Is Maureen Dowd Boycotting TimesSelect?

By: E&P Staff Is Maureen Dowd boycotting the new pay-for-play TimesSelect plan at The New York Times? Despite promises from the newspaper that its high-profile columnists--now hidden behind a pay wall on the Web--would provide bonus content and services at the site, Dowd so far has offered nothing original, beyond her twice-weekly print column.

This stands in stark contrast to her colleagues, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert, Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, Paul Krugman, Nicholas Kristof, and John Tierney.

Others, for example, provide a list of ?What I'm Reading.? Special video interviews with many of them are available on their pages. Many have posted favorite Web sites, ranging from Juancole to Drudge. But nothing from Dowd, who is rumored to be against the pay plan, which severely limits online audience. Columnists once dominated the Web site's "most e-mailed" list, but no longer.

On his special TimesSelect columnist page, Friedman answers questions from readers on world affairs. (He says he's reading "Blink" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played." ) Tierney hosts a book club and will discuss a new selection each month. This month it's "Radical Evolution" by Joel Garreau. Kristof, as before, runs a very active forum, with reader feedback as well.

Brooks, meanwhile, offers a cornucopia: various multimedia and interviews, fresh material on social and cultural topics, taking questions from readers, a long list of favorite Web sites, which includes NRO and andrewsullivan. (He seems to be reading a Weekly Standard anthology and a classic Joe DiMaggio biography.)

Krugman has a ?Money Talks? feature with readers' mail and full explanations on why he is reading what he's reading. Herbert has a ?Herbert's Heroes? section, presently lauding Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. Frank Rich also chats with readers and, by the way, he is reading Didion and Ishiguro and the John Crawford war book.

Even the paper's sport columnists provide many extras. But on the Dowd page: nothing but clips from her appearances on The Daily Show and Meet the Press, and previous pieces about her mother and her vacation in Cancun.