The New York Times Explains Why It Prints Old News
by Peter Kafka
Posted on June 11, 2009 at 4:36 AM PT
You’ll be hearing about this most of the day, so best to take five minutes and watch it now: “The Daily Show” visits the New York Times (NYT).
Cheers to the paper for allowing itself to be savaged by “Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones. I particularly enjoyed watching Executive Editor Bill Keller gamely explaining the news business while managing to get a dig into Google (GOOG), The Huffington Post and Drudge Report.
Crave more? Here’s an interview The Wall Street Journal’s new “Speakeasy” blog conducted with Jason Jones about the bit. Excerpt:
How’s the mood at the Times these days?
Edgy? No. It was really quite lovely. Let me tell you this, movies have severely misled me on what newspaper rooms should look like. There was no paper stacked six feet high on people’ desks. No one’s yelling stop the presses.
What are people up to over there?
I think people are using the Internet to look for new jobs. There are lots of great Web sites out there: Monster.com; Craigslist is great.
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Comments
I am amazed that the NYT went through with this. It’s as if they’ve never seen the Daily Show. It could have been participatory self-satire but instead was utterly hapless.
Posted by alan miles at June 11th, 2009 at 6:44 amDisagree. They’re willing participants who consistently stay on message throughout the bit: We provide important, accurate information. I’m not sure that it playing along really helps the Times — maybe it makes its employees feel a bit better about themselves, which isn’t a bad thing. But I certainly don’t see how it hurts them. Is anyone going to *not* read the paper based on that clip?
Posted by Peter Kafka at June 11th, 2009 at 9:17 amThat was great. If I were an employee at the nytimes I don’t think that video would have made me feel better though.
Posted by Bjorn Tipling at June 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pmThe NYT is clueless. Bought all of the IHT and Boston Globe and now is losing money hand over fist. Say bye bey.
Posted by derek oppen at June 11th, 2009 at 4:28 pm