The Times Is A Changin'

Have you ever tried reading The Times on the subway, in an express bus seat or even lounging on your Poltrona Frau sofa? Yeah, me neither. It's like wrestling a goddamn octopus and I don't have a Poltrona Frau.

Well say goodbye to the days of cephalopod-wraslin' because August 6 The Times will be downsized.

In production jargon, The Times will be moving from a 54-inch web -- the width of 4 pages -- to a 48-inch web. That means pages will be 1 1/2 inches narrower than the current size. Maybe it'll be more like The Observer then? The Wall Street Journal moved to a 48-inch web back in January. So go look at todays ish of the WSJ and that's how big the new Times will be.

Downsizing the paper will obviously entail a massive redesign and revamping of the paper, they can't simply just shrink everything, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Here, go read a memo from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller discussing the shrinkage. And see what Gawker is saying. They always have their nose nestled in The Times' bunghole.