Two Costly Mistakes at 'The New York Times'

How much did The New York Times's ill-fated premium-content program end up costing the paper? Here's a great post from my Portfolio stablemate Zubin Jelveh on what might've been. His conclusion: An all-free Times would have received about 1.3 billion more page views during the two years of TimesSelect -- a traffic volume worth way more than the $10 million in revenue it brought in.

And speaking of money left on the table: While I was on vacation last week, the Times admitted that MoveOn.org had been undercharged by $77,000 for its controversial "Betray Us" ad after all, albeit (supposedly) unintentionally. That sure makes people like me, who defended the paper against charges of left-wing bias in its ad sales practices, look pretty stupid.

The Times hasn't said what kind of disciplinary action, if any, the ad sale rep will face. Did he or she act on a political impulse? The paper says no, because the rep didn't see the ad's content in advance. But he or she did know that it was coming from MoveOn. The Times being based in New York, I'm sure most of its sales reps are liberal, and maybe this one was a little too eager to accommodate a group whose ideals he or she admires. Maybe not, but that's the problem with getting caught changing your story: You lose the benefit of the doubt forever after.