Not with the Times

Odd--the top of the New York Times website currently reads Wednesday, July 12, 2006... even though it's not, and even though next to it reads: Last Update: 12:33 AM ET.

Does someone at the Times manually move its date forward every night?! That would be... crazy.

Maybe the decision has to first go up through the ranks and be approved as 'fit to print.'

Update: A friend who works for the Times confirms that the system is indeed set up so that the date is manually changed each evening.

Which makes perfect sense, the date is one of the trickiest recurrent stories journalists face and constant vigilance is required--midnight can be so unpredictable in how it sneaks up on you, just ask C. Derella.

It all seems like a classic Times story.... "Each night at 11:59, Peter K.'s palms begin to get a little sweaty.

He hunches over his keyboard at 229 West 43rd Street, just yards from the garish neon of Times Square, one eye strained to catch the red glow of the advancing seconds field on the digital (atomic) clock placed to the left of his monitor. For him, every night resembles the run-up to the dropping of the New Year's Ball--57, 58, 59--now!

His hands stab frantically at the keyboard, he runs through the keystroke sequence he's done, and practiced, literally thousands of times, and as the clock turns over to read 12:00, Peter's screen freezes for an agonizing split-second, before blinking back to life--a successful save.

Peter breathes a sigh of relief, settles back in his chair and hits reload on his web browser as his feet almost automatically swing up to his desktop, feeling the satisfaction of a job well-done for another night as he gazes upon the date at the top of the Times homepage.

For Peter has just successfully informed the world, or at least that significant portion who live in the Eastern Standard Time zone, that a new day, has begun.