NYT gets Freaky

The New York Times has taken the often-thought-provoking Freakonomics blog under its wing, the first time the newspaper has published a free-standing, independent blog. "We’ve opened our site up considerably over the last year,” Vivian Schiller, the senior vice president and general manager of nytimes.com, told The New York Observer. “We have more and more voices and people who are not New York Times reporters or columnists on the site. This is the first established blog that we’ve picked up. But it won’t be the last.”

On the blog, author Stephen J. Dubner assured readers, "Don’t worry about homer-ism; because we are housed in the Opinion section, we can still poke fun at the Times when warranted, and we can still say nice things about blood rivals like the Wall Street Journal."

He said that the blog will expand to include more video segments, additional links to external sites, and the occasional Q.&A. with the likes of Jim Cramer of “Mad Money.”

August 15, 2007 | BY JONATHAN DUBE