Joseph Lelyveld, former top editor of The New York Times, dies at the age of 86
Mr. Lelyveld retired a week before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and reporting on the biggest story of the new century fell to his successor, Howell Raines, a passionate former political reporter and editorial page editor. Mr. Raines’ staff won a record seven Pulitzers in 2002, six for their work on September 11. But a year later, The Times was hit by a scandal that led to an interim encore from Mr. Lelyveld.
In June 2003, after weeks of anxiety over the revelations of journalistic fraud and plagiarism by a reporter, Jayson Blair, and the resignation of Mr. Raines as editor-in-chief and Gerald M. Boyd as editor-in-chief, Mr. Lelyveld, at the publisher’s insistence, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., returned to work to restore calm and credibility to the newspaper’s damaged reputation until a new leader could be appointed.
Traumatized by the scandal and exhausted by Mr. Raines’ demands for greater production, the staff largely welcomed the return of Mr. Lelyveld, who showed some reluctance, after embarking on a new career writing books and freelance articles. Six weeks later, Bill Keller, a columnist and former Times correspondent who had been Mr. Lelyveld’s editor-in-chief and his choice as successor, was named editor-in-chief.
“Joe led an excellent newsroom and under him we produced an excellent newspaper,” Mr. Sulzberger told Stephen J. Dubner for a 2005 profile by Mr Lelyveld in New York magazine. “Under him, we entered the digital age, broke circulation barriers and advertising barriers and won a plethora of awards. It was Joe who assembled the talent that now drives the paper forward. He was a damn good editor.”
Foreign messages
Mr. Lelyveld’s reputation as a journalist was assured long before he wrote “Move Your Shadow” (1985). The book explores the trials and absurdities under South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation and is based on his two reporting trips to Johannesburg, the first in 1965-66, when he was deported after eleven months by a government dissatisfied with his work, and a second. from 1980 to 1983.