Your next stay in a $2,200 Park View Two Bedroom Suite at Trump Hotel’s Central Park property will come with complimentary access to NYTimes.com:
In what is The New York Times’s largest hotel program sold to date, guests of Trump Hotel Collection properties in New York (Central Park & SoHo), Chicago, Las Vegas, Waikiki, Miami, Toronto, Panama, and Doonbeg, Ireland can enjoy unlimited NYTimes.com access on any device during their stay by connecting to http://koloalandingresort.com Trump Hotel Collection’s Wi-Fi network.
Trump Hotel Collection has also started to “wean its guests off of the paper product by offering free digital access to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other popular publications via PressReader,” reducing the number of print papers it provides by 80 percent this month, Lisa Fickenscher reports for Crains New York Business. (I wrote about PressReader and the 2,500 newspaper PDF replicas it offers in January.)
This move to provide free access to the Times website makes sense for the luxury hotels since the Times is Donald Trump’s favorite newspaper — to talk about, at least. Here are some of his best quotes and digs about the Grey Lady:
— The real estate magnate and reality-show meanie has made a lot of noise about wanting to buy the Times. When rumors were spreading last year, Trump told Fox Business Network “I think a lot of people are hoping its true,” indicating Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman wouldn’t last long under a Trump regime.
— He’s also no fan of Gail Collins:
Even before Gail Collins was with The New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many best sellers), is not at a very high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong!
— Trump’s more of a BuzzFeed believer these days, anyway. BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins hung out with the Donald earlier this year. Here’s his account of meeting Trump as a dinner party is being set up, when Trump explains who Coppins is to “an older, German-accented gentleman who appears to be in charge of the event”:
“He’s the biggest blogger in the world,” Trump tells the man. “You look at him, and he’s sort of handsome, but his power is immense.” He turns to me. “Isn’t that right?”
Before I can answer, he is facing the German gentleman again. “Have you heard of BuzzFeed?”
The man doesn’t want to say no, but it’s clear he’s unfamiliar.
“It used to be the New York Times, now it’s BuzzFeed,” Trump explains. He pauses a beat, and then adds, almost wistfully, “The world has changed.”
Of course, he wasn’t happy with how the piece turned out:
Bloggers like McKay Coppins & @BuzzFeed are true garbage with no credibility. Record setting crowds & speech not reported. @PiersMorgan
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2014
— Finally, the ability to broadcast news and opinions through Twitter and other social media sites, Trump said in remarks reported by Mediabistro last month, is “like owning the New York Times without the losses, if you think about it.”
