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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (1888)	6/5/2003 12:58:57 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793845

Executive Editor of The Times and Top Deputy Step Down By JACQUES STEINBERG - NEW YORK TIMES It came much faster than even I thought it would. Howell Raines and Gerald M. Boyd, the two top-ranking editors of The New York Times , resigned this morning, five weeks to the day after the resignation of a wayward reporter named Jayson Blair set off a rapid chain of events that exposed deep fissures in the management and morale of the newsroom they had led for just under two years. In a hastily arranged ceremony in the third-floor newsroom, on the same spot where the paper had celebrated winning a record seven Pulitzer prizes just 14 months ago, the newspaper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., told staff members that he wanted to "applaud Howell and Gerald for putting the interest of this newspaper, a newspaper we all love, above their own." Mr. Sulzberger said that on an interim basis, Mr. Raines, who was the paper's executive editor, would be replaced by Joseph Lelyveld, 66, his immediate predecessor, who retired in 2001. There will be no immediate replacement for Mr. Boyd, 52, who was the paper's managing editor. Mr. Raines's tenure was the shortest since the paper's longtime Washington columnist James B. Reston served as executive editor of The Times for 13 months during 1968 and 1969. In front of dozens of reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom staff members, many of whom sobbed audibly, Mr. Raines, 60, told them: "Remember, when a great story breaks out, go like hell." The remark, which could have been spoken by one of the role models Mr. Raines often cited to his staff, the legendary Alabama football coach Bear Bryant, underscored the magnitude of the many news stories that he and Mr. Boyd had led the staff through in just 21 months: the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia, and, ultimately and most recently, the exposition and investigation into how Mr. Blair had committed the equivalent of journalistic fraud on at least 36 occasions since October. But after the deceptions of Mr. Blair were brought to light, in a four-page article that was published on Mother's Day, it became clear that Mr. Raines's hard-charging leadership style had not only played a role in creating the atmosphere that allowed Mr. Blair to do what he did largely undetected but had also alienated him from his staff. Three days after that article appeared, Mr. Raines appeared before the newsroom staff at a town hall-style meeting to accept ultimate responsibility for what Mr. Blair had done and to pledge to improve his rapport with the people who worked for him. While Mr. Raines had tried hard in recent days to win over some of his biggest internal critics, at dinners and in private conversation, it was not immediately clear this morning why that effort had come to an abrupt end. This morning, after embracing many Times employees from the newsroom and throughout the building, including Mr. Sulzberger's father, Arthur Sulzberger Sr., the paper's chairman emeritus and former publisher, Mr. Raines grabbed a straw hat from the office he had just vacated and walked into the drizzle on West 43rd Street with his wife. Mr. Boyd followed a minute or two later. "There is so much to say," said the younger Mr. Sulzberger, "but it really just boils down to this: This is a day that breaks my heart, and I think it breaks the hearts of a lot of people in this room." A moment later, he added: "Now our task is to go back to doing what we're here to do ? publishing this great newspaper. Our readers deserve no less." nytimes.com