The fake New York Times: "All the news we hope to print"

On the way to work on Wall Street today, I spotted a stack of copies of The New York Times left for free.

Only it's not the Times -- it's a faithful copy in the Times's format, dated July 4, 2009. All of the stories report on news that liberals and leftists would like to have happened by then, such as our adopting a sales tax system that penalizes products with large environmental impact.


I couldn't find any publishing credit in the eight high-quality pages, only URLs for the domain nytimes-se.com . (The site was slammed by traffic today, but seems to be up now.) It seems its creators wish to appear anonymous, at least to casual readers. There is a list of worthy progressive organizations listed where reporting errors would normally be printed, but no indication that they are responsible.

Among the more clever articles is a staff editorial apologizing in clear terms for the Judith Miller stories repeating the government's claim to have evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and an op/ed piece by Tom Friedman resigning permanently. Among the more myopic is a report of a "maximum wage" bill passed, which really is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. (I used to associate with Maoists who thought it was a great idea.)

But the overall tone is not Onion-style satire or a litany of demands; instead the tone is optimistic and genuinely hopeful. It simultaneous reflects the sense that enormous injustices have mounted without answer, and that there might actually be an opportunity now to right some of them. It's hard to imagine this attitude making sense a year ago, when Barack Obama's candidacy seemed a very long shot.

I have heard that these were being passed out around the city, and the country, today. It'll be interesting to look more closely at who put together this elaborate and expensive stunt.