Posted on 08/03/2003 6:46:40 AM PDT by Davis
Newspaper Daze, Part 5
Bill Keller, who had been passed over for the job two years ago, became Executive Editor of the New York Times on July 30. He was hired to replace Interim Executive Editor Joseph Lelyveld who had succeeded (interimly) Howl Raines who had succeeded Lelyveld who had retired two years ago. The precipitating cause of Keller's accession to what is perhaps the most coveted spot in American journalism was the Jayson Blair fiasco. If you've forgotten that already, shame on you. You can find the details in previous Newspaper Daze.
Keller was managing editor when Blair was hired and for some time thereafter, so he isn't a new broom, and the conditions surrounding his hiring are hardly clean. Raines was forced out by a revolt in the newsroom, not the sins of Jayson Blair. Prince Sulzberger's unctuous declaration that he wouldn't accept Raines's resignation were it offered, turned rancid within a couple of weeks when the uproar didn't die down. Then, simply lying in his teeth that Raines had decided to fall on a grenade to protect the platoon, Prince demanded and got resignation letters from Raines and Gerald Boyd, the managing editor.
Between Raines's fall and Keller's coming, Times investigation committees rendered reports. Among other matters, they recommended a new post of "public editor," usually termed an "ombudsman," that is, a PC inquisitor general. All previous Times managements had rejected it. If the editors charged with the responsibility to publish the paper aren't doing their jobs, having a "public editor" on the payroll isn't going to help.
Consider, in that connection, the way the Times less than one month ago, July 11, reported the discovery of Harry Truman's 1947 handwritten diary. The headline was bland and dealt with an event that was widely known, that Truman had offered support to Dwight Eisenhower as Democratic presidential nominee. The mystery of why the diary had lain undiscovered in the Truman Library for so many years wasn't treated until the last paragraph. And it wasn't until the sixth paragraph that the unnamed reporter noted Truman's scurrilous, venomous denunciation of "the Jews." Mr. Truman was enraged by a phone call from former Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., asking for help for the passengers aboard the Exodus seeking refuge in Palestine rather than imprisonment on Cyprus.
Now, I ask you, if the NYTimes under (Interim) Executor Editor, Rabbi Arthur Lelvelds' son, Joe, got this all wrong, would an ombudsman, a public editor be of any use whatever?
Keller, a smart guy, must know that the job is absurd, meaningless, but has coolly decided that Paris is worth a mass. On his first day at the top of the masthead he let it be known that he would soon select a public editor.
He did select two managing editors, one for news gathering and one for news operations, though I'll be damned if I can understand how these roles differ. Keller has also promised to be more collegial than Raines was, and will practice mixing with the workers from time to time, holding coffee klatches, teas, and just sitting around with the guys, whittlin' and spittin'. Keller attended a management course at the Wharton School a couple of years ago and knows all about keeping up employee morale.
I doubt that collegiality will help. The Times is dead, has been for a year, at least. It has lost circulation and is reducing its price to 50 cents from $1 at a few newsstands late in the day. It has new rivals in print and online. It is out of touch, ponderous, tedious--and in large measure, irrelevant. It has failed to come to grips with its new status as just another suspect source of information. This reduced status is the underlying cause of the newsroom revolt: who wouldn't be restive working for a newspaper that hires by complexion, pridefully publishes the monotonous screeches of dimwitted columnists, colors almost every news account with unstated tendentious assumptions, and has lost the attention of all but the seriously addled?
Read why the Times is dead.
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