And I thought it was just the OS cover that favored prurient interest (your posts excepted) over news!

Wow. Would have expected better of the NYT.

Take it up with @palafo. The NYT was working the story the minute it surfaced last night. Ensign might have been the lead if Letterman hadn't made his surprise announcement. If Chicago is successful in its bid in Copenhagen today, expect that to bounce Letterman.

Yeah, it's weird. But it is Letterman, afterall. And it is Engsign, a U.S. Congressman and the dammed hypocrite! And it is about ethics--a subject that needs more unraveling in terms of scrutiny and pressure by the media with tentacles in US politics reaching well around the globe and into Indonesia.

It's sort of like the front page of Open Salon. Sensationalism over substance. "The Tragic Fate of the Condom Kaiser" currently is the lead story.

I noticed that today and considered canceling my subscription, only NYT is trying to keep up with the priority our apparently prurient interests take. Or as a former friend of mine said, "I know about the earthquake. It's sad. There's nothing we can do about it."

Great.

Oh please we don't give a rat's ass about someone who has an affair with a co-worker unless that "someone" is a celebrity. That's what sells newspapers baby, not death, earthquakes, or tsunamis. We are celebrity mongers and devotees. And why is Dave some freaking hero for telling the story on his show? He's no hero ...he's a man who know the best defense is a good offense/confession.

*Headdesk*

I remember eating at the Dining Facility in Baghdad where they had CNN on the TV. Nothing like eating your lunch in a warzone and seeing your news reporters talking about Paris Hilton.

... Meanwhile, 4,000 people died in Africa today.

@Kind of Blue: Did you actually read the "condom kaiser" story? It's a fascinatng piece of social history, very well-written, and actually makes the kind of point the best writing here on OS does. Just because something has the word "condom" or, for that matter, "sex" in it doesn't mean it isn't worthy of attention.

Spot on as usual. Though it's only fair to say that Letterman's affairs were very old news, not current, no wronged wife, no messy confrontations or cover-ups. In fact it was the extortion threat that was the real news, along with his cooperation with law enforcement to "sting" the guy and get him indicted. Okay with me when celebs fight back. Not okay when their fight or plight is top of the fold.

Why leading newspapers are so desperate today?All newspapers are on deathbed,to survive in any condition they publish these kind of sensual news.NYT is sinking boat to save that boat they can do anything ,tomorrow they may open sex shop or casino on times square. So please do not blame them this is human nature ,must remember one principal of news, good story is always boring bad news always charming.

good grief!

Yes Saturn, as Jeff said, your posts excluded as I still always find them fresh.

This is a good argument in favor of newspapers on the NPR model. As long as mainstream media in the USA rely on advertising, they will survive by pandering.

Maybe we should thank Bill Clinton.

It's so easy to become accustomed to this approach by the mainstream media, but we still should be outraged.

Why do we have an obsession with sex?

I have not read the details of this latest entertainment bombshell but I wonder how you can blackmail someone for doing something that no one outside of a putative Mrs. Letterman would possibly care about.

"sex sells!"

this is noteworthy to you? the media is in the business of connecting eyeballs to ads, the results are commercial, rather than aesthetic.

the newspapers in china for many years were very serious, and told you everything you needed to know, in the view of the government. commercial is bad, but it could be worse.

The very fame you seek from writing on Open Salon is what Dave already possesses via NBC and CBS Networks. The apparatus has been built. Don't blame them for being at the top of it. Besides...honestly a thousand Indonesians dead in a quake isn't all that interesting because it happens all the time over there. They obviously have a problem with their infrastructure and need to adapt accordingly.

No, one should not have expected any better for the NYT. It's a terrible newspaper, corrupt to the core, and always has been.

I think it takes 1000 x 100 in Indonesia to beat sex an assistant. But, then sex x 2 assistants wins over any magnitude of earthquake anywhere.

My question: Do you fault the Times or the populace? I think they have correctly pegged the interest of their readers. Raising consciousness about why people in the US should care is tough.

Kudos to CNN for being brave enough to schedule a news show like Fareed's, aimed at actually toughening up our level of interest. But that's quite an uphill battle. I am a big supporter of his show in part because it isn't easy to watch. It requires me to think and to know about things I don't ordinarily have to know about. But you can see why “a show that's hard to watch” probably isn't a catchy jingle for getting people to join in.

The world is a mess and we've traditionally been so comfortably affluent that we could ignore it and indulge the dangerous illusion that putting our heads in the sand was safe—that the world had to know about us, and not vice versa. Fareed and others are trying to get us to see that this is not so any longer. The world has gotten smaller as it has gotten more inter-connected. But understanding of that won't happen overnight. It will probably take some big event that causes us to realize that there's a penalty to not being up to speed. (You'd think 9/11 would be such an event, and maybe for a few people it was, but overall it seems not.)

I somewhat blame the Republican party (the party central, I mean, not every single individual Republican) for that, since they seem to be all about telling you it's ok, even good, not to know things. Their anti-science, America right or wrong, etc. plans seem to be all about that meta-assertion.