You’d think since Nicolai Ouroussoff actually works in the new New York Times headquarters, he would have the scoop on the new building. But instead, the Times waited about six months to review their new digs; even the New Yorker beat them to the story.

Ouroussoff admits right away that as the Times architecture critic covering the Times headquarters, he’s in the unenviable position of coming off as either a sycophant or a troublemaker no matter what he says. Perhaps choosing the lesser of two evils, Ouroussoff generally likes the building, mostly in comparison to the old one, which he describes as “a depressing place to work.”

A new building for the Times is of course more than a workspace, it's a symbol of the whole institution of journalism, which is in trouble: "Reality television, anonymous bloggers, the threat of ideologically driven global media enterprises — such forces have undermined newspapers’ traditional mission."

Speaking of anonymous bloggers, we caught that reference to Rupert Murdoch, and he probably did too.

Some of the commenters, perhaps also undermining newspapers’ traditional mission, disagree: The new NY Times building looks like a correctional facilty (sic). I suppose this is another way of saying it has the ‘precision and texture of a finely tuned machine.’"

But finding a highfalutin way to describe the beauty of a correctional facility is why Ouroussoff gets the big bucks from the Times.