Am I wrong? Yesterday I canceled my New York Times subscription due to the hiring of

[frazzled]

19. I don't know.

If it's right for you, it's right. I came to a different decision.

If they had hired Mr. Stephens as a reporter on climate change, I would feel differently. But this is an op-ed column by a conservative. We should not be surprised that the op-ed page feels compelled to represent both liberal and conservative viewpoints. They are views, not reportage. In a sense, the pushback in letters to the editor contesting the content of Stephen's first column (while not denying that climate change is real, questioning the "certainty" of predictions) is valuable in itself: I saw letters from scientists and Harvard professors with strong countervailing arguments. Maybe it's a good way to debunk positions such as his.

At any rate, my point is mostly about this being opinion writing. I've been a Times subscriber for thirty years. The opinion page is not something that I read first or thoroughly anyway. I'll usually scan the newspaper's own editorials (most often on the liberal side and useful in information), and then see if there's a column that looks interesting. Sometimes it's interesting because it's utter bunk with which I disagree. I feel "certain" enough about the knowledge I obtain through many channels to disregard what some columnist is saying. I am sometimes interested to know what they are saying and how they are saying it, just to buttress my own convictions about how wrong their logic is.

Here is how I read the Times over coffee in the morning. I read through the news section, front to back (front page, international news, national news, and then even at times a few things in the New York pages), sometimes reading only a few paragraphs to get the gist, sometimes reading long articles straight through. I always look at the obituaries! They are fascinating. And then, finally, the editorial pages (because they're the last thing in the first section).

I then go to the Arts pages, because I am interested in art and cinema and books (though less so in theater and dance). And then--the creme de la creme--the Crossword. I can't start my day without doing the crossword puzzle.

I'll look at the weekly science pages a bit, but I'm kind of a science dummy. Once in a blue moon there's something that interests me in the business section, but only when it impinges on some political topic. The food section on Wednesdays is always a read (I like to cook). I rarely look at the Style pages, but my husband oddly likes them. He also always reads Metropolitan Diary for laughs.

There is a lot of stuff in the NYT, good bad and indifferent. Not just news and politics, but arts and science and business reporting. And general cultural stuff like style and food. I don't want to give all that up just because they have someone writing a weekly column on the op-ed page. I can ignore an opinion with which I disagree. Or I can use it to oppose that opinion with a letter or comment.

ON EDIT: I meant also to say that when a column or op-ed is included in the editorial pages of a paper, it does not mean that the paper endorses that opinion. Indeed, the Times' editorials are seriously engaged in promoting sound climate science and policies that pertain to it.