The Levy Email

This past week, I got this personalized email from a big-wig (Cliff Levy) from the New York Times.  Basically, it was a personalized appeal that I needed to support and read the Times because only they had brilliant journalists.  The hint also....was that bloggers simply didn't have the sources for the news.....like the anonymous source folks.....to help give you a four-star story.

It took me about sixty seconds to assess that it was a rather weak and marginalized attempt to get me to subscribe with a newspaper known greatly for it's biased reporting and comical analysis.

The best quote from the email?  "Real reporting is vital in a media landscape full of deceptive or outright false news. And we can do it because we have the support of our subscribers".

Maybe a decade ago, I would have easily bought off on quotes or news from the Washington Post or New York Times.  In the past decade.....I've gone to a different plateau and ask a lot more questions.  Just say some news comes from the Times or Post.....doesn't mean anything to me.  I get this almost nightly now from public TV here in Germany, and find the handcuffed method of convincing me of things to be questionable.

How many people will buy off on this email from Cliff Levy?  My humble guess is less than a hundred people will subscribe.  I would even make the assessment that the Times has reached a point of desperation where it really needs another twenty-thousand subscribers.