The hardworking staff has held off lo these three weeks, but now it has to be said:
We hate the new Sunday Review section of the New York Times.
It’s a maddening hodgepodge of New Analysis, Opinion, Whatever, and Is Dowd Writing Today.
The old Week in Review may have been Fogeytown, but it was our Fogeytown.
Now it’s just Looneyville.
Full Disclosure: The hardworking staff hates all change. We’ll likely calm down in a month or two.
Campaign Outsider 
John: The new NYT Wk in Review was a clear case of fixing an unbroken part. It went from a smart recap of the week’s news with a satisfying blend of Dowd’s snarky wit and Rich’s outrage to a pointless jumble. Makes you wonder WTF they thought they were creating. Rich’s strong cover story in New York mag on why liberals are angry with Obama belonged in the NYT. — Dan Payne
The NYT can’t decide if it still wants to be a “news source”, meanng mostly telling you what has actually occurred, or go to the “next level” with analysis of what it all means to you, and crystal-ball views on what will happen next (plus all those dreadful life-style articles). But as they do less and less straight news, they’ll find they are a) running on the fumes of their former claim to fame and strength and b) competing with all those other pundits and bloggers and commentators.
I’d say they are abandoning what made them unique and giving ti up to be just another bunch of screeching voices. In which case, the audience can ask: “why should I pay any attention to them now, except maybe that they used to be important?”
As this change continues to roll out and take over more and more of their pages (real and virtual), you do have to ask: exactly what do they bring to the party now, except their own exagerrated sense of importance? This scenarios has happened may times before, in other areas: you stop doing what you were good at and known for, and spend more of your time doing what others are doing or can do fairly easily.
It’s not pretty, you decline into a genteel state of decay, like a fancy mansion whise glory days have passed, but now with peeling paint and serious disrepair, and where the owners can’t see what has happened over the years because things declined a little at a time, year by year.
Grey (Lady) Gardens, eh Bill?
I don’t like the new format, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the Times at this moment doesn’t have the stable of topnotch columnists required to succeed at what they’re trying to do. I think Bill is basically but not exactly right – what the Times once had was columnists who were not only smart people and good writers, but also had very deep knowledge of most of their subjects and, of course, the ability to get phone calls to anyone returned. Now Krugman fits that description, but Friedman is past his prime and the op ed page overall is at a low point.
Any hope for Joe Nocera, Mr. P?