The most interesting thing about this article to me is that the author has linked to another site using a visible bit.ly link -- literally "One blogger ( http://bit.ly/gHkES ) calculated...". It suggests some disconnect between the NYTimes journalist and the technology he's using.
we do that at my newspaper because it's an easy way to track outbound links. sure we could set up our own outbound redirection thingy, but bit.ly is les cool and we have other things to work on.
You could also use awe.sm to set up a redirector on a domain of your choice, which is pretty cheap and looks more professional than a generic shortener (disclosure: I know the founder).