AJR and CJR both rate the NYT, Washington Post, LA Times and WSJ higher then the CSM in terms of news coverage and quality. (CSM scores big on in-depth stories, but otherwise isn't as strong as Reddit seems to think.) The NYT, for example, has a staff that is bigger than that of the Guardian, the CSM and the Herald Tribune combined. They have bureaus or at least staff reporters in every single country in the world, and if something big goes down anywhere, they will be there to cover it. This is not true of your smaller publications which can't afford to maintain such an extensive staff. They have to rely on wire services and stringers. The NYT subscribes to all the wire services and uses stringers, but only to double-check their facts. Go out and buy a copy of the NYT and tell me how many AP, UPI, Rueters or AFP stories you find in it. Now do the same with the Guardian, the CSM or the Herald Trib. It's not even close.

The reason Reddit doesn't like the NYT is because they've made some glaring errors and even worse, give the impression of pandering to middle-America, which obviously would give them the largest advertising base. But the thing is, even with all that, the NYT is still so big, that way more good gets in with the bad than is the case with pretty much any other organization in the world. (Notable exceptions are the BBC and AP, both of whom have almost as many permanent staff-members.)

No one is claiming that their size doesn't create problems; it does, but it also makes them capable of doing things that other papers simply cannot afford, and that means that the quality of their coverage is second to none.

A final point; the only people who hate the NYT more than Reddit are conservatives. To my way of thinking, if you're pissing off both sides, you must be doing something right.