the Times financially.
Let the Gray Lady slide into mediocrity; no one outside of New York reads the Times and takes it seriously anymore.

Out of curiosity, I compared stock performance for 2005 of the Times with the three other big newspaper companies I could think of.

NYT: down 33.6%
Tribune: down 28.4%
Gannett: down 25.3%
Knight-Ridder: down 6.6%

Interesting that it's KR's stockholders who are screaming to get out of the newspaper business. Maybe they want to get out while their stock is still worth something.

No doubt the whole media biz sucks right now, but it does seem to suck slightly worse for the NYT.

I have no problem with a political newspaper, I just hate it when they pretend to be impartial. And despite the leftist elitest editorial slant that fills a significant part of its news, the NYT is worthwhile. Compare it to almost any other paper in America.

Their arts, technology and business reporting is matched only by the WSJ which lacks the use of photos and graphics that the NYT has and uses in a superior manner. Even the news section, ignoring the slant, investigates and touches on areas that are ignored by other media.

If only other newspapers would do their jobs instead of reprinting or reporting on stories from the Times.

During the Enron scandal, perhaps the biggest story out of Houston since the moon landing, the Chronicle was all but worthless as it was clear the business and main reporters couldn't understand or grasp any of the main ideas coming from the scandal. The Times was the place to be, and even ceeding them a better staff to understand the complicated story, there must have been and still are a half-dozen significant stories that could have been pursed locally but weren't.

I think the New York Sun is a fine conservative and fair paper which because of the high quality of the Times is forced to adopt an equally qualitative approach to a full range of stories.

Finally, the NYT decline in stock price is matched by most newspaper chains as the threat to their advertizing from the internet and the lack of newspaper use among the young is factored into their valuation.

Free Republic had a hilarious thread on that last weekend.

Wonder what the upward spike in September was all about?

Very rainy that month. People needed something to cover their heads.

During the middle and late 1960's I delivered the Bridgeport Post in Bridgeport Connecticut. On Sunday's I also delivered some of the New York Sunday's the Sunday News and one copy of the Sunday New York Times.

The one customer that received the Sunday Times was my childhood nemesis. He would confront me, almost daily, and pepper me with questions concerning current events, local, state, national and international. Because of him I would sit down and read the local paper just before delivering his just so I could answer the potential questions.

One Sunday morning when I delivered his Sunday Post and the Sunday New York Times, he came out from his kitchen and asked me "What have you got in your hands?" It was the Sunday Times and I told him..."The Sunday New York Times." He asked me to wait while he retrieved something from inside the house. He said he was going to teach me a life long lesson. As I waited he came out with something held behind his back. I thought it was a club and he was gonna club me. He then asked me again what I had in my hand. I said the Sunday NY Times. He said no, what you have in your hands is a "Communist Rag" and always remember that. He took from behind his back a copy of a recent Wall Street Journal and said ..."and this is the American Bible. Remember that always!"

I certainly didn't know what he meant about that back in the 1960's as I was between 10 and 13 years of age. But now I understand. And the more things change, the more they stay the same. I am eternally grateful to that customer for his enlightened comments. And that he was the reason I began to read newspapers!

One anagram of "new York Times" is "monkeys write"

Ed R-