#86 My secret hack to finding the best stories from The New York Times
It’s a button most people don’t use.
OK, here is my hack on how to find great stories on the monopoly that is The New York Times.
The Times has some absolutely wonderful reporting, photo editing, and stories. But by design, none of that makes it to the homepage. The homepage has to be broadly approachable, which often means it’s the least interesting section of the site.
The good stuff is becoming harder and harder to find, hidden behind layers of articles on the best skin lotion and roasted salmon recipes. Lengthy, half-baked opinion columns that go nowhere crowd the website.
But if you know how, you can read the great stuff. The unexpected, surprising stuff.
I’m going to share my secret button—it reveals it all.
It’s actually amazing and I have no idea why more people don’t do this.
If you go to the homepage, look to the very top right corner. There is a small button in a muted, very out-of-date navy blue color. It will say something like “subscribe for $1/week.” Click that button.
Eventually you will find an offer called “Sunday delivery.” It will run you somewhere from $5 to $10 a week. But get this, it’s bonkers.
You pay the fee, and then they hire a shit ton of extremely smart people to review all their most interesting stories from over the last week.
Then they work with a team of photo editors to choose the best photos. Then they work with page editors and graphic designers to figure out how to design the stories in a way that skillfully presents both the expected and unexpected stories.
I imagine it’s a lot of work doing that every week.
OK, it gets more bonkers. So they layout all these fucking stories—like, hundreds of them—choose the best photos, and put them in a clever order. Then—seriously, this is crazy—they use 27 different fucking massive printers across the entire country and PRINT THE WHOLE FUCKING THING OUT.
I know. Like, who even has a printer anymore?
Wait, one last absolutely batshit crazy angle to this…
After they print the whole thing out, some poor asshole in a ’98 Camry picks them up and drives it to your house, or in my case, my apartment building. He comes up to my floor and leaves it right at my doorstep at the asscrack of dawn. Like WTF.
Oh, and that part is included. It’s a “free shipping” miracle.
You should try it sometime. If you’ve been feeling like everything you read and consume is bland trash, try getting something printed sent to your house.
If this tip was helpful, you should subscribe to the best magazine in the world: Sixtysix.
(If it wasn’t helpful, here’s my favorite red lentil recipe. Try that instead.)