Clearly I was messing with you but a link from NYTimes.com is not going to come without someone digging deep into their wallet.
The SEO value is not there for the $'s spent from all the historical data I have access to so the question I would ask is why are you hunting that sort of link?
Is it more for prestige/recognition, do you have a client that is begging for one, is it something you want to have to advertise you have abilities to get almost anything for a client?
None are bad in my opinion, just trying to see your end game here.