The New York Times Cooking vertical is surging in popularity. It’s also facing new challenges.
When the going gets tough, the tough get cooking? The coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in subscriptions to The New York Times Cooking vertical, Digiday reports. Monthly visitors are up 66 percent compared to last year, and revenue from non-news products (that includes Cooking as well as crosswords) is up by nearly $8 million. The vertical’s founding editor, Sam Sifton, believes the trend is driven by a collective desire to retreat into creature comforts during uncertain times: “It’s human nature to want to nest and make delicious things when the news outside is frightful.” At the same time, the vertical has faced fresh challenges: As media organizations reflected on their complicity with systemic racism this summer and fall, Sifton vowed to make the vertical’s staff more inclusive and to properly credit recipe originators.
