Find the missing stories in The New York Times’ sloppy Today’s Paper listings
The print newspaper, anachronistic though it may be, is one of the most reliable antidotes to news overload. Once a day, editors decide what the most important news is and, even more crucial, what isn’t. This fixed object is a welcome relief from the endless scroll of a news website or app.
But The New York Times consistently fails to get it right. We take Sunday delivery, but I often prefer to read it on my iPad, because the type’s bigger, the background’s brighter and the photos are better. I use the Today’s Paper view, both in the app and on the web. And, frustratingly, it usually doesn’t entirely match what’s in print.
Take today. The print edition has six stories on the front page. Two of them, one about efforts to revitalize George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, the other about the effect of tariffs on iron miners in northern Minnesota, are omitted from the online list of front-page stories. (Do the editors have something against Minnesota?)
Scroll through the list and you won’t find those stories anywhere. But searching the site reveals that they were indeed published online. The story about the iron miners appears on the homepage, barely noticeable; the George Floyd Square story is currently invisible, although I imagine it will have a star turn on the homepage later on.
To add to the frustration, the Times does not have a decent replica edition — that is, a PDF of the print paper through which you can easily navigate. It does offer one through PressReader, but it’s difficult to get to and the experience is worse than mediocre. By contrast, The Boston Globe offers several good replica options.
Perhaps Times executives are finding that so few people want the digital Today’s Paper offering that they just don’t put much effort into it. I mean, it’s not even available anymore in the mobile app, though it persists in the iPad version and on the web.
But all we’re talking about is a list of stories in that day’s paper. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask that they get it right. Otherwise, why bother?
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