A fantastic indication of the relevance of the NYTimes is in this chart, taken from and excellent post on the state of the Blogosphere by Sifry.
It shows the top sites that bloggers link to – and NYTimes is well ahead of the pack. News.com.au is the only downunder site in the top 100 (that I can see).
It would be interesting to see how this would change if the NYTimes opened up it’s TimeSelect subscription wall that hides the excellent columnists. 
Lance Wiggs 