How to lose friends and influence

The New York Times is not disclosing how many subscribers they have attracted for their new pay-for-op-eds plan. But the first month of experience shows that the paper is losing influence in terms of presence in other media. Have a look at the chart showing mentions of NYT op-ed writers on blogs from early September to early October. It shows an across-the-board decline in citations, regardless of which part of the public the columnist appeals to. This was probably easy to predict, but it is bound to be especially damaging to the "newspaper of record" which has long been proud of its ability to set the news agenda for other papers around the country.