NYT Travel section--New Format?
 

Is anyone else uphappy with the change in the NYT Travel section? Many of the columns I liked are now missing. Wonder what this is about?

"What's Doing" is now different, I guess. I forget what they call it now. Also the essay section seems to be missing. I've not looked at the latest Travel sections all that closely though.

Which are your favorite columns that have gone missing?

I echo grandmere's comments.

111op,I thought the essay was almost always very interesting. I generally felt some kinship with the way the author was feeling about some aspect of travel--or not, and that was eye opening, too!

I liked the Letters and Q and A, too.

And I guess I don't like change! :-)

How about you, HowardR--missing something specific or just the new format, in general?

The nature of the changes makes me think there were some budget cutbacks at the travel desk. Too bad.

Yes, I agree with you, grandmere, that the essay is usually very interesting. And I usually read it first (that, and I turn to the "What's Doing" section to see which city they've chosen to profile this week).

I've been sort of sidetracked in the past couple of weeks, so I've not read the Sunday paper as closely as I did. Didn't realize that the letters and the Q & A went missing as well.

Yes, BTilke, it seems that it's not just change, but reduction. It is too bad.

Fortunately, we still have www.fodors.com. :)

Message: Fortunately, we still have www.fodors.com. :)

Indeed!

And we have www.slowtrav.com with more collective knowledge than the NYT.

There seem to be more unwelcome NYT changes as well. So, perhaps what happened to the travel section is not an isolated thing. For example, Arts & Leisure no longer covers all things going on in the NY area. Instead, it revamped the pages and now "selects" what to tell people about. Of course, that allows them to use less space, as well.

That's true. They moved the listings to the Friday paper, I think, and I only get the paper copy during the weekends, so I find that very annoying, as I can no longer go through the listings.

Grandmere... I totally agree with you, too.
(AND what they've done to the Style section......sheeesssh...)

grandmere, I, too, miss the essay. Also, I just don't like the overall look and feel of the section.
As for the Arts & Leisure section, well, I can't grasp the new feel of it. And, I've lost interest in Frank Rich. He's just overkill, as far as I'm concerned. (And I'm a liberal!)

Frank Rich and others were on the Charlie Rose show recently talking about the changes at the NYT, mainly focusing on arts coverage but certainly travel has been affected as well; they agreed that they should have included an article explaining the changes. Here are excerpts from what the public editor, Daniel Okrent, had to say in his November 28, 2004 column (available online @ NYTimes.com):

"... just a few weeks earlier, The Times had tossed the venerable columns of agate type that had filled so many pages of the Arts & Leisure section for so long, with as many as 300 cultural events acknowledged, however briefly, in a single edition. In what seemed to be their place, a single page featured slightly more than 20 cultural items ... To many readers, this was not just confusing; it was replacing a symphony with a jingle."

"Editors reacted ... a little dumbfounded, a little defensive, a little dismissive. The editors' exasperation brought to mind a favorite quotation, from the British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion: ''Why do you hate me? I haven't done anything to help you.''

"At a time when most American newspapers are slashing arts coverage, The Times had gone in the opposite direction. The revamped cultural report now included more than seven additional pages per week. Twenty staff positions were created to produce the new content and improve the old. Full-time reporters had been put on the architecture, classical music and theater beats, and additional reporters will soon supplement the art, movie and television groups. But all that the readers seemed to notice was what was gone."

"Here's the good news, Listings Protesters of America: uncharacteristically for an institution that is slow to change and usually inflexible once it has done so, the editors are prepared to alter their course. Bill Keller says, ''We are listening hard to readers who still prefer the old system in hopes of finding a compromise that suits their needs.'' Landman and Kantor are directing a serious re-examination of the new listings, and working with their colleagues to improve them."