One striking thing about Keller's style is that he doesn't dismiss criticism of the paper out of hand. "I look at the blogs. . . . Sometimes I read something on a blog that makes me feel we screwed up. A lot of times I read things that strike me as ill-tempered and ill-informed."
Bill Keller's Changing Times
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page C01
NEW YORK -- Bill Keller says he will soon announce a policy at the New York Times that "cuts back on the reflexive use and the pointless use of anonymous sources," which has "gotten out of hand."
Such things used to take an eternity here in the storied newsroom on West 43rd Street. But since taking over as executive editor in the wake of the Jayson Blair debacle, Keller sees "a great opportunity to break some logjams."
No one has ever assumed command of the Gray Lady the way Keller did four months ago -- after a staff revolt against his predecessor, Howell Raines -- and the new boss is putting his stamp on the place. He's named the paper's first ombudsman and mandated credit for Times stringers and researchers -- both key recommendations of the committee formed in the wake of the Blair scandal.
More important, staffers say, Keller has cleared the air, giving mid-level editors more authority and encouraging staffers to spend more time with their families (he walks his daughter to school and has a weekly date night with his wife).
"We're not as self-obsessed as we were during the summer," Keller says. "We're not talking about the collective psychotherapy of the summer. We're talking about stories."
The front page has a more unorthodox feel these days, with pieces on a law firm's footnoted memo on ordering sushi, dog ownership by Zip code and the Daily News debut of former Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd Grove.
Some staffers grumble that there are too many hand-holding meetings in an effort to "de-Howellify things to the point of absurdity," as one put it. Others say the Times seems to be a step behind on some recent national stories, and they question whether Keller's approach is too laid-back.
Keller dismisses talk that he is taking the edge off Raines's "flood-the-zone" coverage. "We are in a brutally competitive business and I like to win," he says. "I don't approach every story as a military campaign, but if anybody doubted we still do 'to-the-barricades' coverage when called for, go back and read our coverage of the blackout. . . . My approach will sometimes be aggressive in terms of pulling out all the guns and deploying special forces, and sometimes be more like guerrilla warfare, and sometimes a long, slow slog."
The top brass are being reshuffled, with Keller tapping a new managing editor, metro editor and Washington bureau chief and looking for new czars for business, science and the Book Review. It hasn't escaped notice that Keller has promoted the likes of Jill Abramson (now managing editor), who stood up to Raines, and metro editor Jonathan Landman, who wrote the famous memo declaring that Blair had to be stopped. But he has also named Patrick Tyler, who was viewed as close to Raines, as London bureau chief.
"I don't believe in holding grudges," says Keller. "There's no loyalty test."
Landman, now an assistant managing editor, calls Keller "an excellent listener" whose style reflects that of Times editors before Raines. "Many people in important jobs feel for good and honorable reasons that they need to demonstrate leadership a lot -- which they view as needing to take over, and to have an opinion even when they don't have one," he says. "Keller is not like that. He's patient. He's willing to wait and let ideas emerge. The contrast with Raines is considerable."
Says Assistant Managing Editor Michael Oreskes: "People are able to go about their work without fear that someone's going to club them with a two-by-four."
Keller is accustomed to complaints about slanted coverage. Asked about the Bush administration's charge that reporting on Iraq has been overly negative, he says: "I'm sure they're hoping editors will stop and take stock and say maybe we owe them a few more stories about what's going right in Iraq. That's not necessarily a bad thing for editors to do. Maybe in response to carping from the White House, the coverage has become a little more sophisticated."
One striking thing about Keller's style is that he doesn't dismiss criticism of the paper out of hand. "I look at the blogs. . . . Sometimes I read something on a blog that makes me feel we screwed up. A lot of times I read things that strike me as ill-tempered and ill-informed."
Perhaps the best example of Keller's open-mindedness toward outside critics is his choice for the Times's first public editor. He picked former Life managing editor Daniel Okrent, whom he had never met, rather than a Times veteran.
"Maybe we were a little too closed off to how the world sees us. . . . The more I interviewed people, the more I realized it would be more interesting to listen to someone who hadn't grown up in our culture," Keller says. Over time, he admits, "I may want to eat those words, or the staff may want to shove them down my throat."
A former managing editor who was passed over for Raines in 2001, Keller could be forgiven for basking in the spotlight that is finally his. But he avoids television appearances and most cocktail parties, saying he usually ends up talking to his wife in the corner. Keller clearly has no desire to become one of this city's bold-faced names. "I'm not wild about the celebrification of journalists in general and I don't much enjoy it myself," he says.
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