In the ‘70s, the New York Times did a decent job of portraying itself as the “paper of record”. It was all a facade, of course, but a well-executed one.
The overt cheerleading, censoring, and unconcealed partisanship of the present New York Times makes it read more like The Guardian.
Is there anything like a federal legal notice in the NYT?
I think county paper of record = where legal notices are published. For instance, obituaries - claimants have one year after the obituary is published to file a claim against the estate (time limit may vary by state).