$845.00 for a newspaper?! That's the annual cost for home delivery of the New York Times at their new rate, a 13% increase over the old price. If the Timesmen are trying to hasten the demise of the Daily Newspaper Reader, an extinction already taking place at an alarming pace, they are going about it in the right way. It's enough to make even lifelong subscribers wonder what life would be like with no morning paper propped against the coffee pot. It prompted this particular subscriber to prepare an accounting, Robinson Crusoe style, of the costs and benefits of doing without the NYT:
On the plus side, no more of that blatherskite David Brooks. One reads him only by accident anyway, when the eye wanders involuntarily to his portion of the op-ed page. But even skimmed by mistake, his leaden prose, unnatural worship of Ronald Reagan, infantile attachment to what a real journalist used to call country club wisdom, the comfortable philosophy of prosperous well-fed men gathered around the 19th hole, frightening fondness for fatuity and instinctual inclination to inanity, is enough to ruin a morning. He never will be missed.
On the facing page, the letters to the editor section can likewise be consigned to oblivion. This used to be one of the more entertaining features of the newspaper. Now letters appear to be hand-picked for pomposity, self-righteousness, ignorance, and humorlessness. Either that or they are edited to remove all evidence of wit, or indeed of any mental activity whatever. It defies belief that all Times readers are as boring and stupid as the ones whose letters appear in the daily paper. Indeed, the always lively letters section of the Sunday books section proves otherwise. Perhaps the daily letters editor feels he is doing the reader a favor by producing an entire section that can be safely skipped. But at the Times' new price, every word of every edition should be utterly compelling.
And what has become of the Week in Review? As fussy a reader as Nero Wolfe made a point of reading the section cover to cover in the Rex Stout stories. It is intended to be the home of insight and thoughtful analysis. That was then. The most recent edition included two first page articles of such surpassing imbecility as to cause the reader to choke on his coffee. An account of the money trail in the health care debate was an empty recitation of right-wing propaganda against rationalizing our medical system. Vaporings on the centrality of Ronald Reagan in the Republican pantheon simply reproduced the standard lies about the reign of Ronnie, such as that he "presided " over the end of a cold war that was in fact ended by Gorbachev, or that he cut taxes when what he cut was tax rates, especially for the rich. Reagan, the Timesman failed to mention, increased payroll taxes. On a net basis the tax burden for most people with a paycheck increased.
Once could go on. And on. But fairness demands that we enumerate what would be lost without the morning Times. There would be no plausible escape from conversation at breakfast. An alternative source of fireplace kindling would have to be found. Lining the floor for chores like oven cleaning and touch-up painting would suddenly become vastly more complex. There would be nothing in the house for the bottom of the birdcage. On balance, the Times really is indispensable.