NEW YORK -- Had Howell Raines built up a reservoir of goodwill among The New York Times staffers, odds are that many of them would have gone to bat for him after the Jayson Blair scandal. But Thursday, Raines' autocratic management style, coupled with the scandal that wouldn't die, led to his undoing. Raines, 60, resigned as executive editor of The Times, along with managing editor Gerald Boyd, 52, nearly a month after the newspaper widely considered the nation's ''newspaper of record'' acknowledged that reporter Blair, 27, plagiarized and fabricated dozens of interviews and stories.
''This is a day that breaks my heart,'' publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told staffers Thursday after accepting the resignations of the two, who were considered a team.
Blair, who is negotiating a book deal, told CNN that he was sorry and that he wished ''the rolling of heads had stopped with mine.''
Joseph Lelyveld, 66, Raines' predecessor who retired in 2001, has been named interim executive editor. No one will be named interim managing editor.
The shock waves from the scandal have rippled through the media world. Reporting and editing procedures are being examined and tightened at other outlets. Arguments continue in the industry over whether affirmative action played a part in keeping Blair, who is black, on an upward track despite a trail of errors.
The scandal threatened to cast a shadow on all news media, says Arlene Morgan, assistant dean at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
''The Times is considered the most credible source of news in the world. When something like this happens there, it really confirms to people who do not trust the press that we're only in this business to sell papers and to sensationalize stories,'' says Morgan, a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor.
