I see nothing on the current NYT page that winks or blinks. I do, however, see a site that draws the eye to the following elements, in order:

* Top stories. * Sections. * More top stories, but less breaking news. * A list of stories, arranged by section.

That's sane. Google News just spits them out according to an algorithm designed to handle multiple news sources. * Stories arranged by section.

That's interesting, I have a totally different experience with the site. The animated ad for the Sunday magazine totally dominates my glance at the page. My eye is drawn along the horizontal and vertical rules to ads in blue, yellow, red. I don't immediately see "Top Stories" or "Sections"; I see the flash ad, then "IN SUNDAY'S TIMES", then a tab-headered table labeled "MEN'S 3RD ROUND|WOMEN'S 4TH ROUND".

The site, to me, is a good example of the tension between old-school print standards and web-based media. If you take a given story I prefer to read the "PRINT"-ed version, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/07weapons.html?hp vs. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/07weapons.html?pagew... The former is busy, moves, has lots of conflicting colors. The "printed" version is widely-spaced, simple.

The sfgate.com website strikes a different balance that's seems further from its respective printed paper. It's similarly strewn with ads and blinkies, but they don't seem as jarring to me, it feels like a website while the nytimes feels like "the website of the newpaper".