ERIC MULLER has more criticisms of Daniel Okrent’s apologia:

An unashamed product of the city whose name it bears? Since when is the paper called “The Manhattan South of About 120th Street Times?” The notion that the Times’s coverage (especially its cultural, fashion, and social coverage, which is mostly what Okrent writes about today) reflects the interests of most of the people who live in Northern Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn, and damned near all of the people who live in Staten Island, is laughable. The truth is that the New York Times (in its cultural, fashion, and social coverage) is a newspaper that is an unashamed product of a segment of the city whose name it bears.

More comments on Okrent here and note Ed Morrissey’s observation:

If the Times merely represented itself as a city newspaper, I’d buy that. But the Times holds itself out as “The Paper of Record”, a national newspaper with national coverage and impact. If the Times truly wants to be that, then the editors need to quit relying on The Big Apple as The Big Excuse and position the paper to reflect its market. Otherwise, with Okrent’s admission, it can no longer claim to be the Paper of Record, but the Paper of the Liberal Mindset, analogous to the fine but overtly slanted London Guardian, the mouthpiece of the Labourites.

I think Okrent’s column may actually mark the first step toward such a move, perhaps as part of a downsizing and re-branding effort dictated by market forces. The New York Times as a paper that serves a niche market? It’s already become that. They’re just recognizing it.

I wonder, though, if the new version of the paper will be able to afford a subscription to Google?

UPDATE: Patterico, however, is praising Okrent’s piece and suggests that the Los Angeles Times could learn from his example.