Mutiny at The Times

By James Poniewozik

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, had two visions for the most prestigious newspaper in America when he took over in 1992. He wanted it to be bigger as a media outlet, more national and more aggressive, competing with papers across the country on their turf. He wanted it to be happier as a workplace, more humane and more democratic.

Howell Raines, the man he chose to run the paper in 2001, was perhaps the best man to achieve the first half of Sulzberger's mission and possibly the worst choice to achieve the second. Under Raines' hard-driving leadership, the Times dominated coverage of news, including 9/11, and won seven Pulitzer Prizes in 2002. But in the process he infuriated reporters and editors, who complained that he favored a small coterie of star writers, pushed workers beyond reasonable limits and ruled by fear.

Raines and his No. 2, managing editor Gerald Boyd, resigned last week in an unprecedented downfall at a major American newspaper. At first glance, their toppling was the climax--the Times hopes--of a humiliating season of scandal that began with the disclosures that young reporter Jayson Blair had plagiarized or fabricated a string of stories. But at root, it was something more mundane and yet amazing: a workplace's staging a public mutiny to take down an unpopular boss. What fueled its unstoppable drama was that the mutiny took place at the country's most important (and some would add self-important) newspaper, placing an institution that is in the business of covering news suddenly at the center of a perfect news storm. And because the paper is the New York Times and the story evolved into one about the management style of its editor, every move to address the fallout from the Blair scandal only invited more coverage. Raines, famous for flooding the zone on big news stories, ironically ended up drowning in the coverage.

Speaking to TIME last week, Sulzberger said he was saddened by the resignations but not because he was responsible for choosing Raines. "You make choices," said Sulzberger. "Some work. Some don't work. My heart was broken because these men were taking an act for the good of an institution that they and I love." (A Times spokeswoman said Raines and Boyd would not comment for this article.) And indeed, the Blair scandal and its aftermath followed a decade in which Sulzberger had modernized and in many ways improved the staid Gray Lady. The son of the previous publisher and scion of a family that has owned the Times since 1896, Sulzberger beefed up the paper's features and cultural coverage, raised its profile nationally and internationally and pushed it to diversify into TV and the Web. Still, says Susan Tifft, a former TIME writer and co-author of The Trust, a history of the Sulzberger family, "Howell was really Arthur's 100% pick... So this would have to be seen at one level as a failure of Arthur's management."

At first, Raines seemed like the right man for the right time. The 9/11 attacks--which occurred six days after he took the job--required firm, aggressive leadership, and Raines mobilized the staff for all-out coverage. But the heads of the Times's bureaus traditionally had leeway in deciding what stories to cover, and as the crisis ebbed and Raines' top-down crisis structure became business as usual, it began to rankle. He shook up the staff, giving choice assignments to cronies. He was brusque and domineering. He launched a crusade against the Augusta National golf club's exclusion of women and then was at least partly responsible for spiking two sports columns that didn't square with the paper's position.

Of course, many successful leaders are not nice guys--your boss, perhaps. But Jayson Blair turned Raines' leadership into a national issue. That Blair, a smooth talker who ingratiated himself with Raines and Boyd, went so long uncaught despite warnings about his sloppy work was blamed on Raines' playing favorites and his unwillingness to listen to others. "This was very quickly not about Jayson Blair," says a Times staff member, "but about Howell and the star system he created. The level of anger was just out of control."

Sulzberger, who often tells interviewers about the importance of making mistakes in life, stood by his editor when the crisis broke, saying he would not accept Raines' resignation. But Sulzberger also took an aggressive role in trying to gauge newsroom discontent, including holding a meeting of hundreds of employees in a Times Square movie theater--which made it clear that Raines and Boyd needed to act very fast to fix morale. Among other things, the paper appointed a committee to make management suggestions--and began looking for other Blairs. Then came a second scandal: Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer prizewinning feature writer, was suspended after he filed a story about oystermen in Florida that had been largely reported by an uncredited intern. Bragg further enraged the newsroom when he claimed that Times national reporters did things like that all the time. When Raines issued a mild and tardy response, many of his people felt he had sold them out.

The Bragg case caused a minor public flap compared with Blair's, but it was ultimately more damaging to Raines. Journalists started giving anti-Raines quotes to competitors; they ranted against Bragg and Times management on a popular website for journalists. It didn't help that when Sulzberger went to the Times Washington bureau for a brown-bag lunch, an employee said, "he got a harsher message than he expected."

Some have speculated that his family, particularly his father, pressured him to act, but Sulzberger says that although he talked with family members, he made the decision to accept Raines' resignation himself. He also insists that he did not order the editors to quit. "There was no single 'aha' moment. There was a sense from the two of them that the hill that they had to climb was becoming too steep. And that the cost of that to the institution was becoming too great," says Sulzberger. "And, sadly, I had to agree."

Sulzberger named Joseph Lelyveld, Raines' predecessor--a measured manager, liked in the newsroom--to be the interim executive editor while a replacement search is under way. Sulzberger tells TIME he's looking for a "great journalist" who is "an effective leader and a manager"--which, in the wake of the Raines war, may be more than mere corporate-speak. "If employees are happy and fulfilled," he says, "generally what they produce is good." Times employees say they are relieved to have a respite from the turmoil with Lelyveld, who addressed the newsroom Friday, ending with four simple words: "Let's go to work." --Reported by Amanda Bower, Jodie Morse and Andrea Sachs/New York and Viveca Novak/Washington

With reporting by Amanda Bower, Jodie Morse and Andrea Sachs/New York and Viveca Novak/Washington