NYTs is Pushing Back Against Fake News with ... $300 T-shirts

Source – In the post-truth era, many are wondering how to fight the epidemic of fake news. If you’re a Resistance warrior with $300 to spare, it’s your lucky day: The New York Times has collaborated with the luxury Japanese brand Sacai to give you the slogan T-shirt you might not need, but definitely deserve. Or maybe the other way around? Anyways, it’s $300.

The front of the $300 shirt, available for purchase at Saks Fifth Avenue, reads, “Truth. It’s more important now than ever.” And if that weren’t explicit enough, the back of the shirt reprints some text from a 2017 ad for the Times:

The truth is hard. The truth is hidden. The truth must be pursued. The truth is hard to hear. The truth is rarely simple. The truth is rarely obvious. The truth doesn’t take sides. The truth is not red or blue. The truth is necessary. The truth can’t be glossed over. The truth has no agenda. The truth is hard to accept. The truth pulls no punches. The truth is worth defending. The truth requires taking a stand. The truth is more important now than ever.

If $300 seems like a paltry sum for a shirt with such a weighty message, fear not! A hoodie with the same text is also available for a neat $420.

And to think, all this time I’ve believed we were witnessing the inevitable, final swirl around the bowl of the turd that was once the American newspaper industry. As the last flush of their own incompetence was taking them down the pipes of irrelevance into the sewer of history. But boy, do I ever stand corrected. The Old Grey Lady (note: I don’t think we can call it that any more now that we’re totally woke) is proving me wrong.

This is how you stay alive when your business still largely depends on printing news on paper and delivering it once it’s no longer news. By declaring your credibility on an overly wordy t-shirt that cost the same as a mid-price 4GB laptop. Not just stay alive, but thrive.

I have to admit, this is a hell of a business model. Combining entertainment, information and opinion with t-shirt sales. It’s amazing no one has ever tried it before. I just wish I could’ve been there at the meeting where they set the price point. Where they said “We’ve got this design that is a copy & paste job from that ad we ran last year after Trump called us fake news. They cost us about $1.50 per unit to print and ship over from Japan. And since it’s so relevant and eye-catching and sure to be super hot with all the young people, what say we price it at … 300 bucks? Sound good? Everyone on board with that?” I mean, why not just make it $1,300? Or $3,000? It’s going to be just that popular. Perfect with their target demo of people over the age of 65 who love nothing more than dropping big wads of cash on novelty wear with words on it. And frankly makes me feel a little low rent to be working for a place that charges $25-$28 for our shirts. Like the Times is a boutique and we’re just the Dollar Store. $300 designer tees is not just how you keep your antiquated business alive, that is how you thrive.  And that’s all the truth I need.