diff --git a/recipes/nytimes.recipe b/recipes/nytimes.recipe
index 3876c1428c..bf138ee289 100644
--- a/recipes/nytimes.recipe
+++ b/recipes/nytimes.recipe
@@ -325,7 +325,8 @@ class NYTimes(BasicNewsRecipe):
         '''
         def get_the_soup(docEncoding, url_or_raw, raw=False) :
             if re.match(r'\w+://', url_or_raw):
-                f = self.browser.open(url_or_raw)
+                br = self.clone_browser(self.browser)
+                f = br.open_novisit(url_or_raw)
                 _raw = f.read()
                 f.close()
                 if not _raw:
diff --git a/recipes/nytimes_sub.recipe b/recipes/nytimes_sub.recipe
index 7c59b2fc16..3c1bdcbc0d 100644
--- a/recipes/nytimes_sub.recipe
+++ b/recipes/nytimes_sub.recipe
@@ -364,7 +364,8 @@ class NYTimes(BasicNewsRecipe):
         '''
         def get_the_soup(docEncoding, url_or_raw, raw=False) :
             if re.match(r'\w+://', url_or_raw):
-                f = self.browser.open(url_or_raw)
+                br = self.clone_browser(self.browser)
+                f = br.open_novisit(url_or_raw)
                 _raw = f.read()
                 f.close()
                 if not _raw:
diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
index 11429d835d..6f2331a5dd 100644
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
@@ -437,6 +437,16 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         # Uh-oh recipe using something exotic, call get_browser
         return self.get_browser()
 
+    @property
+    def cloned_browser(self):
+        if self.get_browser.im_func is BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser.im_func:
+            # We are using the default get_browser, which means no need to
+            # clone
+            br = BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser(self)
+        else:
+            br = self.clone_browser(self.browser)
+        return br
+
     def get_article_url(self, article):
         '''
         Override in a subclass to customize extraction of the :term:`URL` that points
@@ -534,7 +544,10 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         `url_or_raw`: Either a URL or the downloaded index page as a string
         '''
         if re.match(r'\w+://', url_or_raw):
-            open_func = getattr(self.browser, 'open_novisit', self.browser.open)
+            # We may be called in a thread (in the skip_ad_pages method), so
+            # clone the browser to be safe
+            br = self.cloned_browser
+            open_func = getattr(br, 'open_novisit', br.open)
             with closing(open_func(url_or_raw)) as f:
                 _raw = f.read()
             if not _raw: