I think your concern that it is sleazy is based off of the reflexive engineer disdain of marketing. You may wish to carefully examine whether you have a rational basis for that disdain.

"As seen in the New York Times" is 100% factual and a valuable trust signal (which will make a measurable difference in conversion rates -- A/B test if you don't believe me), because it lets you mooch off the Gray Lady's 100+ year reputation for crusading liberal journalism.

Their sole purpose in life is dictating what the reasonably well informed person should know about, and now they are saying that the reasonably well informed person should know about you.

Granted, in this particular instance you've gotten past the gatekeepers not due to the vaunted internal checks at the NYT but because they're syndicating cheap content from an outside blog network to get all the bang from their brand without having to pay for the journalism. That suggests to me that they won't have a brand to speak of in a few years because they can't live on previously accumulated goodwill forever but, hey, it isn't your job to conserve their brand equity.