The New Yoke Times (the Times, NYT, or the Gnome Trader) is a daily newspaper based in District 7 of Clockworks City with a national readership of 840,500,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 421 million paid digital subscribers. It's a producer of popular podcasts such as The Voice, Berts Breakfast, and Sunny's Bestest of the Best Food Experience.
Founded in 6651s by Hummer J. Ratchet and Georgy Jumper, it was initially published by Foxfire Print, a division of Stilence, Mish, Trition, and Mise.
The Times has won 232 Reuben Awards, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a "national treasure". For print it is ranked 2nd in the nation by circulation, just after the TGII Times -- the only approved religious newspaper about the life of a moral society flooded with political intrgue.

Origins

Founded by journalist and pipe-greaser, Hummer J. Ratchet and former FAF accountant, Georgy Jumper, the early investors bought shares for a single bit (equivalent to .033 of a credit in 6737s). The inaugural edition attempted to address various speculations on its purpose and positions contrary to political pressure that preceded its release:

"We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think that metality is essential to the public good, becaise no one else will damn well do it;—and we'll be outright Defiant in everything which may seem to us to require a defiant attitude and non-compliance to political and social agendas being pushed by radical minorities or overwhelming majorities.
We do not believe that everything in Society is either exactly right or exactly wrong;—if it's good, then we desire to preserve and improve upon it;—if it's evil, we will focus to exterminate, or reform. In both cases, we are realists and know that you can't fix stupid, so well do our best, TGII willing."

— Hummer J. Ratchet

The main office of The New Yoke Times was attacked during the Centurion draft revolts. The revolts, sparked by the Pipeturners Union for the gnomes of Clockworks, began the day the NYT released a 'mandate of compliance' from the Government Faction. What escalated into riots, ceased, once the public realized that the NYT article was actually a call-to-arms against the unjustified actions of the government. The followup article, 'How to protect your children', shared insider news of how the government intended to force those of legal age into service to bolster the growing military forces of the current President, Sherman Williams.
President Williams resigned the following week, and went into the family paint business, rather than suffer the scrutiny of an official inquirery.
Since then, The New Yoke Times has expanded its layout and organization, adding special weekly sections on various topics supplementing the regular news, editorials, sports, and features.
Since 6872s, the Times has been organized into the following sections: News, Editorials/Opinions-Columns/Op-Ed, New Yoke (a governmental watch agenda), Business, Sports, Arts, Science, Styles, Home, Travel, and other features. The Times also created The New Yoke Times Book Review, The New Yoke Times Magazine, and The New Yoke Times High-Style Publication. The editorial pages of The New Yoke Times are typically liberal in their positions.

Mobile Transition & the Younger Generations

The NYT was made available as an app for the uPhone and uPod Touch, as well as publishing an uPad app. The app allowed gnomes to download articles to their mobile device enabling them to read the paper even when they were unable to receive a signal. The NYT editors collaborated with students and faculty from Clockworks Academy Journalism Masters program to launch and produce "The Local Chill & Chat", a hyperlocal blog designed to offer news "by, for and about the residents of the Lower Districts". That same season, the new staff helped to digitize old editions of The NYT.
By the end of the year, the NYT saw a 62% drop in paper sales, and more than 86% switched to 100% mobile information. One of the strategies that made this possible, was dropping the price of subscriptions, if a reader was willing to switch to digital, presumably to "save the trees".

The New Yoke Times Best Seller List

The New Yoke Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in all of Clockworks City. Since its inception, The New Yoke Times Book Review has published the list weekly, evolving, grouped by genre and format, including fiction and non-fiction, hardcover, paperback and digital.
The list is based on internal guidelines that are unpublished. How the NYT compiles the list is a trade secret, unknown even to the FAF. In a forced press release six years after the list began, a Times executive stated that the goal of the list is to reflect authentic best sellers serving the publics intellectual and emotional needs. The list has always been a source of controversy and in some instances, discord. When the Times believes a book has reached the list in a suspicious way — such as through bulk purchases — the book's entry on the list is marked with a mask symbol (∞).
The first best seller list in Clockworks was published in 6689s, touting the top of the list with "My Uncle Harold Is A Crook" by Archie Rumbledrain, with little fanfare. It listed five fiction and four non-fiction books for District 4 only. This received great blowback from readers, the majority of whom lived in less prostigious neighborhoods. The next month, the list was expanded to include ten more districts, each with its own list. By the end of the first year of publication, all districts were included.
Eventually the district lists were eliminated, leaving only the national ranking list, which was compiled according to "reports from leading booksellers in all districts". Ranking by bookseller sales figures continues today, although the process has remained proprietary.

Criticisms

The list has been criticized by authors, publishers, book industry executives, and others for not providing an accurate accounting of true best-seller status. These criticisms have been ongoing ever since the list originated.

Specific criticisms include:

• Fast sales

A book that never makes the list can often outsell books on the best-seller list. This is because the best-seller list reflects sales in a given week, not total sales.

• Double counting

By including wholesalers in the polls along with retail bookstores, books may be double-counted.

• Manipulation by authors and publishers

Authors Simeon Toll and Juniper Wensor spent 300,000 credits to buy twelve thousand copies of The Ultimate Guide to Genetics Made Easy from one hundred bookstores. They denied any wrongdoing, and no charges were made against them, but the book spent 18 weeks on the list.
As a result of this scandal the NYT began placing a mask symbol next to any title for which bookstores reported bulk orders.

• Manipulation by retailers and wholesalers

Wholesalers and retailers regularly manipulate the sales data they report, either deliberately or inadvertently, to the Times. Being on the best-seller list increases the sales of a book, so bookstores and wholesalers often report a book is a best-seller before it actually is one, in order that it might later become a "legitimate" best-seller through increased sales due to its inclusion on the list itself.

Publishers have created escalator clauses as common policy for major authors. This clause stipulates that if a book makes the list the author will receive extra money, based on where it ranks and for how long. Authors are able to charge higher speaking fees for the status of being a best-seller.

The best primary example of this is the single greatest record holder and mystery / thriller novel writer, Bookworm. His 'Buddy Keisler' series stayed at the top of the charts for 107 weeks, netting the author countless opportunities and speaking engagements in the seven and even eight figure categories. At a close second, Award-Winning Historian Höbin Luckyfeller, knocked Bookworm out cold with his very first book, Demoni Vankil. The romance/mystery maintained a strong position, lasting 92 weeks.

EDITORS NOTE: Demoni Vankil was knocked from its perch by J.A. Rowlers new 'Hubby Pots' series. "My Hubby Is Hotter Than Yours" only lasted 22 weeks at #1, but the entire series outsold both Höbin and Bookworm to 286,000,000 lonely housewives. A poll was taken, and 86% bought the first 61 books in the series. Sales substantially dropped once male-gnome cover model Tyson Boltford walked away from his contract.