Who, exactly, does the NYT appeal to? Conservatives accuse it of being too liberal, liberals think it’s gone soft on conservatives who accuse it of being too liberal, and with op-ed pieces like “President Apostate,” it’s obviously giving up on the small but profitable demographic of people with some small measure of common sense.
Who’s left? Doddering patriarchs who forgot to cancel their subscription when the paper started printing those wretched acrostic puzzles? Masochists who can’t get enough of being outraged by the poor quality of their daily paper? How many of me can there be, anyway?
Secretly Ironic 
This being the Internet, I totally reserve my right to disagree with you on this. As a curious person trying to understand topics of global importance that I don’t get, I regularly turn to the Times these days. They’ve been out in front of global food and energy issues, for example, giving me great help in understanding what was going on. Keith Bradsher warned us about the coming global food crisis long before the rest of the media noticed and began piling on. On subjects I already know well because I write about them (nuclear power, for example, and climate change), I consider their coverage best-in-breed, a sort of gold standard for helping others understand the stuff I already have expertise in. And every time I pick up the paper (which is daily), I invariably find some smart explanatory piece on something I had no idea I was curious about.
If the marketplace is your measure, the world agrees. If you factor in web readership, more people are reading the New York Times right now than ever before.
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