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Editorial: CULTURE WATCH: Scoundrel Times.
Scandals continue to rock the New York Times in the wake of the Jayson Blair affair -- some of them Blair aftershocks, some brand new.
The Times's anxious efforts to check other stories produced a correction to an atmospheric account, by Pulitzer-prize winner Rick Bragg, of oystermen in Apalachicola, Fla. Bragg, it turned out, had written the actual story after visiting Apalachicola briefly, but the legwork was done by a stringer, J. Wes Yoder. Since Times policy requires that bylined reporters supply the bulk of the information in their articles, the Times announced that Yoder should have shared the byline. Bragg was suspended briefly, although he insisted that he followed the Times's regular practice, if not its official policy.
Old practices intersect here with modern realities. Newspapers and magazines have traditionally used rewrite men to cobble together stories from reported tidbits. As news stories become more like feature articles, star reporters become more like star book authors, deploying assistants and researchers. The division of labor in book-writing is noticed only when authorial teams stumble into plagiarism; journalism is actually stricter in assigning credit.
Jayson Blair, the 27-year-old con man who gamed his employers, emerged from (brief) seclusion to give an interview to the New York Observer. As might be expected from a bright psychopath, his tale was compounded of pride, amorality, and surprising insights. Blair, an affirmative- action trophy hire, admitted that race "play[ed] a role" in his Times career. "Anyone who tells you" that it didn't "is lying to you." Blair felt both entitled and unmanned by his cosseted position, saying he "began to act out" in a "misguided attempt to punish" his editors. He said, tellingly, that the Times has "tried to put the blame on one man's shoulders without examining how the institution would allow" such a career as his "to happen."
Executive editor Howell Raines admitted that misguided racial attitudes sped Blair's ascent and led to his fall. "You have a right," he told ...
- Editorial: THE MEDIA: No Raines, No Thunder.(resignation of Howell Raines, New...
- Magazine article from: National Review June 30, 2003 700+ words
Five weeks after the Jayson Blair scandal broke, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, executive and managing editors of the New York Times, resigned. In Trollope's novels the voice of authority that lays down the law for Victorian England is called...
- Howell Raines And The New York Times.(Politics&Opinions)(Editorial)
- Newspaper article from: The New York Observer (New York, NY) May 26, 2003 700+ words
...fictions--tells The New York Observer's Sridhar...Him" is Howell Raines, the embattled...executive editor of The New York Times, who gave...greatness of The New York Times may be that...a human heart. Howell Raines made a terrible...
- THE SAVAGING OF THE PRESIDENT.(Howell Raines of the New York Times )
- Magazine article from: The Nation Tomasky, Michael January 4, 1999 700+ words
...Manson. And you're familiar, needless to say, with the New York Times. The Times is a liberal newspaper, enemy of all the...clincher, then; it had to be the Journal. Friends, meet Howell Raines. We can say with confidence that Clinton has more severe...
- Bad news: what the right doesn't understand about Howell Raines....
- Magazine article from: The American Prospect Confessore, Nicholas October 7, 2002 700+ words
...the same way, the Howell Raines routinely criticized...the top slot at The New York Times a year ago...exploded in anger. "The New York Times has decided to...American war as has Howell Raines' New York Times," thundered...
- When it Raines ...(Howell Raines, Gerald Boyd resign from New York Times)
- Magazine article from: The Nation Alterman, Eric June 30, 2003 700+ words
...resignation of the two top editors of the New York Times. It's not as if the departure of Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd from the newspaper of...accepted storyline as follows. (1) Howell Raines was a guilt-ridden Southern liberal...
- The chastening of the times.(Howell Raines, former executive editor at the New...
- Magazine article from: The Nation Sherman, Scott October 11, 2004 700+ words
...executive editor of the New York Times, Howell Raines. Raines, in a white...pages of both the New York Daily News and the...swinging. Who is Howell Raines, and why has he uttered...disagreeable things about the New York Times? Raines was...
- Transitions.(Howell Raines to become executive editor of the New York...
- Magazine article from: U.S. News & World Report June 4, 2001 700+ words
...just paid $2.4 million for the first draft of On the Road--a record for a literary text. Howell Raines, 58, will take the reins of the New York Times in September, when executive editor Joseph Lelyveld, 64, retires. Raines is credited...
- Top Times editors resign in wake of Jayson Blair saga.(Executive editor Howell...
- Magazine article from: PR Week (US) June 9, 2003 700+ words
NEW YORK, NY: In the wake of a major scandal, The New York Times announced the resignation of its top editors last week. Executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd resigned even as internal...
