A Central Oregonian's review of the N.Y.Times.

Hmmmmmmmm.........

I do not remember The New York Times Book Review being quite so small.


Let's do a little anthropological study, shall we?, from the viewpoint of a Central Oregonian?

My first brilliant observation is -- there is more content. Yeah, it's the Sunday paper, but it still seems as thought content is deeper, longer, wider. Even the photography seems bigger.

I always get the feeling that most other papers are truncating their articles -- but with the N.Y.T. you get the feeling you're getting the beginning, the middle and the end. It's all original material, with an editorial focus that gets lost, I believe, when you use feeder material like just about every other paper out there.

Given it's reputation, it's much less political than I would've expected. I think reading Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, (liberal) and the economic blogs (mostly conservative) has given me a constant diet of political "slant." The N.Y.T.'s feels like old-fashioned, keep your opinion out of the store, journalism to me. Middle of the Road.

Of course, I'm not parsing every sentence or every story, but it feels more solidly news.

There are six sections, not counting the New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Book Review.


News.
Business.
Style
Travel.
Week in Review.
Sports.
Arts and Leisure.

New York Times Magazine
New York Times Book Review.

As I said, I subscribed to the paper mostly to get the New York Times Book review, which I will read or skim all the way through. Book knowledge for my store.

The New York Times Magazine looks interesting, actually. I think I'll probably take it to the store and read it there.

Arts and Leisure, I read most of .... can never read too many movie reviews, and I'm fascinated by the arts -- from a comfortable distance.

Sports and Travel I glanced through...

Week in Review I read much of ...

Business I read some of...

Looked for references to Pacific Northwest. (There's a review of Portlandia, a new T.V. show.)

The Style section didn't have a thing I cared the least about .Must be a New York thing; devoted to nothing but fashion. Really, one sixth. Actually they call it Style, so a few other items are in there, but mostly it's about clothing and makeup and style and social etiquette.

So...pretty much the same approach to reading I take with every paper I get; the Oregonian, The Bulletin, U.S.A. Today.

Most of the stories are more in-depth -- at least longer.

No real insight here -- except that my own tolerance for longer stories has dwindled the more I read Huffington Post and USA Today online.

My fault. I'm trying to get past it.

Subscribing to the Sunday New York Times is a start.