Back in March, you couldn't talk about the New York Times without someone mentioning how evil Wall Street wanted the company to change its share structure, a system that puts the Sulzberger clan in charge of the majority of seats on the Times board. (Recap! Each "Class B" share, mostly owned by family members, is worth 10 "Class A" shares, which can be bought by the general public. Yes, even by you.) But now, the issue of changing the Times' share structure almost never comes up. Today, for example, the Times presented at the Newspaper Association of America's Mid-Year Media Review, and nary a word was spoken about the share structure. Not only that, but no one even asked about it. Interesting! (Also, Pinch Sulzberger wasn't there, naturally. You never know what he might say!) So just what is on the minds of the Times executives these days?

Yesterday, a Times internal memo went around outlining the paper's upcoming width shrinkage. (It's happening August 6.) But there are a few curious items in the memo that seem to be at odds with what's been proposed in the past.

The New York Times will at last slim down, circumcising an inch and a half of width. Which should help Bill Keller's whole "write shorter stories" campaign. [NYO]

Somewhere at the nexus of self-promotion/congratulation, reflexive ass-kissing, and totally charming genuine enthusiasm is New York Times metro reporter Jenny 8. Lee's new website. As we learned a while back, her new book used to be called The Long March of General Tso, but apparently that title was too confusing—there was some concern that people would think it was a book about the Chinese military. Because people are stupid. Now it's called the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which should play better on the "synagogues and college campuses" Jenny plans on hitting on her book tour. Also, it seems that Jenny is an overachiever—her editor, Jon Karp, had contracted her for 90,000 words, and it looked like she was going to be 20,000 over. But Karp told her not to worry, as they could just change the typesetting: "Perhaps you did something similar in high school when you had to turn in a term paper." Uh, right. We were always turning in papers that were just too long. Anyway: Watch that space! She'll be posting cat pictures within weeks.

Sewell Chan's long-awaited New York Times City Room "news blog" launches; promises that "the emphasis here will be on reporting, not punditry or snarky commentary." [City Room/NYT]

"The Ethicist" is Randy Cohen's long-running advice column in the New York Times. Each week, Gabriel Delahaye's "The Unethicist" will answer the same questions as "The Ethicist," with obvious differences.

In May of 2006, New York Times Metro editor Joe Sexton—you remember him as the guy who so unreasonably begged his reporters to come into the office once in a while and be nice to him—announced the appointment of Jennifer Preston as the editor of the new Regional Weeklies at the Times. It sounded like Preston was going to singlehandedly save not only the Times Regional editions, but possibly all of print media; Sexton described her as a "true New York Times patriot," someone who was "irrepressible, unconquerable, utterly loyal." Now Sexton has sent a memo to the newsroom that says he's becoming more active in recruiting writers in the sections.

TimesSelect, the world's stupidest pay-for-content bar to a good user experience, has 222,300 paying members as of May, according to a report just released by the Times. This is, we think, if our math is right, a gain of 4300 TimesSelect paying subscribers since April! (That's income of a little over $200K.) This is such a good business model that it's impossible to describe how great it is, because it actually just sucks. Really—has no one calculated the web ad income per page contrasted with the cost of Times Select? Oh my God, sorry, I just got all crazy-dull trade paper on you right there. Also announced today—internet advertising up, print ads down over last year at the Times overall. Surprise! "Ad revenues for the New York Times Media Group decreased 9.1%" compared to last May. I bet someone upstairs there is thinking that they should make their website all-pay to play. Genius!

In today's New York Times, television business reporter Bill Carter explains that he wasn't able to interview menacing-looking Sopranos creator David Chase after the final episode because Chase had "told publicity executives at HBO that he was leaving for France and would not take any calls asking him to comment about the ending of his classic television series." Oh, really? What about the superb interview Chase gave to the Star-Ledger on Sunday night?

Sperm are also fast and as cute as tadpoles. They have chubby teardrop heads and stylish, tapering tails, and they glide, slither, bumble and do figure-eights. So while a father may not be entitled to take the same pride in his sperm as he does in his kids, it's fair to celebrate the single-minded cellular commas that helped give those children their start.

New York Times is hiring six copy editors, and would like potential applicants to know that "several of the editors listed on the newspaper's masthead started on the paper's copy desk." [Poynter]

New NYT public editor Clark Hoyt does a "soft launch" of his column, wonders why the paper didn't put the JFK terrorism plot on Page One, and concludes that editors have a tough job. [NYT]

New York Times business reporting wunderkind Andrew Ross Sorkin gets married to a literary agent whose mother is an editor at W and WWD, at Lower East Side Jewish grup-fave wedding emporium the Angel Orensanz Center. [NYT]

"The Ethicist" is Randy Cohen's long-running advice column in the New York Times. Each week, Gabriel Delahaye's "The Unethicist" will answer the same questions as "The Ethicist," with obvious differences.

The few good options left are Gannett and the New York Times Company, neither of which is a likely target. [NYT]

"Paris Hilton might be going back to jail following a furious backlash to her early release that included several Los Angeles officials and hundreds of Lede commenters." Yes. Good job, New York Times blog commenters! [The Lede]

A memo just went out to the staff of the Times, alerting them that although they'll be expected to put out a paper in the new building this weekend, they will have to—gasp, shudder, etc.—work without keyboard trays. Perhaps anticipating the inevitable backlash, the memo begins, "We all need to be patient, knowing that all open issues are being addressed and will be closed as soon as possible." In other words, STFU! You'll work without a keyboard tray, and you'll like it! You'll also use Times Reader and like it, but probably not as much. Oh, and there's a dock strike in Italy, so the furniture in your cube might look like it fell off the back of a truck. Full memo after the jump.

We're starting to suspect that the New York Times is just trying to give the rest of its staff additional reasons to talk about Sewell Chan behind his back, because really, how much more do they need to be reminded that he's been anointed the golden child? Today the entire staff received a memo on "diversity training," informing them that Chan will be "participating in a conversation" with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, in addition to several other panels that sound like something our high school headmaster came up with for our Days of Awareness. "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes" was really the best they could come up with? What about the black eyes?

"The Ethicist" is Randy Cohen's long-running advice column in the New York Times. Each week, Gabriel Delahaye's "The Unethicist" will answer the same questions as "The Ethicist," with obvious differences.

Randy Cohen's ethics column in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine features two letters, both of them signed with first and last names. Michael Grimaldi, from Kansas City, Missouri, has a question about his wife and a utility pole; Allison Moule, from Broomfield, Colorado, wants to know why first-class passengers are allowed to get through airport security faster than everyone else. It is pretty typical Ethicist fare, in other words—except that tomorrow's column marks the first time in more than three months that both letter-writers have allowed Cohen to print their full names. Last week, in fact, both people went anonymous, and the week before that, as well.