Not everyone has a Helvetica font installed; at least add the generic sans-serif as a fallback. (Though if the aim is to be reminiscent of a print newspaper, a serif font may still be the better choice.)
Why disable kerning? If the user's font has kerning information, surely a newspaper should respect it.
You're completely right. Helvetica was just a suggestion as most newspapers use it and is widely supported, but he could and should add fallbacks (preferally sans-serif based). As for the kerning it appears something was messing up the spacing for his website and the combination of disabling kerning and letter spacing (even if counter-intuitive) seems to 'make it prettier' at least in firefox.
I'm a bit surprised by the statement that "most newspapers use it [Helvetica]", as my perception is that they mostly use a serif font. (How do you suppose Times Roman got its name?)
But perhaps this varies between markets/regions/languages/etc.
You probably shouldn't use serif, Helvetica is much easier on the eyes and more forgiving.