[cryoshon]

That's exactly the way the PR engines work these days, though.

You pay for a column to advertise for your company, you get your column. You pay for a column to criticize your competitor, you get your column. You pay for columns to introduce new concepts that your company will use in the future so that the public has been primed for what you're going to put out there. All of the major companies do these things in order to stay in the public consciousness, and stay favorable.

Sure, these columns will admit "alternative viewpoints" in passing to maintain their veneer of credibility, but that's no threat to their actual purpose. The editor is going to defend their process and integrity until he is fired-- and firing him would represent a concession that mistakes were made. This spat with Amazon is good for the NYT, as it proves that they're willing to "stand up for themselves", which is the perfect trait for a proxy to have when you're paying them to go after the other guy.