America’s greatest newspaper has paused at the yellow brick crossroads – and gambled hugely. Here comes a unit called “New York Times Global”, supposed new driver of international growth, carrying a $50m pot to stake and spend.

“Because our digital report is still designed and produced mainly for a US audience, we have not come close to realising our potential to attract readers outside our home market,” say chairman, chief executive and editor together. “Just as the Times became a truly national news organisation in a previous generation, we believe we now have the opportunity to become an indispensable leader in global news and opinion.”

That’s a potentially profound step. “While we are already seeing significant growth in consumer revenue from international markets, we believe we can achieve much more by better engaging our non-US readers and reporting for them as well as about them.”

In short, as domestic print sales and ads go on sliding, as digital ad expansion creaks under the strain, Planet Earth is the chosen source of salvation – primed to deliver more than double digital revenue growth over the next four years. “Every part of the company… needs to think creatively about attracting and retaining a bigger non-American audience.”

And here’s the essence of this crucial gamble. The New York Times reckons it won’t survive by trying to be America’s finest. Henceforth, international means just that. The paper will drop in Peruvian news for Lima and Indian news for Mumbai. It will address everyone everywhere. It will be the voice of a wider world. Which isn’t necessarily why you – or many of its 1.1 million digital subscribers – buy or read the Times in the first place.

On the contrary, I follow the NYT for its American coverage, American viewpoints, American culture, American politics. I read it because the columns it carries – Krugman, Dowd et al – are also being read by hundreds of thousands across the States, because the same editorials to peruse over breakfast are clippings beside Barack Obama’s coffee pot. This, in size and newsroom strength, is a superpower news organisation. It draws you into that ambit. It’s an authentic snapshot.

But diffused, in some page-view quest, across the globe, accreting staffing costs whilst stuffing its sites with news that America will never see or need to read? That’s an entirely different concept. Take New York out of the New York Times and it becomes somehow androgynous – and vulnerable to the battle that consumes its US editors day by day as the Washington Post, fuelled by Bezos money, dices month by month for home-ground digital supremacy.

Is there such a thing as a true international digital news force? Even Facebook, stalled at the Chinese and Japanese borders, can’t manage that. Business and, maybe, celebrity gossip can find a niche round the world. But general news is a much harder call where audience, product and a narrower focus have to come together to spell success. The New York Times has its special selling point worldwide: the best of America. It’s a tall order to risk all that – especially if Bezos isn’t watching your back.

■ So much bad news “is bad for us”, glooms Simon Jenkins in the Guardian. But cheer up: skip over to the lighter side. Try LittleThings, a viral site hitting 50 million unique visitors a month (mostly via Facebook) – and relentlessly, ineffably, incredibly cheery. “Earth Day Cupcakes Are The Perfect Way To Celebrate Mother Nature”, it chirrups. See how your “Rusty Fire Pit can be Transformed Into A Shabby-Chic Coffee Table!”. And a “Giant Bunny Named Bluebell Is Happy As Can Be In Her Forever Home”.

There now… You can feel Sir Simon warming up already (unless it’s the coffee table on fire).