"but that it was literally a printout of stories that had appeared the day before on the Times's web site." Not really true. NYT posts the bulk of their front

"but that it was literally a printout of stories that had appeared the day before on the Times's web site." Not really true. NYT posts the bulk of their front page material online early in the morning. Usually 3-4AM Eastern. This usually includes editorials as well. I assume it goes live online when the articles are finalized for print. This isn't set in stone of course. So someone sleeping a normal schedule getting their paper at 7 or 8AM is seeing mostly fresh content.