HOWELL RAINES: 'AGGRESSIVE,' 'GIFTED,' 'THOUGHTFUL'

By: Wayne Robins E&P Profiles Incoming New York Times Editor


At 3:55 p.m. Monday, May 21, Howell Raines was in the 10th-floor
office suite at 229 W. 43rd St. in Manhattan where for the last 8
1/2 years he has been editor of the editorial and opinion pages
of The New York Times. He was waiting for his boss,
Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., to escort him
downstairs to the newsroom, where, five minutes later, Raines
would be announced to the staff as the newly named executive
editor of the Times, come September.

Raines, 58, picked up the phone. "I called my first city editor,
Clark Stallworth, from the Birmingham [Ala.] Post-
Herald," Raines says in an interview on the second morning
after his anointment. Stallworth is now retired. "I told him, 'I
only have a minute, but I'm about to go downstairs and accept the
executive editorship of The New York Times.' He was so
thrilled. It meant a lot to me to call Clark, because I've had
the benefit of great mentors and role models through my career.
When I walked into his newsroom, I didn't know how to type. And
when I left nine months later, I had the basic tools of reporting
from a really great editor and teacher."

The Times, of course, has had other distinguished
Southerners as leaders, dating back to the 19th century when
Adolph S. Ochs, patriarch of the family that still owns the
paper, became publisher of the Chattanooga Times at age
20. Two other Southerners, Clifton Daniel (North Carolina) and
Turner Catledge (Mississippi), were synonymous with the
Times in the mid-20th century.

Does it make any difference where Raines is from? Maybe not. But
when he takes over from Joseph Lelyveld in September, he will be
the first executive editor of the Times in more than a
generation who has not attended a New York high school.

More than ever, the Times is less a New York broadsheet
than America's most influential general-interest daily newspaper.
"To have Howell Raines is very healthy," says Gay Talese, a
Times reporter from 1955 to 1965 and the author of the
definitive history of the paper, "The Kingdom and the Power,"
published in 1969. "He brings another regional sensibility to his
national and international sense. It gives to the understanding
of news something more than a New York twist."

Raines takes over the top editorial spot at a precarious moment
in the newspaper business, with stagnant circulation, falling
advertising sales, and rising costs. Though gracious in his more
general ideas, the impeccably groomed and intensely focused
Raines said in his interview with E&P that he would
discuss neither specific plans he might have for the paper nor
who his successor might be as editorial page editor.

He also would not talk about what was perceived as a contest for
the executive editorship between Managing Editor Bill Keller,
whom Lelyveld is said to have strongly preferred, and Raines, who
developed a close working and personal relationship with the only
man whose vote really counts, Publisher Sulzberger.

"He has had to be the voice of both the newspaper and
Sulzberger," says Talese. "As editor of editorial and the Op-Ed
page, he has shown that he has tremendous judgment on how to
express the voice of The New York Times every day."

Alex S. Jones, a former Timesman now director of the
Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and, with Susan E.
Tifft, co-author of "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family
Behind The New York Times," suggests that Sulzberger and
Raines have become kindred spirits. "Remember that Sulzberger
picked him out years ago to be editorial page editor and didn't
know him well then," Jones tells E&P. "What he knew about
him was that he was aggressive and opinionated -- just like
Arthur. Now both have mellowed and grown into their jobs
together.

"This moment is what Howell has lived his life for," says Jones,
who considers Raines a friend and interviewed him for his history
of the Times. "He wasn't going to slit his wrists if he
didn't get this job -- but it would have been close.

"I know he has had a vision of what he wants to do with the
Times for many years. He will want to have absolute
ownership of coverage of domestic politics and the White House,
for example. Now his moment has arrived and -- stand back!"

Not a knee-jerk liberal

During Raines' reign as editorial page editor, the Times'
pages have become more opinionated. But even those who may be to
the right of Raines (who indeed expresses some forceful liberal
thoughts in his 1993 book, "Fly Fishing Through the Midlife
Crisis") respect his writing and his intellect.

"He is an immensely gifted writer, and that is not altogether
common in editorial writing," says Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member
of The Wall Street Journal's notably conservative-leaning
editorial board and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for
commentary. "His editorial writing punch will probably be missed
there."

Jude Wanniski, a former assistant editorial page editor at the
Journal and coiner of the phrase "supply-side economics"
has been both critic and admirer of Raines. "One of the
disappointments I've had with Howell," he says, "is that he never
made an effort to understand what the supply model is all about.
They're happy with the demand model. ... And if [the
Times' editorial page] doesn't take it up, the Democratic
Party won't take it up, and the party suffers by not having those
insights."

Despite Wanniski's implication that the Times' editorial
page is a ghost limb of the Democratic Party, he respects Raines'
thoroughness and thoughtfulness. "Raines did preside over a
change in the old knee-jerk liberalism that existed," says
Wanniski, now president of Polyconomics Inc., a Morristown,
N.J., company that advises asset managers on the financial impact
of political events. "Editorials became reported editorials. Max
Frankel had begun the process, but Raines brought it to a higher
level. Instead of getting mad, or happy, about something, and
writing about that mood, you made some phone calls and got
information, so what you get is not just opinion but information
you don't get elsewhere."

But it's superficial to present Raines as merely a wily liberal.
The Times' editorial board took some of its heaviest hits
from liberals who thought it too harsh on the moral dilemma
presented by former President Clinton's ethical lapses.

"Some people I know thought the pages had become too strident,
too anti-Clinton," says Tom Wicker, former Times managing
editor and columnist, now retired and living in Vermont. "The
late [Times executive] Sydney Gruson once told me about
spending an entire evening with people cussing The New York
Times editorial page because it was seen as anti-Clinton.
Sydney said, 'I can't remember another time when everybody spent
the entire evening talking about The New York Times'
editorial page.' Howell made that editorial page interesting, and
provocative."

In his interview with E&P, Raines said he had recently
heard what he called an "amusing story." It seems that a
Times editorial had lauded U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell for
cooperating on a bill the newspaper liked. A Times
correspondent pointed out to the Kentucky Republican the
unexpected praise from the paper, and McConnell, according to
Raines, said, "Yes, I know, my wife had to give me the Heimlich
maneuver!"

Nevertheless, there are those who believe the scenario that
Raines' ascension implies a move on the part of the Times
toward a more outspoken liberal advocacy, with Sulzberger's
blessing. Others think that's nonsense. "Sulzberger gave him the
job not to make the Times more 'liberal' but because he
knows him well and trusted him with the business," Alex Jones
says.

In any case, Raines is a strict constructionist when it comes to
journalistic principles and would be loathe to let the opinions
expressed so forcefully in the editorial pages leak into the news
sections over which he will now preside. "He has an
uncompromising view of journalism, and very high standards,''
says Tom Goldstein, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at
Columbia University.

Because of the Times' mandatory retirement rule (at age
65), Raines, like Lelyveld, will serve no more than seven years
in his position. Sulzberger seems to believe in term limits for
his top editor. His vision, according to Jones, is to give
editors "enough time to have an impact, but not grow stale."

What one can look for at the Times under Raines is a
continued emphasis on clear, lively writing in every section of
the paper.

"One of the great joys of doing journalism during this period of
my career has been the infusion of literary narrative quality
into reportage," Raines says. "I don't want to get too
theoretical, but The New York Times is famous for great
fact-based reporting, and that will remain the core of what we
do. Starting 20 years ago or more, under Abe [A.M. Rosenthal],
Max [Frankel] and Joe [Lelyveld], there has been an emphasis on
fine writing and readability, achieved without any dimunition of
the accuracy of the reporting. And that's where we'll be."

Raines is the author of "Whiskey Man," a novel, and "My Soul is
Rested," an oral history of the civil-rights movement, both
published in 1977, as well as "Fly Fishing Through the Midlife
Crisis," which was published in 1993. Divorced, he has two sons:
Jeffrey is a guitarist with the New Orleans funk band Galactica,
while Ben is an environmental reporter for the Mobile
(Ala.) Register.

Alabama getaway

Alabama runs deep through Raines.

His 1992 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing was for an article in
The New York Times Magazine called "Grady's Gift," a
memoir of his Birmingham youth in the formative years of the
civil-rights movement.

From his newspaper beginnings in Alabama, Raines became political
editor of the Atlanta Constitution, and then, from 1976 to
1978, political editor of the St. Petersburg (Fla.)
Times, before joining The New York Times. The St.
Petersburg paper in those days had a tone and style similar to
The New York Times. And despite Abe Rosenthal's insistence
that he would keep Raines so busy doing journalism that he
wouldn't have time to write books, he says that it is the
Times literary style that he finds so fulfilling.

"I never felt constrained by our insistence on elegant language,"
he says. "It was a kind of challenge to express myself in the
formal structure of The New York Times. I love the look
and feel and language of the Times."

One wonders, of course, whether that elegant formalism applies to
the Times' recent tic of referring to knighted pop star
Elton John as "Sir Elton." Raines laughs. "I'm not goin' down
that road, boy! I am not goin' down that road," he says.
September will be soon enough for Raines to go down that road --
and myriad others he has yet to walk at The New York
Times.



Wayne Robins (wrobins@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor covering new media for E&P.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.