Tuesday, January 12, 2010

In posthumous memoir, Boyd said settling scores

The late New York Times managing editor, Gerald Boyd, is especially vengeful in his attack on current culture editor Jon Landman, who emerged from the Jayson Blair scandal as a hero.

Boyd (left), whose book -- My Times in Black and White -- is being published posthumously (he died three years ago) has none of that, according to the New York Observer. "In the newsroom,'' Boyd writes, "Landman, as author of the 'stop Jayson from writing' memo, was a hero. He was benefiting from revisionist history that I had seen the note and ignored it. No one disputed the falsehood, especially not Landman."

Boyd accuses Landman of being "a bully-smug, aggressive, a master of office politics-and one of the primary enemies that celebrated his ouster. According to Boyd, Landman was a man of no 'decency and integrity,''' the Observer says.

Hmmmm. Accusing someone of being a master of office politics might be a terrible insult -- or a high compliment, depending on whether you share the popular view that the Times newsroom is full of sharp-elbowed Type-A personalities.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep comments focused squarely on topics related to the New York Times Co. and its affiliates.