New York Times - National Edition

Summary: Everything but the crossword...well almost

Most people know whether they want to read the NY Times or not. This is a review of the Kindle edition. Besides the crossword puzzle, the Kindle edition lacks ads (yea!), classifieds and paid death notices (okay by me), political cartoons (tant pis), and many photographs and charts (but not all). While I've tried to find cheaper Kindle alternatives (and they exist), nothing compares to the NY Times for news coverage, especially if you're a resident of New York State and lack a good local newspaper (in print format or on-line). The lack of photos is usually only a problem in the Home, Science, and Style sections when you're trying to make sense of articles that frequently reference them. The inclusion of political cartoons should be fixable (is anyone listening?). I really appreciate being able to skim the tables of contents to each section so that I can do triage and properly plan how much time I can devote to reading the paper each day. I also like being able to easily read an article to completion without having to hunt out its conclusion in another section. One other improvement I'd like to recommend is that the NY Times editors provide readers with a word count for each article, as so many Kindle papers and magazines do, so I can decide if I have the time to read it before beginning my workday or postpone it until I have more time. This seems like an easy fix and something Kindle readers should be able to expect, given the price of the subscription. (The progress bar at the bottom of the Kindle screen, by the way, doesn't monitor the reader's progress through individual articles, but rather through sections of the paper...not very valuable from my perspective.) One other observation--inexplicably sometimes a news article (often an obituary) gets dropped from the Kindle edition. This doesn't seem intentional, but it happens. But all in all, I'm very happy reading the NY Times on my Kindle.

PS, for those who miss the Puzzle, the Kindle does offer some free word games you can download.

Summary: No news is good news

I picked up the New York Times recently after a 15-year hiatus. I admit it was better than it had been circa 1988; at that time anything any Washington insider said was reported uncritically and the NYT had and has its share of the responsibility of pushing our nation closer to barbarism. But overall, I found the paper nearly as complacent, banal, thoughtless and ignorant as before.

Now I am man who used to read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Economist and Christianity Today every day (I know not all are dailies, but you have to spread it out). I was frighteningly informed on most things. I did not read the Sunday paper which even then made me sick. But I began to notice that something I'd devoted hours and hours to reading over the past years was false. That is, I had learned about some series of events that turned out merely to be statements made by one "source" to a reporter. I noticed that huge stacks of words formed piles on the floor until they were taken out to the "paper drive." They started as words--not facts--and they stayed that way. (Perhaps we should call it a "unwanted words" drive and we could put all the other words that won't change our lives in the same bins--words like "kindness," "decency," "sweepstakes," "fortitude," "help wanted.") I noticed that I wasn't a better person for knowing what one horrible person was doing to another somewhere else. I began to think it strange that the NYT had quarter page advertisements for watches that cost $10,000 and tiny letters urging us to "remember the neediest" at the bottom. And I noticed something in myself--a deeply insane belief that simply by knowing about something I was doing something about it, that I was a cut higher than the average man on the street.

So I stopped reading this or any other paper. I did more. I moved out to the country (not immediately, but within a year) and changed trades. And yet, that was not the most important, or even the most revolutionary, change that I was to find I had to make. But it was a start. [1]

Summary: Loved it until I got a subscription

I always liked the NY Times--I started reading it because we had a program in college where you could get it for free. After I graduated, my boyfriend bought me a subscription for a present. I received maybe 3 papers a week. The delivery driver managed to get it everywhere except someplace where I could find it. I called to request that the delivery person at least get it in the vicinity of my yard, to no avail. I cancelled it long before the subscription was up, because it was too frustrating to not receive my paper and to deal with customer service.

I ended up getting a subscription to The Economist instead, and I have been a very happy subscriber for more than 5 years. With the relatively recent scandals at the Times, and some of the more overt political pressures they cave to, I'm glad I made the switch. The Economist is a British paper, and it's nice to get an outsider's view of the US. They also do a MUCH better job of providing world news, as well as backstories and stories in progress or events that have the potential to shape world events. It's only published weekly, but they update their website daily. Consider it a viable replacement. People who like the Times for its progressive views may be hesitant because The Economist is conservative, but only fiscally so, it is not usually socially conservative.