'NY Times' Begins Big Blog Push Aimed at 'Sophisticated Readers'

By: E&P Staff Admittedly late to the blogging phenomenon, The New York Times today launched a Hollywood blog and said more such efforts would be forthcoming.

In an memo to staff on Wednesday (first posted at LAObseved), Jon Landman, the paper's deputy managing editor, promised a real estate blog by Damon Darlin in a few days and said more blogs were in the works. Even more "are at the idea stage," he said. Noting that the paper has "come late to blogging" (trailing the Washington Post at a great distance, for example), he nevertheless declared, "Nothing is more important to the future of our web ambitions than to engage our sophisticated readers. Blogs are one way to do it."

Still, he added, they "make some newspaper people nuts; they're partisan, the thinking goes, and unfair and mean-spirited and sloppy about facts. Newspapers make some bloggers nuts; they think we're dull and slow and pompous and jealous guardians of unearned 'authority.'"

Readers will be able to post their views, but the Times will screen them. "Some bloggers will accuse us of violating blogospheric standards of openness and spontaneity," Landman predicted. "That's life in the big city."

He also cited costs: "David Carr and Damon Darlin will be spending time they could be using to write newspaper articles. Their bosses have decided that's an advantageous tradeoff. I agree."

Carr's blog will anchor a new section of the NYTimes.com Web site called Red Carpet, which promises a critical take on the Hollywood hoopla surrounding the end-of-the-year awards season.

The Web site, www.nytimes.com/redcarpet, launches today and includes Carr's "trenchant daily overview of news about and criticism of the films, actors, filmmakers and studios getting attention -- and nominations."

The Red Carpet site will also feature "The Underfinanced Production Company," which is described as "a satirical weekly column poking fun at Hollywood and celebrity culture," written by Joyce Wadler, creator of The Times's "Boldface" column. Caryn James, a Times critic at large, will write reviews of movie trailers and marketing campaigns. The site will also include links to New York Times movie coverage and a weekly video feature in which David Carr interviews moviegoers in Times Square.