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> The correct name servers should have been DNS.EWR1.NYTIMES.COM and DNS.SEA1.NYTIMES.COM.

How does this work? How would you get to DNS.EWR1.NYTIMES.COM without first knowing where nytimes.com is?

Nameservers have their IPs registered with the registry, and they are returned in the additional answers section. These are called "glue records".

The top level servers (for .com in this case) has A (and/or AAAA) records for the name servers to prevent this kind of catch-22. These out-of zone records are called glue records.

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