Steyn’s lament over provincial papers lip-synching the NYT reminds me of this Meryl Streep line from The Devil Wears Prada:

And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.

No doubt this is how the Times still sees itself, except that readers are increasingly turning away from fishing their news out of the clearance bins at the Las Vegas Sun or the Sacramento Bee.