US: The beleaguered New York Times yesterday named op-ed columnist Bill Keller as executive editor to succeed Howell Raines, who was forced to resign last month after a scandal over invented stories by a favoured reporter, writes Conor O'Clery New York
The announcement came on a day of yet another embarrassment for the world's most prestigious newspaper in the form of a half-page correction of a business story published last week.
Keller's main challenge will be to restore credibility to the 152-year-old newspaper and shake up a newsroom structure that allowed the scandal to happen.
The 54-year-old former foreign correspondent had been a candidate for the top job in 2001 but lost out to Howell Raines.
He joined the New York Times in 1984 and served in Johannesburg and Moscow, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the decline of the Soviet Union in 1989.
"I'm honoured and exhilarated by the opportunity to lead the finest assembly of journalists in the world," said Keller, who is regarded as a right-of-centre liberal, and who reluctantly supported the war in Iraq.
"This news organisation is a national treasure. I will do everything in my power to uphold its high standards, preserve its integrity and build on its achievements," he said.
Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd resigned on June 5th over the scandal which erupted on May 11th when the paper published a 7,500-word story disclosing that reporter Jayson Blair had plagiarised material, invented information and wrote from places he had not visited, in more than 30 stories.
In a television interview on Friday, Raines, widely criticised internally for his autocratic style, disclosed that he had been asked to resign by publisher Arthur Sulzberger jnr as he no longer had the trust and support of the newsroom. "I moved the newsroom too far and too fast and that was a mistake on my part," Raines told presenter Charlie Rose. Then "I stepped on a land mine named Jayson Blair" and became a "political liability".
Asked by Rose if he left voluntarily, Raines replied: "No. Arthur said, 'I don't think we can calm this place down. I'd like - I'm having to ask you to step aside'." Mr Sulzberger earlier said he had not asked for Raines's resignation.
Keller, regarded as one of the best Moscow correspondents of his generation, spent some time in Ireland after his posting there to write a book on the fall of the Soviet Union, but abandoned his effort as events in Moscow moved ahead with lightning speed.
The correction yesterday concerned a week-old article on Mr Steven Gottlieb, president of TVT Records, one of the largest independent US record labels.
The Times said that its conclusions that Mr Gottlieb had lost control of his company and had a reputation for being litigious were based on "fundamental misunderstandings" of the subject, scope and status of the legal proceedings discussed.