At home fun: the Times News Quiz

By A.J. Liebling
Meta-Content Generator One of the most endured [Surely, beloved? – Ed.] features of the New York Times is its weekly news quiz, the purpose of which is to shame you for not reading the Times closely enough the previous week.  Here's this week's example:

Apparently this has been one of the longest-lived features of the Times, although it used to run on Sunday.  Here, just to take one example, is the news quiz the week the Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated in 1943:

Oh well maybe the slaughter of the Warsaw Jews just wasn't as quizworthy as the names of the bodies of water bordering the Aleutian Islands.

At any rate, as part of our effort to serve our faithful readers, trapped at home by the continuing Trumpublican pandemic catastrophe and possibly distracted by off-the-wall questions like can I feed my children and will I be chucked out into the street by the sheriff, we thought we'd craft a fun quiz of our own.  

Instead of a news quiz, since we're the designated meta-content generator, we thought we'd go meta and offer you a quiz not about the news, but about the Times itself.   Anyone can play, even Times staffers themselves.  And yes if you're a Times columnist, you can get help whether from your brother “Kevin,” the research assistant on your lap, the ghost of Cardinal Spellman, sources close to Jared and Ivanka, or anyone else you want, even if they've been s**tcanned by the Times.

Ready?  Go!  (Answers below).

 1.  When the President obviously lies his ass off in public, the appropriate way to describe the results is:

a.  'In a rambling statement, . .'

b.  'the unfounded claim that . . . '

c.  ' Misstating the facts, . . ."

d.  'Lying his ass off as usual . . . " 

All Times employees can play,
even the ol' perfesser

2.  The decision by Hillary Clinton to use her own email server for unclassified work related emails was

a.  The most shocking display of misconduct since Grover Cleveland fathered a bastard child

 b.  Evidence of how out of touch she was with average Americans, including Times columnists who live in Georgetown townhouses

c.  Just as bad as committing multiple admitted sex crimes and seeking illegal election assistance from a hostile foreign power, so both sides 

d.  A nothingburger

 

3.  When an op-ed staffer quits because no one likes her pisspoor work, this is an example of:

a.  the most flagrant violation of free speech in our time, notwithstanding the President's threats to close down the Post Office to punish the owner of a newspaper critical of him

b.  sensitive liberal snowflakes who run screaming into the night any time someone hurts their feelings

c.  evidence that the Times won't publish conservative writers other than Bretbug, Cardinal Douthat, the ol' Perfesser, Six-Months Friedman, reactionary goober Senators, right-wing economists, etc. etc.

d.  a day at the office

4.  The claim by a superannuated columnist that it is outrageous that it has taken 36 years for the Democrats to run a ticket including a woman is

a.  Another brilliant example of the sexism in the Democratic Party, so both sides

b.  An unsurprising effort to erase Hillary Clinton, whom said columnist trashed at every opportunity with sexist tropes about her ambition and lack of warmth.

c.  Something to be corrected before it embarrasses her in the print edition:

d.  Another reason why it's time for someone to retire

 

5.  The failure by the Times to examine its fatally flawed 2016 campaign coverage in which it placed equal weight on the winner's many crimes and the loser's many emails is something that

a.  Should be ignored

b.  Is being repeated

c.  Should be examined by the Public Editor

d.  Should be celebrated by the Executive Editor

 

6.  Regis Philbin complained that the paper edition he received in Connecticut was printed too early to include the result of Saturday afternoon college football games.  The Times pushed back the print deadline in response.  If you lived in Boston and you wanted to read the results of the previous night's Red Sox game in the paper you pay $1300 a year for, who would you have to be to get similar consideration?

a.  David Ortiz

b.  Harvard President Lawrence Bacow

c.  Where is Boston?

d.  Why do you want to know, given how s****y the Red Sox are this year?

 

7.  What stories has the Times printed in the last year that would be of special interest to readers in New England?

 a.  Alan Dershowitz's social calendar on Martha's Vineyard.

 b.  Real estate prices of Berkshire vacation homes for a**holes from New York.

 c.  One-skillet recipes for pork and beans

 d.   The art scene in Montreal, which is up in New England somewhere we think.

 

Ace Times columnist shown here remembering
that the Democrats have put a woman
on the ticket after 1984.

8.  When asked whatever happened to the Times bureau in Albany, capital of the state whose name can be found in the words 'New York Times?,'  the desk responded:

a.  We don't know.  The telegraph wire went down eight years ago.

b.  We don't care.  Cuomo spends all his time here anyway.

c.  We sent someone out to look in '13 and haven't heard back.

d.  Albany?

 

9.  When New York was represented in the Senate by a corrupt small-time pol and a broken-down lush, the Times reported

a.  They were the greatest statesmen since Roosevelt

b.  They were focused on getting things done for New Yorkers

c.  They were buddies with the publisher

d.  The sordid truth

 

10.  If you have a base of loyal customers shelling out $1,300 a year for your print edition, the correct way to treat them is:

 a.  Soak them more every year since they must be brain-dead anyway to read the paper edition.

b.  Treat them like your best customers and shower them with special attention and rewards.

c.  Ignore them.

d.  Throw in the recipes, which ought to be good enough for them. 

 

Answers: 1,a; 2,b; 3,a; 4,d; 5,b; 6,d; 7,b; 8,a; 9,b; 10,c.

Score:  0-4: Dumb enough to pay for the print edition

            5-7: Median Times reader

            8-10: Dean Baquet's successor.