A Dozen Differences Between the New York Post and New York Times

By Barnard Law Collier

I read the New York Post from cover to cover nearly every morning at The Flame restaurant in New York City and over the years I’ve found ways to put the Post to its best uses:

1. The Post can boast a horoscope that is far more accurate, insightful, and literate than 92 percent of the rest of the newspaper; the bridge column is goofy and equally accurate. However, on Sundays, they shrink the bridge type and it’s annoyingly hard to read. Compared to the New York Times, the Post has a slightly more humorous bridge column, and there is no horoscope in the Times.

2. A sure emetic is to read the Post’s editorials and most of the op-ed pieces. Although he valiantly tries, John Podhoretz’s scrivenings are only 40 percent nauseating, and now and again his opinions are therapeutically funny. George Will’s cloudy-eyed pomposities are always too boring to bother with.

3. Every part of the human female body, with the occasional exception of a few nipples, is always available for viewing in the Post. This is particularly true of the Family Kardashian, whose bodies in scanty attire appear in all-too-vivid photographs almost daily.

4. The Post’s sports section is okay and by far the best edited section of the paper. Its writers and reporters ritually pummel any player who has a bad day; a bad week and the poor athlete has his manhood questioned; a longer slump may mean bad-pun headlines. However after a single good day, the same player may become an immortal hero. The Times, too, presents well-edited sport pages and on the weekends its sports section is worth pilfering.

5. Front page, right hand, top-of-the page Times stories are lucky to earn two paragraphs at the bottom of page 15 in the Post.

6. Even if you believe Mayor de Blasio is weak as water and an insult to the city you will feel sympathy for him when you read how he is treated in the Post. When you read about the mayor in the Times, you merely yawn.

7. There is some woman whose initials are A.P. (not the news service), who eats cheap and smarmy for breakfast and that’s on a pretty good day. There is nobody on the Times editorial staff who could possibly rival her in sleaze. She is righteously proud of this distinction.

8. The front page headlines of the Times are like sex with almost all your clothes on. The Post’s front page headlines are like sex on the down-market side of the porn hubs. If you want to understand what that feels like, imagine being a prick politician with a surname like Weiner.

9. The Post fits fairly well on the smaller booth tables of The Flame and its tabloid size allows for easy page turning. In a narrow space, the Times demands acrobatics to read, with many jumped stories that require page turning. The Post rarely jumps a story.

10. In the Times, Hillary Clinton is treated with respect and consideration, although not with true love. At the Post she is treated with loathing, as if she is a wicked witch who terrifies the boobocracy. The Post had a closeted man crush on Donald Trump, but after the first 100 days it seems to feel a mild nausea about it.

11. Neither paper has anyone writing for it whose work is reliably funny. Clever, yes. Funny, seldom.

12. The Times is the clear winner when it comes to the ultimate utilitarian test of a newspaper—to kindle fires in a fireplace. The paper the Times is printed on burns hotter and faster than the cheaper, slightly spongier paper used by the Post. The Post burns best when ripped into shreds; the Times is best to roll into tubes.
—–
Barney Collier describes himself as cultural anthropologist, writer, former New York Times correspondent and bureau chief, and publisher.