The NYT is becoming indistinguishable from Sky Mall

Read this copy and tell me whether it belongs in the Business section of a prestigious national newspaper:

AS sinful pleasures go, breakfast in bed ranks as one of the least wicked — slothful and slightly gluttonous, but not exactly worthy of ecclesiastical condemnation. Yet people routinely deny themselves this minor indulgence, often for one of two reasons: they either feel guilty about being so lazy, or they fret about food particles falling between their sheets.

There’s no quick fix for the guilt-ridden, save for frequent reminders to lighten up and live a little. But the neat freaks can now enjoy a worry-free breakfast in bed thanks to the Buon Appetito, a satin duvet cover outfitted with an elongated cotton bib. When the food arrives, the cover’s user pulls its upper flap over his torso and ties it around his neck. Crumbs are thus prevented from secreting themselves within the linens.

The product’s designers, Olga Bielawska and Astrid Schildkopf, came up with the idea in late 2005, while attending the Bauhaus-Univeristät Weimar in Weimar, Germany. “We had the idea to make a project about errors, about the everyday problems and little mishaps that happen,” Ms. Schildkopf said. With sketchbooks in hand, she and Ms. Bielawska sat down and brainstormed over the various accidents that occur in each room of a house. [NYT]

Now, I'm sure the bed bib is a fine product. If you are a satisfied customer, please don't send me angry letters. I get these irate every time I make fun of merchandise, often for months afterwards. I swear people get more defensive about their merch than about their government. So let me be clear: The bib is not the enemy.

But why is catalog copy taking over the friggin' Business section? That article reads like it was lifted from Sky Mall or Sky Maul.

It's as if Fashion and Style is metastasizing throughout the paper.

People wonder why newspapers lose money. Maybe it's because they keep giving their advertising away.

Comments

[yasth]

The Your Money/The Goods Column is basically a bit of the fashion section, well actually the entire "your money" idea is Business lite. Articles relating business news to the hoi polloi. Thus you have articles like http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/business/yourmoney/28costco.html?ex=157680000&en=8ffabd4f83e113fa&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink same basic format, glowing copy followed by half hearted business talk, a short aside of doubt, and then a close of glow, adjusted as needed to space in print (or so it seems). Instead of merger talk you get stuff about how to job hunt at work. It is... odd for the paper of record to mention this, but a part of it feels very Victorian. The whole cutting down of the upper class lifestyle to fit the middle class thing.

[DefJef]

The New York Times is written for the white dude from Greenwhich CT with a high 6 figure income who is looking to play... food, real estate... and all sorts of interests for the property class.

I read it mostly to do something while I eat breakfast and of the papers available in the diner it is the least offensive.

I can't stand some of their reporters... and Brooks and Bob are complete assholes. MoDo can be amusing and Krugman and Kristoff do good work.

The paper is an embarrassment. If it wasn't for breakfast I would never read it.

[Chris O.]

"I swear people get more defensive about their merch than about their government."

Now there's a sad commentary on society. Unfortunately, I think I believe it.

[Starry Decisive]

Wait -- what if the bib IS the enemy? I mean, if the bib gets all gross and you don't change the sheets? Because, after all, the product's POINT is that it is somehow superior to just having plain-old breakfast in bed, and then changing the sheets. Sorry to miss your larger point by being all literal, but i happen to be doing laundry (& also had breakfast in bed this a.m. w/ NYT).

[sara]

The paper is amusing to read at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning with your critical sense fried by too much fresh coffee. It's entertainment.

I get a headache when I think about the people (I term them the NYT's Designated Readers) for whom the lifestyle coverage reflects their reality.

But I live near Washington, D.C., and read the WP, and despite the neocons infesting the Op-Ed page and Outlook, our museums don't yet cost $20 per person to attend.

[Matt]

DefJef said, "MoDo can be amusing".
No. No she cannot.

More importantly, though, this sort of stuff is just some of the more obvious cases of advertisements acting like an article. "news" publications are full of this stuff. I'm fully convinced that there are pay-offs of some sort for this- an article in exchange for buying adds later is what I think usually happens. News magazines are the worst- articles about some new movie or the coolest new Disney technology or the joys of third generation mobile phones in Newsweek? Those are adds. So is this. At least in 'women's magazines' they don't try to hide this but surely this is the case here, too.

[John Lucid]

That's infotainment, baby.

[global yokel]

I pity the archeologists and anthropologists of the future. They are going to have to sort through all this weird shit we manufactured and figure out what in the world it was good for.

[Alon Levy]

But I live near Washington, D.C., and read the WP, and despite the neocons infesting the Op-Ed page and Outlook, our museums don't yet cost $20 per person to attend.

Hey, I get into museums for free. All I have to do is flash my student ID.

[a very public sociologist]

Sorry, but that bib is ridiculous. Almost as barmy as the 'designer' toilet roll discussed over at Crooked Timber. What a load of cobblers.

[RickD]

In other news, the NY Times corporation has closed down the various foreign burueaus of its Boston Globe subsidiary.

But corporate consolidation doesn't pose a threat to journalistic quality!

[Amanda Marcotte]

I detect a whiff of anti-bib sentiment in your post.

[Cass]

"'We had the idea to make a project about errors, about the everyday problems and mishaps that happen,' Ms. Schildkopf said. With sketchbooks in hand, she and Ms. Bielawska sat down and brainstormed about the little accidents that occur in each room of a house."

This does seem a bit of a falling-off from the old Bauhaus idealism. Did they address the problem of coagulated dishwashing liquid in the tops of those bottles?

While we're picking on the NYT, though, fubar called attention to a story of theirs yesterday on the terrifying invasion of Iranian-sponsored bank tellers and pistachio nuts into the already volatile situation in Iraq.

www.needlenose.com/node/view/3763

Too bad Judy Miller isn't around to talk to the unnamed source who will draw for us the obvious conclusion.

[Eric Jaffa]

The name of the column is "The Goods."

The implication is that he'll be describing products. Which is what the article does.

[otherpaul]

The Center for Media and Democracy has some good reports on this sort of thing, esp. at

http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews2/execsummary

They focus on VNRs (Video News Releases) from companies, including big pharma companies. The VNRs are often just repeated on the news broadcasts without any fact-checking or any indication that this is really just a free commercial from a private corporation.

In a similar vein, in two of Canada's main newspapers most so-called news is just PR. It's a matter of so-called journalists receiving a press release from the gov't or a corporation and relaying it to their readers/viewers. (This is according to T. Richards' and D. Rehberg-Sedo's study of the Globe and Mail and National Post, published in Media Magazine, v. 10 # 4.)

These sources were used in a good CBC report last Sunday morning about PR vs. journalism (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/spincycles/index.html).

[John Gorenfeld]

I hope the New York Times does a high-minded style piece about Doggie Stairs. A lot of animals can't reach the couch, especially after being winded from a 6-story walkup.

[greensmile]

commercial interest is a kind of superfluid, not just seeking its own level but flowing everywhere it is not shot on sight. Those angry emails you fear getting from people who have yet to get a life, if sent via gmail, will be massaging the message about bib/duvet producuts into the side bar of browsers on both ends of the dysfunctional exchange.

[mudkitty]

LB - happy to see you at Tomorrow!

[Mnemosyne]

The implication is that he'll be describing products. Which is what the article does.

But why is it in the Business section? Do they really think all of those Wall Street stockbrokers are going to call their clients and say, "Put everything you've got into the BedBib!"

[Njorl]

'DefJef said, "MoDo can be amusing".
No. No she cannot.'

Are you precluding the possibility, or forbidding her?

[Caradoc]

The problem with breakfast in bed is that unless you can get someone to make it for you, by the time you have made it, you don't want to go back to bed.

[Silversmith]

But Lindsay! You've inadvertently hit on EXACTLY why the dumbass in the White House has the problems we KNOW he has! Look carefully on the cover of "SkyMaul" - see that? Reality Canceling headphones!!! NOW we know what that little box in G.W.'s back REALLY is. I bet he's got the semi-invisiable earbud model. BASTARD! I've been waiting YEARS for my pair - I think they must have gotten sent to Guam or something. But that bedbib looks FAB!

Oh! Are we supposed to be concentrating on content and NOT fluff? Sorry my bad.

Than I think think the bedbib is BAD! Very BAD! Or something... I still want my reality-canceling headphones.