NEW YORK TIMES NAMES NEW EXECUTIVE EDITOR

By: Staff Reports Editorial Page Editor Raines To Take Top Post


New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. announced
Monday afternoon that Howell Raines, 58, will become executive
editor in September. Raines, currently editorial page editor,
will replace Joseph Lelyveld, 64, who has served as executive
editor since July 1994.

Lelyveld, who has steered the Gray Lady through a time of great
change, including the addition of color to her pages, is months
away from the newspaper's mandatory retirement age for top
executives.

A successor to run the influential Times editorial page
will be named in the coming months, Sulzberger said.

Managing Editor Bill Keller, who was a leading candidate for the
position, will remain in that capacity through September,
according to Sulzberger. The publisher praised Keller, calling
him a "state of the art journalist," in a report in Tuesday's
Times. Sulzberger said Keller would continue to serve as
managing editor under Lelyveld. "What happens then is still
undecided, except that he and I have agreed that he will continue
to make his career at the Times, for which I am grateful,"
Sulzberger said.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, Raines become editorial page editor of
the Times in January 1993. Previously, he served as bureau
chief for the newspaper in Washington and London. Raines joined
the Times in 1978 as a national correspondent based in
Atlanta.

He began his journalism career at The Birmingham (Ala.)
Post-Herald.

Raines won the Pulitzer for feature writing in 1992 for "Grady's
Gift," a personal reflection piece about his childhood in
Birmingham that appeared in The New York Times Magazine,
according to Raines' bio on The New York Times Co. corporate Web
site.

During Lelyveld's seven years as executive editor, the
Times won 12 Pulitzers, added new sections, and expanded
its national circulation. A New York City native, Lelyveld joined
the Times in 1962, serving as a metropolitan reporter,
foreign correspondent, Washington correspondent, deputy foreign
news editor, foreign news editor, and managing editor before his
appointment as executive editor in 1994. He also worked as a
staff writer and columnist for The New York Times
Magazine.

Lelyveld said he would continue to "lead the writing life" after
retirement, according to Tuesday's Times.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.