New York Times - National Edition

If you are trying to find the perfect gift for one of the intelligent, hard-to-gift persons on your list, a subscription to the New York Times may be a well-received solution.

I had requested a subscription to the New York Times for every occasion (birthday, Christmas, Valentines, etc.) for the past three years, and every year until Christmas 2005, my family and friends disregarded the paper as an odd, if not un-giftable, item to request. Fortunately, my fiance's mother and sister decided to go into a 12-week subscription together. I look forward to Sunday mornings as though each one were a new Christmas. The blue plastic bag in the drive way is a cause for celebration each week-end morning. After the first 12 weeks of the year, I became so accustomed to my week-end ritual of the paper, coffee and Meet the Press that I made room in my own budget to include the price of the subscription.

I prefer the New York Times over other news publications for a very simple reason: it is written to my level and I never feel as though the writers are talking down to me or simplifying the story. I have heard cries of liberal bias concerning this publication, especially the editorials, but when I read this paper, I get the sense that they really want me to know and understand all sides to a story. Few newspapers devote space to complete copies of primary documents (speeches, proposed bills and amendments, etc.) like the New York Times consistently does and this allows me to make up my own opinion on the issues.

News is well researched and balanced, and I especially like their columnists such as Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, Bob Herbert, and Maureen Dowd. In addition there is the excellent weekly NYT Book Review, and the occasional scoop eg. the NSA spying flap.

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Don't miss the science section published each Tuesday.

The New York Times gives you great stories in depth from around the world. It is the detailed stories and some investigative stories that you can't find anyplace else that are so refreshing to read. Compared to the screaming cable news shows, the news presented in the NYT and WSJ is so much better and more complete that it almost takes your breath away. You will say to yourself "why did I waste my time watching those crazy cable news (really entertainment) shows that are so uninformative?" If most Americans get their news from the TV as I am told they do, then we have dark days ahead. Our society will become less enlightened and less caring.

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The New York Times is America's best newspaper. Instead of the short articles found in most newspapers, the Times is full of detailed articles on all subjects -not only news, but science (and the science articles are accurate and don't speak down to the intelligent layman), books, entertainment, and so on. It is also still the paper of record -the place to go to for the text of major speeches, not just the highlights. Finally, it has good, in-depth analysis and feature/guest columnists. If you only read one paper, the Times should be it (though it'll take you twice as long to read as most papers and probably four times as long to read as USA Today).

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Most people know whether they want to read the NY Times or not. This is a review of the Kindle edition. Besides the crossword puzzle, the Kindle edition lacks ads (yea!), classifieds and paid death notices (okay by me), political cartoons (tant pis), and many photographs and charts (but not all). While I've tried to find cheaper Kindle alternatives (and they exist), nothing compares to the NY Times for news coverage, especially if you're a resident of New York State and lack a good local newspaper (in print format or on-line). The lack of photos is usually only a problem in the Home, Science, and Style sections when you're trying to make sense of articles that frequently reference them. The inclusion of political cartoons should be fixable (is anyone listening?). I really appreciate being able to skim the tables of contents to each section so that I can do triage and properly plan how much time I can devote to reading the paper each day. I also like being able to easily read an article to completion without having to hunt out its conclusion in another section. One other improvement I'd like to recommend is that the NY Times editors provide readers with a word count for each article, as so many Kindle papers and magazines do, so I can decide if I have the time to read it before beginning my workday or postpone it until I have more time. This seems like an easy fix and something Kindle readers should be able to expect, given the price of the subscription. (The progress bar at the bottom of the Kindle screen, by the way, doesn't monitor the reader's progress through individual articles, but rather through sections of the paper...not very valuable from my perspective.) One other observation--inexplicably sometimes a news article (often an obituary) gets dropped from the Kindle edition. This doesn't seem intentional, but it happens. But all in all, I'm very happy reading the NY Times on my Kindle.

PS, for those who miss the Puzzle, the Kindle does offer some free word games you can download.