Is the NYT’s Most E-Mailed List a Bad Idea?

The top two titles on today’s post-election New York Times Most E-Mailed list: “Too Close for Comfort” and “It May Come as a Shock.” Well, of course, you say (or at least I said when I woke up this morning and checked the headlines): the former is clearly a piece about the Virginia Senate race, and the latter has something to do with the Bush Administration reacting to the end of their mandate. Right?

Um, no. “Too Close for Comfort” is an op-ed by a historian of marriage about how we’ve all come to rely on our significant others as our only source of companionship. And “It May Come as a Shock” details a new way of dealing with migraines, based on an ancient Roman remedy involving some sort of terrifying electric fish. Buh? Is this really what Americans—or at least Times readers—care about most the morning after the election? Shouldn’t good citizens be outraged by our soft-news wussiness? Our yuppie self-aimed obsession with our own weddings and headaches?

Once again: um, no. Because the Times’ Most E-mailed list isn’t a barometer of what people are reading. It’s a sign of what they’re sending to their friends. And if you’re passing something on to a buddy, chances are good that you’re doing it because the article is fun or informative, rather than essential to civic duty. We can all assume our friends know what’s going on with the election, but we can’t all guess that loved ones with migraines know about the newest research in electroshock therapy.

All of this is probably pretty obvious, but it does make me wonder: is the Times doing itself a disservice by putting the Most E-Mailed list on the front page? Apologies for harkening back to a previous election, but doesn’t the Most E-mailed list often make all Times readers look like sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, you know, Friends of Dorothy?*

Then again, many Times readers are Volvo types, so why hide it–especially since the prejudice against hard news often turns out to be a prejudice against anything domestic, which is itself just deep-seated sexism. After all, it's not as if the the Virginia Senate race is really more significant in the global scheme of things than a giant shift in the way Americans view relationships. And for headache sufferers, an article about electrofish is probably much more important than a piece about politics.

So I put it to you: does the frequent fluffiness of the Times Most E-mailed list make readers look bad? Please weigh in.

*(Surely I'm not the only one who saw the resemblance between those two clips, right?)