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We'll be honest: We never pick up the crappy free newspapers. In fact, we hate people for picking them up. We live in the greatest newspaper city in the world: Break out the freaking quarters already, tightwad.

But now we're just angry, because the Times is now perpetuating this problem by starting their own crappy free weekly. Starting this afternoon, the Marketplace Weekly, essentially a pamphlet of classified ads with a few reprinted stories so they can still call it a "news"paper, will be distributed at various points around the city. That's right: The Times is now admitting that its ideal price is "free." The goal is to attract an "18-to-34-year-old readership" with a bunch of employment ads, which is its own joke, one we'll resist making here. Please, please, please let them try to make it "hip:" we desperately want to see the Times tell us how they're "swingin' on the flippity-flop."—WL

Times Launches Free Commuter Paper [NY1]
The Great Grunge Hoax [Cornell.edu]