Don't Mess With my New York Times

I read this week that the New York Times could possibly trim up to 100 staffers if employees don't take enough buy-outs.
I am hardly angry at the Times' management. They are doing what they have to do, and from what I've read, none of the executives there want to resort to layoffs.
Why not charge readers for the online edition? Yes, I would hate it - but not as much as I'd hate losing the quality of reporting I get from the Times.
We are living in a frighteningly ignorant society, one in which the blog-du-jour (this one included!) is being gobbled up in the name of "news." Young people today are in danger of confusing the difference between a Pulitzer Prize-level type report such as is currently running by David Rohde in the Times (detailing his account being held by the Taliban) and the run-of-the-mill posting on Huffington.
Now, I have nothing against the Huffington Report - it's valuable. And many of the writers who post there are fine scribes. Yet compare any of these postings to the tretise of Mr. Rohde - or the weekly columns of Thomas Friedman or Maureen Dowd, for example - and the similarities are non-existant. It's like comparing acting great Katherine Hepburn with a reality show contestant.

***
I am 48, old school. I like sitting with my paper on the Great Lawn or Riverside Park or on the train. I don't even mind the ink stains in summer, unless they get on my white linen skirt. I find that I can't curl up with a laptop in quite the same way. I could be wrong, but I don't even think the relationship is quite so intimate as with an actual newspaper.

The news of the pending Times layoffs strikes me as the penultimate act before we lose papers altogether.

What a sad day for America, for the world, and for all who value thought-provoking journalism.

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