February 2, 2010

Today I went to the gym again to work out. There is an older gentleman I know with whom I always have a nice chat. He seem to be knowledgeable about a lots of things. In plain English he is an old Jewish guy.

Like any other times we tried to solve the problems of the world while we sweated during exercise. He doesn't have a computer but reads the New York Times (NYT) daily. I don't read the New York Times (NYT) but have a computer therefore, I am also pretty well informed.

The problem with this man is that while I was trying to describe a local interest story to him he was looking at it through the eyes of the NYT. His response to my story was that he perfectly understood whatever happened because the NYT described such events also in the Bronx and Brooklyn.

I told him I didn't give a flying hoot about what the NYT said, this thing happened in our corner and that's all I care about.

Now, this was tho prologue. The main body of this literary piece is coming.

The New York Times is a great newspaper. Its sources are reliable, its stories are credible and its language is impeccable.

In the 1960s when I was taking English in college we were told by our instructor that the New York Times' use of the English (American) is the correct way and we could learn from it.

New York had several now it has a few daily newspapers but their use of the English language is far from correct. The use of slang is commonplace since their readership understand that more.

The problem I have with the NYT is that it is too big. The daily edition during the week has several sections and reading through the entire paper is not an easy task. This is not a paper that can easily be read on the train on the way to work. Maybe if the trip takes six hours then yes.

Aside from its size, every article they write continues several pages later which makes it necessary to massage the paper back and forth all the time.

There are papers that limit their articles to that same page and those are a lot easier to read.

Their articles report the news but then they also go back to the basics and describe the total background of the event in question. This gets tedious and boring at times.

Now back to the people who read this publication. This is an intelligent newspaper that is not aimed at the general public but only at the ones who think that they are smarter than the rest of us, or "smarter than a fifth grader".

These people think the New York Times is the gospel. Whatever they write it must be so. Having a discussion with anyone is a futile exercise because they are convinced that everybody else who don't read the NYT is stupid and is not worth talking to.

You try to talk about some local interest story and their response is solving the world's problems.

I also find their travel articles far removed from reality. I traveled to a few countries and reading the NYT's descriptions of those places I realize that what they write is absolutely not for the everyday traveler/vacationer.

The prices they quote, the restaurants they suggest, the places they advise to visit are not best information available for that particular country.

Their trip suggestions are not priced to the average American family. It seems that this paper does not realize that we are living through some terrible times and families are trying to save a buck whenever they can.

The New York Times would do better to come up with discount travel tips that are within reach for the average family, to permit a family even in financial trouble to have some, even if limited enjoyment out of life.