Thursday’s resignations are a sad and sorry final act to Raines’s extraordinary quarter-century career at the Times. Since joining the paper in 1978 as a national correspondent, Raines was marked by his ambition–many felt it was arrogance–and his rise through the paper’s ranks was as meteoric as it was divisive. Raines became editor in September 2001, just days before the 9-11 attacks, and in his first months on the job he led the paper to seven Pulitzer Prizes. But Raines had never spent much time in the Times’s newsroom during his tenure there, working in Atlanta, Washington, London and as the paper’s editorial-page editor, where he was on a different floor from the main newsroom. And after assuming power, many at the paper felt he never tried to built constituencies.
Still, all the simmering resentment might never have bubbled over had it not been for a pathological and disturbed young reporter named Jayson Blair. Earlier this spring, Blair was caught fabricating and plagiarizing; the fallout from those revelations laid bare the depth of the newsroom resentments against the paper’s leadership. Blair’s resignation was followed by a mini scandal involving Rick Bragg; after Bragg’s resignation, the consensus was there was too much blood on the floor for Raines to survive. (On Thursday, Blair released the following statement via e-mail: “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.”)
Lelyveld is an obvious interim appointment. Extremely popular among the paper’s rank and file, he has a reputation for favoring decentralization and vigorously supporting his troops. But Lelyveld will likely serve out a year or less–just enough time for the poison to clear from the well. Already, there are questions about how he will handle his second term: will he fill open newsroom positions? Make major personnel moves? Or will a newsroom that’s essentially been rudderless for a month have to wait out another six months of treading water. “I think his tenure will be limited,” Catherine Mathis, the Times’s indefatigable spokeswoman, said Thursday. “It’s open-ended, but the issue is how quickly we can find someone. And certainly we want to move quickly beyond this.” Mathis also said the paper will look both “inside and outside the Times” for a replacement, another extraordinary change for a paper that has always promoted the top editor from within its ranks.
It’s only been several weeks since Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the Times’s chairman and publisher, stood on a stage in a rented Times Square movie theater and told the paper’s staff he would neither ask for nor accept Raines’s resignation. The swift change illustrates just how dire the situation has become. While the Times’s stock has not suffered, much of its value is built around its reputation as one of the most trusted news sources in the world; the press release announcing Raines’s resignation ended with the following: “For the third consecutive year, the [New York Times] Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune’s 2002 list of America’s Most Admired Companies. In 2003 the Company was named by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.”
There’s been concern that the continuing scandals would hurt the paper’s reputation and, ultimately, its revenue stream. Already some papers around the country were making noises about curbing their reliance on the Times’s product, and if that anxiety translated into fewer contracts for the paper’s syndicated content, the bottom line would clearly have been affected.
Mathis said Sulzberger would retain both of his titles, and no board members have spoken out publicly about his leadership.
Neither Raines, 60, nor Boyd will remain employees of the Times or any of its other properties, which include The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, and numerous smaller papers. Many Times staffers, regardless of their feelings about the two men’s leadership, said they felt profound sadness at their resignations, commenting on the tragic nature of their downfall. There was particularly acute sadness felt on behalf of Boyd, a two-decade veteran of the paper who, at 52, was forced to leave the workplace where he had spent most of his adult life and in the end was handcuffed to the very editor who had given him his biggest promotion.
