Why do I like The New York Times?

The reason to why I like the daily newspaper The New York Times is not only because of the logo, it is the way they write and present the news of course. It is definitely the general look of the paper, after all I am a picture-person as we would say in Sweden. Meaning I like pictures in different forms. And I work with pictures both as an artist and illustrator and it´s what I have always liked to do.

It is also a fact that if I as a foreigner on a visit to the USA would like to know about news from not only the USA I have to pick up a newspaper. If I would relay on Fox News for my daily news brief on what is happening in the world I would feel like living in a vacuum, as if USA was the planet and nothing more. It is so different with the New York Times. It is America oriented of course, it is an American newspaper for crying out laud, but it still gives a broader perspective to things outside the USA for the American public. And I get a notion on how Americans maybe think on a few subjects. The New York Times is also nice to read, to hold in my hands, on my knees or on the coffee table at the café having an espresso or why not a Swedish coffee to the right of me. It feels like a newspaper not a tabloid. And still it can write about the new in Graphic Novels, on how companies like DC Comics have to start looking for women gender audience that are not that into to looking at UBER-babes with water melon size boobs rescuing the world, but more ”real” subjects. And then the other day write about a small painting from 1888 at the Metropolitan Museum.

I would love to be able to read the Spanish newspaper El Pais as well, but I don’t speak Spanish so that is not possible. One other English speaking newspaper I like to read when on travel outside my own country of Sweden is The International Herald Tribune, for which I made an illustration, the British newspaper The Times and the Independent. I would probably never pay for the other British, the tabloid The News of the World. The Swedish newspaper of my choice is the Dagens Nyheter (Daily News), its without a doubt a very good newspaper but I have to admit I do like the Swedish daily free of charge success story METRO when sitting on the subway or the other one called Stockholm City. But of course here we are talking about different reading experiences. Whats funny though is that this free of charge Metro comes out as a more serious paper than the other two Swedish ”dragons” as we call the big tabloid ones: Expressen & Aftonbladet

The New York Times is a paper I still enjoy to read, and now even on the Internet. That is what is so nice about it, the people behind the website version of the paper issue is doing a great job, they have found a good balance between the two versions. I still prefer reading the paper version when at a café, but I don’t say no to the digital when that is the choice.

And no, I was NOT payed by The New York Times to write this. I just like the dam paper!

Stefan Lindblad
artist & illustrator