Dead Man Editing Sooner or later, the beleaguered Howell Raines will take a bullet for his paper.

Slate ^ | 6/3/03 | Jack Shafer

[DPB101]

Had the Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg debacles happened on Joseph Lelyveld's watch instead of Howell Raines', would I be writing a column predicting Lelyveld's imminent departure from the executive editorship of the New York Times?

I doubt it. When Lelyveld ran the paper from 1994 to 2001, he held great political stock in reserve and could call upon it in a time of crisis like the one currently muddying the paper. When the Times overplayed the Wen Ho Lee espionage story in 1999, nobody attributed its errors in judgment to Lelyveld personally, even when the paper published a crow-eating, 1,600-word note from the editors in 2000, admitting that, among other things, its stories had unnecessarily "adopted the sense of alarm that was contained in the official reports."

Lelyveld's stock protects him still. Nobody blames him for the Blair and Bragg fiascos, but he's as culpable as Raines. He hired and promoted both reporters and gave Bragg the idea the regular newsroom rules didn't apply to him. Bragg suggests as much in his memoir, All Over But the Shoutin'. Lelyveld, then managing editor, stops at Bragg's desk to discuss his second story for the Times, one that Bragg thought his bosses might reject. Writes Bragg, "I do not remember exactly what [Lelyveld] said, but it was something to the effect of, 'I know we said we would try to get you some gentle editing, but ‚and my heart froze. 'But we had to change the comma in your lead.' "

But the fists of fury fall upon Raines, and Lelyveld escapes all pillory. Why?

The blows come from two corners--inside the Times and outside the Times. Outside the Times, Lelyveld is barely known and is regarded as a fair and Christly man. Raines, in keeping with his personality, blazed a butcher's blitz through politics, business, and culture as editor of the Times editorial pages between 1993 and 2001, cornering the market in enemies and ill-will. That few pressmen sympathize with Raines in his time of intense need reflects very poorly on him. If they haven't been needlessly stung by his snarling ego, most journalists know somebody who has.

Lelyveld's success at the Times hearkens back to 1962, when he started building constituencies as a copy boy. Later he served as a foreign correspondent, Washington correspondent, foreign editor, and lastly did time as Max Frankel's managing editor. As a politician, Lelyveld is a benevolent ward heeler. Raines got to the Times relatively late--1978--and never worked inside the 43rd Street newsroom proper until he became executive editor in 2001. Wherever Raines actually ran the show‚the editorial page or the Washington bureau‚his managerial scale was small. Either by design or accident, he never established much in the way of political capital or a Times constituency--outside of Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.--before becoming editor.

As a politician‚and temperamentally‚Raines is a dictator. Dictators can be good editors. But when he took over from Lelyveld in 2001, he earned the staff's immediate enmity by centralizing the operation that Lelyveld had so carefully decentralized, consolidating power in his "troika" with Managing Editor Gerald Boyd and Assistant Managing Editor Andrew Rosenthal. The remaining assistant managing editors and section editors lost their autonomy, becoming short-order cooks who prepared whatever the troika requested. Raines stupidly undercut the "Business" and "Sports" sections by telling them how weak he thought they were.

Raines went on to eviscerate the paper's investigative unit, ditching stories that take time and patience to mature in favor of "flooding the zone" with coverage every time a 9/11 or Enron or shuttle or war story appeared. Flooding the zone, of course, leaves the paper drained during non-crisis periods.

In remaking the Times, Raines erected a divide in which he pampered his favorites, including Bragg, Patrick E. Tyler, R.W. Apple Jr., Steven Weisman, Elisabeth Bumiller, Alex Kuczynski, Alessandra Stanley, Douglas Jehl, Felicity Barringer, and David Barstow. Of course, every newspaper has a star system, but Times staffers began to complain not everybody on Raines' list had gotten there by merit. The same management style drove away at least a dozen (and rising) talented people who preferred hitting the highway to doing it Howell's way: Stephen Engelberg, Melinda Henneberger, Sam Howe Verhovek, Kevin Sack, Michalene Busico, Dean Baquet, Ilene Rosenzweig, Doug Frantz, Buster Olney, Rick Flaste, Tim Golden, and Rick Marin.

By the time the twin plagues of Blair and Bragg arrived, Raines was so isolated from his own people that the anger heaved on him at the Times employee "town hall" discussion convened for staffers after the Jayson Blair expose stunned him. Joe Sexton spoke for the paper when he told Raines and Sulzberger, "You guys have lost the confidence of much of the newsroom."

The accusation that Raines ruled his newspaper by fear and favor gained legs after the paper revealed Bragg's byline/dateline shenanigans. Times reporters traditionally keep their heads down, do their work, and don't complain to the press. But suddenly Times staffers started discussing the paper's woes in Romenesko's letters page as if they were members of a debate team, and every staff memo penned by Raines found its way to Romenesko within minutes. Press reporters, accustomed to the cold shoulder when phoning Times staffers for inside info, found themselves on a first-name basis with dozens of top writers. Somebody even leaked to the Washington Post's media reporter, Howard Kurtz, a sensitive internal e-mail between Judith Miller and John Burns that cast aspersions on her reporting. By Times standards, the joint was in complete riot.

Raines introduced a number of palliatives after the town hall meeting.

The Siegal Committee, chaired by institutional memory/internal watchdog Allan M. Siegal, will organize itself into subcommittees and study the doling out of assignments, performance evaluations, apprenticeships, career tracking, the business of accuracy and errors, and ethical issues. In other words, the committee's job is to shut the barn door after Blair flew out of it. The Siegalians are also likely to recommend the appointment of a Times ombudsman.

Another Raines committee has been commissioned to apportion 20 new slots approved to relieve the allegedly overworked newsroom. And a third, the Communications Working Group, chaired by Assistant Managing Editors Craig Whitney and Andrew Rosenthal, is looking to restore some of the give-and-take communications of Lelyveld era.

In a substantive memo, Raines and Boyd promise to return editorial authority to underlings. Effective immediately, the memo read, they were pushing "authority on news coverage and staff assignments down to the department heads and to work with them in a consultative way on matters of news judgment and deployment of resources." Raines also began politicking his staff, taking them to dinner, picking their brains, and mending their wounds to mixed results. With his too little, too late strategy, he's started appearing in some newsroom departments like a kind of squat King Hamlet's ghost; some staffers awkwardly back away or freeze at his presence. It's not that the staff is so much hostile as it is befuddled: Who, exactly, is this guy, and what does he want from us?

No dictator or great leader ever creates fact-finding missions, new rules, or ombudsmen unless he's confident he can control their output. In his haste to right the perceived wrongs at the paper with such novel remedies, Raines may end up diminishing his options and control, ultimately finding himself bound to the deck like Gulliver by procedure and process. Imagining Raines--or any editor of a great newspaper--in bondage is a terrifying thought.

At some point--tomorrow, the next day, or next month--another crisis will visit the Times. If the past month is any guide, the next crisis will surely tar-baby itself to Raines. With no political base from which to operate and no real allies besides those of his inner circle and the publisher, all the new study committees in the world won't protect the paper's reputation. Raines will stagger from disaster to emergency, like a political candidate who doesn't know the campaign is over.

Raines--and Sulzberger--will, sooner or later, realize that it's not the newspaper that's wounded. It's Howell Raines who is wounded, pricked by a thousand lances--from the right wing, which lusts to destroy the paper's authority; from his staff, which owes him no favors; from the competition, for the obvious reasons . . .

[Howlin]

Thanks for posting this.

Tick tock, Howell.

[Cathryn Crawford]

"You guys have lost the confidence of much of the newsroom."


-You guys have lost the confidence of much of the world.

[DPB101]

the right wing, which lusts to destroy the paper's authority

Understatement of the year. "Lust" doesn't nearly describe it. Psychopathic stalking comes closer. I can't sign on without immediately doing a google news search on "Howell Raines" or "Duranty".

[Congressman Billybob]

Both of your statements are correct. The sea change here, however, is that the rank and file folks in the Times newsroom have developed the same sort of distrust for Raines that the outside world has long held. In wisdom like that are the seeds of open rebellion.

Make a mental picture of the ego of Howell Raines being pulled off its homemade pedestal and toppling into Times Square. That is the end game. The only question is, how mush self-abuse (deliberate pun) will the staff of the Times engage in, before that watershed moment is reached. Stay tuned.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up on UPI and FR, and due to be in the Asheville Citizen-Times on Sunday, "Surviving in the Smokies."

[Cathryn Crawford]

I always stay tuned. Watching a company or a country topple from the inside is a better lesson in social behaviour than any of my quasi-socialist professors could ever stuff down my throat.

[RobbyS]

Sorry, but the paper itself is wounded.

[risk]

When the Times overplayed the Wen Ho Lee espionage story in 1999...

I'm not convinced that it was overplayed. Is anyone else convinced that he was innocent?

[I_Love_My_Husband]

In truth though it's not Raines but Pinch the Socialist who is actually holed the "raines" of the NYT. Raines will take the fall but Pinch is the one that's the lead commie.

[DPB101]

That is the fun part. Firing Raines won't fix the problem...lol

[leadhead]

All your news fits are belong to us.

[des]

Move along...

[Dane]

In truth though it's not Raines but Pinch the Socialist who is actually holed the "raines" of the NYT. Raines will take the fall but Pinch is the one that's the lead commie

Isn't Pinch the guy who brought out a puppet of a moose at the NYT organizational meeting over the Blair fiasco.

JMO, but it seems that Pinch and Raines are missing quite a few marbles inside their heads.

[backhoe]

WEB RESULTS by    (Showing Results 1 - 10 of 981)

1. Wen Ho Lee To Stay In Jail [Free Republic]
... of breaching security at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Wen Ho Lee will remain in jail awaiting trial on charges he ...
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38bc601c1cf5.htm - June 22, 2002 - 10 KB

2. FEDERAL COURT ORDERS TRULOCK CASE AGAINST WEN HO LEE TO PROCEED [Free...
... victory by turning back an attempt by suspected spy Wen Ho Lee to have a lawsuit dismissed, which alleges that Lees ...
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a8d70b40973.htm - December 21, 2002 - 38 KB

3. WEN HO LEE: VICTIM OR SPY?
... The Wen Ho Lee case stands out as a signal failure, one that has its roots in the complicated relationship between China ...
www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/661095/posts - April 16, 2003 - 40 KB

4. Wen Ho Lee Wiretap Request Rejected by J.D.
Topic: White Water Wen Ho Lee Wiretap Request Rejected by J.D. An editorial in the March 30 Investor's Business Daily disclosed this fascinating tidbit of information: "From 1993 to 1997, federal officials requested 2 686 wiretaps.
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3702718c5152.htm - September 26, 2002 - 10 KB

5. U.S. Says Suspect Put Data on Bombs in Unsecure Files -- China Spy...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management.
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3726c1952c14.htm - June 19, 2002 - 35 KB

6. Wen Ho Lee Can Be Released $1mil-Hearing Tues. 4 Conditions-Judge...
... Mexico, Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee can be released on $1 million bail while awaiting ...
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39a657e85b76.htm - August 25, 2002 - 64 KB

7. Not so fast, Wen Ho Lee /Trulock: He deserved to be on suspect list ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management.
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39c0849f7f62.htm - June 25, 2002 - 30 KB

8. Wen Ho Lee: Another Rosenberg? [Free Republic]
... paints a bleaker future for our nation. Dr. Wen Ho Lee is the 60-year old Los Alamos nuclear scientist suspected ...
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39a5466e5265.htm - February 13, 2003 - 29 KB

9. Wen Ho Lee's little lie
... Phillip Gold's otherwise useful review of Wen Ho Lee's memoir, "My Country vs. Me " perpetuates one of the ugliest myths ...
www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675104/posts - March 31, 2003 - 16 KB

10. USE OF RACE CARD RESULTS IN THE RELEASE OF WEN HO LEE [Free Republic]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management.
www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39bfe1e11625.htm - January 21, 2003 - 20 KB

[McGavin999]

So they'll fire Raines and Pinch will continue to destroy a grand old newspaper. If I were a stockholder, I'd do something about Pinch.

[risk]

Thanks for those FR Inktomi results on Wen Ho Lee. How did you acquire them and put them? I went to www.inktomi.com and tried site:freerepublic.com but only got inktomi.com results.

In any case, it does look like Wen Ho Lee is as guilty as sin. Like the Rosenbergs, he probably figures that he was doing his duty to humanity. This multipolarity concept is a nightmare, however.

[Liz]

.....every newspaper has a star system, but Times staffers began to complain not everybody on Raines' list had gotten there by merit. .....

Not everybody got there on merit?

Well, I'm shocked, Shocked, to hear that (/end of Claude Rains impersonation.)

Knee-jerk liberals took the world's best meritocracy system and cannibalized it, putting it through the political correctness meatgrinder. The lib cannibals effectively silenced free speech and all reasonable arguments against their PC atrocities by employing the club of hate crime laws (which penalize only conservatives).

PC and hate crimes laws have outlived their usefulness. They are the Prohibition of the era. Prohibtion was necessarily repealed b/c it caused social chaos and a crime wave. We have yet to tally the crimes caused by PC atrocities and hate crimes laws, but it is huge.

The Times debacle epitomizes the devastation wrought upon America due to hate crimes laws and PC.

The fact is astute conservatives have always seen right through these self-serving liberal phonies and their arrogant use of PC and hate crimes laws to stifle criticism.

[GOPJ]

Hmmmm...

Wherever Raines actually ran the show‚the editorial page or the Washington bureau‚his managerial scale was small. Either by design or accident, he never established much in the way of political capital or a Times constituency--outside of Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.--before becoming editor.

[GOPJ]

Hmmmm...

Wherever Raines actually ran the show‚the editorial page or the Washington bureau‚his managerial scale was small. Either by design or accident, he never established much in the way of political capital or a Times constituency--outside of Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.--before becoming editor.

[GOPJ]

We don't "lust to destroy" their paper. We lust to have an honest paper. We lust to be included. We lust for a paper that goes-beyond pushing elitist dogma at the expense of truth.

How painful would it be to have diversity of ideas rather than just diversity of bedroom sex acts and diversity of skin pigmentation? Is it really too much to put diversity of ideas in the mix?

Self serving tripe:

pricked by a thousand lances--from the right wing, which lusts to destroy the paper's authority; from his staff, which owes him no favors; from the competition, for the obvious reasons . . .