The New York Times takes its role very seriously as the national newspaper and the last bastion of serious long-form investigative journalism. This week it introduced Today’s Paper, an attractive web-based layout of the contents of the printed paper for each day, available to subscribers to the print or digital editions of the Times.
The Today’s Paper web app presents the same articles found in the printed newspaper for each day in a clean presentation in your Internet browser. It allows access to the previous seven days of the paper, and the one you highlight is automatically downloaded and made available to read offline. Digital subscriptions are $8.75/week, and free to print edition subscribers. There are details about Today’s Paper here.
There is a thumbnail of the print edition of each section on the left, and the articles from that section listed below. It has all the sections, articles and photos from the day’s paper, plus additional video content. That means the sections match the print edition – Science Times will appear on Tuesday, for example – rather than the long, generic list of sections on the main web site.
Over the years the New York Times has experimented with several different ways to present itself in the digital world. The main New York Times web site continues to provide access to daily news and the paper’s vast archives behind a paywall. There have been tablet apps, various web-based versions of the paper, and the New York Times Reader for computers. If you currently use the New York Times Reader, make a special note: it is being discontinued and will stop working on January 6, 2014.
As a daily reader, I prefer to see the articles for a single day as if I’m thumbing through the printed paper; the shortcoming of the main web site and most of the prior apps has been their presentation of a mish-mash of articles from previous days and weeks, mixed in with the new articles for the day. Today’s Paper promises to remove that annoying feeling that you’ve already read the article that turns up as you flip digital pages.
Since Today’s Paper is not installed as a separate app on your computer or tablet, you’ll need a shortcut to it. It has been added to the Bruceb Favorites page (click on News and look in the left-hand column). (You’re using Bruceb Favorites as your home page, right?) You can also add it to your Favorites, of course, or pin it to the taskbar. If you’re using the Metro version of Internet Explorer in Windows 8, you can pin the web site to the Start screen.
Keep an eye on the main page for the New York Times, by the way. It’s overdue for an overhaul from its current cluttered look. A redesign has been in the works for quite a while; expect to see it go live before long.
The Times Reader software was a simple, easy to read software program that I really enjoyed using. I could go to any section and any article almost instantly. I was able to bring up the Crossword puzzle immediately. Why in the world did you to this? You took a good thing and really trashed it. Navigating through the daily and sunday papers is much more difficult. I am now paying $35 a month for a full digital subscription. This is not small change. I no longer have a simple, easy to use way of reading the paper and I certainly will not enjoy reading it as I did in the past. This is not progress. Are you going to charge me more to get access to the crossword puzzle? Even that was easy and more convenient with the Times Reader software. This is not progress. It may save you money, but is a real kick in the pants to your devoted readers.
One crucial function of Times Reader will be lost — the ability to download the last 7 days simultaneously. Today’s Paper allows keeping only one day on your PC or other computer. When travelling to places with limited or no Internet, this is an important function.