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Jan. 4, 2017, 2:17 p.m.
Reporting & Production

The New York Times wants to offer you a guided tour of the Met (and eventually a lot more too)

“One could see how almost every desk in the newsroom could relate to the concept of a journey.”

An increasingly product-focused New York Times is building on the idea that it has a lot more to offer readers than each day’s news.

With “Make the Most of The Met,” its first museum guide, the Times is giving readers its own tour of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, highlighting some of the museums’s most notable attractions, giving pointers on what to look for in pieces of art, and offering other tips to make the most of a visit. (Go late Friday or Saturday for a quieter visit.)

The guide, written by culture desk editor Daniel McDermon, also takes readers through other noteworthy but lesser-known galleries and names a few that are relatively child-friendly. The Times even designed its own map to the museum, which readers can print out and take along with them.

The guide is an extension of a new effort at the Times that’s focused on finding new ways to build relationships with readers. Last fall, the paper’s Well section launched a handful of guides focused on wellness topics like running, sleep, and mediation. “What’s great about these guides is that they serve what we saw as a very direct user need,” Sara Bremen Rabstenek, Well’s product manager, told Nieman Lab in September. “People wanted a single place that they could go to and learn a lot of information, and the guides are all about serving that need.”

The Times says it’s working on other guides to the world’s iconic museums, but isn’t ready to share details on those future efforts just yet. It’s also thinking of ways to go beyond even the culture section for later guides, said Karen Barrow, senior staff editor.

“One could see how almost every desk in the newsroom could relate to the concept of a journey,” she said. “While we are still brainstorming what those will look like, and what topics we will cover, ultimately, all of our guides will be helpful resources our readers can use over and over again.”

Photo courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

POSTED     Jan. 4, 2017, 2:17 p.m.
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