That's almost as much as Thomas Friedman's travel budget for the year. Seriously, though, the New York Times is on one end of the left <-> right media polarization spectrum (w/ Fox on the other end). You'd think the easier path to increased revenues would be adding content that appeals to the other half.
It's not canard. I'm talking about this from a business standpoint, not a political one. Regardless of whether you think that the NYT is liberal or FNC is conservative, most conservatives think the NYT is left-leaning and most liberals think Fox is right-leaning. So if a business is appealing to only part of the potential market, it seems the obvious thing to do would be to broaden your appeal.
And what if by broadening your appeal, you alienate your current readers without actually attracting any that you don't currently have?
Almost anytime a layman throws out an "obvious" solution for a problem, it is not the stupidity of the experts trying to solve the problem that has kept them from using the "obvious" solution.
This was horribly evident when people this summer kept coming up with terrible ideas for capping the BP oil well based on junk science and engineering, but it is often evident on business matters as well.
I think politics is too much of a us against them mentality to be successful doing that. They'd probably get bashed from both sides if they tried that.
