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Top New York Times editors quit
Reporter: 'Overwhelmed with joy' about resignations
From Rose Arce and Shannon Troetel
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) --The New York Times Thursday announced the resignations of its two top editors -- the latest bombshell in a journalistic melodrama since a rising star reporter was forced to resign for plagiarism.
Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd had been particularly criticized for their roles in the scandal surrounding the reporting of 27-year-old Jayson Blair, who quit the paper May 1.
Blair resigned after a Texas newspaper questioned whether he had plagiarized a story about the family of missing U.S. soldier Jessica Lynch. The Times ran a multipage self-examination of how the reporter managed to stay on staff after multiple errors and editors' suspicions that his reporting was fraudulent.
In a news release, the newspaper said Joseph Lelyveld, 66, former executive editor of The Times, has been named interim executive editor, assuming the jobs of both men.
Raines, 60, led the paper to seven Pulitzer Prizes last year -- several for the Times' comprehensive coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Neither he nor Boyd, 52, would comment on their resignations.
In a two-sentence e-mail to CNN and an interview with WCBS-TV, Blair responded to the resignations: "I am sorry to hear that more people have fallen in this sequence of events that I had unleashed. I wish the rolling heads had stopped with mine." (Full story)
Shortly after Blair left the paper, another reporter, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg, quit after the newspaper published an editor's note saying Bragg had written a story based largely on the reporting of a free-lancer who received no credit.
Contacted Thursday by CNN at his home in New Orleans, Bragg, the author of two memoir-style books, said, "I can't say anything for the record. Right now, it would just be so stupid to say anything for the record."
Staffers 'shaken up but optimistic'
Times staff members learned of the shakeup at 10:30 a.m. in a newsroom gathering that lasted about 20 minutes, a newspaper spokesman said. Raines spoke first, then Boyd, then publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who declared: "This is a day that breaks my heart," according to a story on the newspaper's Web site.
Raines told the dozens of reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom staff members -- some openly sobbing -- "Remember, when a great story breaks, go like hell," the Times story said.
Both he and Boyd then left the building.
Following the newsroom gathering, a reporter who asked not to be named declared she was "overwhelmed with joy."
Jerelle Kraus, art director for one of the newspaper's weekend sections, said of Raines: "I called him Caligula. Everybody was afraid and he was the nastiest editor I had ever worked for."
"He feels himself to be responsible for this," she said. "Otherwise he wouldn't resign."
Deborah Sontag, reporter for the Sunday New York Times Magazine, said that under Raines, "People didn't feel there was a free flow of ideas."
"People are shaken up but optimistic," she said. In the past several weeks it's been "very unstable," Sontag said, and the staff was "not getting back to work." She said Lelyveld will "come in here kind of as grandpa and settle everyone down."
Blair, who is African-American, was hired at the Times under a program designed, in part, to attract more racial diversity to the newspaper, leading critics to question whether editors had overlooked his faulty work to protect a black reporter on a fast track to success. Boyd denied that charge but Raines admitted in a staff meeting it was possible Blair's race had a minor influence on how he was treated.
Publisher: Accepted resignations with great sadness
Sulzberger, whose father, the former longtime Times publisher was seen in the building with Lelyveld, announced the resignations in a press release and memo to the staff. He had stood beside Raines the day Blair resigned and said then he would not accept the editor's resignation.
"Howell and Gerald have tendered their resignations, and I have accepted them with sadness based on what we believe is best for The Times," the news release read.
"They have made enormous contributions during their tenure, including an extraordinary seven Pulitzer Prizes in 2002 and another this year. I appreciate all of their efforts in continuing the legacy of our great newspaper.
"I am grateful to Joe Lelyveld, an editor of superb talents and outstanding accomplishments, for his willingness to provide strong journalistic leadership as we select new executive and managing editors.
"While the past few weeks have been difficult, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our employees, our readers and our advertisers to produce the best newspaper we can by adhering to the highest standards of integrity and journalism. For nearly 152 years, The Times has devoted itself to this mission. With the efforts of our outstanding staff, we believe we can raise our level of excellence even higher." (Full statement)
Lelyveld, a longtime foreign correspondent whose book on South Africa, "Move Your Shadow," won the nonfiction Pulitzer in 1986, served as executive editor of the newspaper for seven years before retiring two years ago.
Raines, author of the acclaimed 1977 history of the civil rights movement "My Soul is Rested" covered the South as a reporter and later was a White House and national political correspondent for the Times.He succeeded Lelyveld as executive editor after serving as bureau chief in London and then Washington and editor of the editorial page.
Boyd, former White House correspondent who covered the Iran-Contra scandal for the Times and later became metropolitan editor in New York, was co-senior editor of the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize winning series on Race in America in the year 2000. He was promoted from deputy managing editor when Raines became executive editor.
Lena Williams, the Times' Newspaper Guild representative, said the resignations were "directly traceable to Jayson Blair. There's an anger out there. We are angry that this singular individual has brought this chaos and disorder to his colleagues.
"He's impugned all our reputations and there are people here who feel that if Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd had done their jobs, this Jayson Blair thing would not have happened."
Williams said she did not agree that Raines and Boyd could have stopped Blair but said the staff, which is "very, very sad," that this all has happened, believed the two editors had been unapproachable as managers and that they bore the ultimate responsibility for the scandal.
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