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.

NYT's Andrews: foreclosure didn't force buyout

Edmund Andrews revealed an embarrassing truth earlier this year: The New York Times reporter who covered the mortgage meltdown was a victim of the crisis himself. His Busted: Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown "explained how he became entangled in the mortgage crisis that has swept the country, purchasing a house he couldn't really afford and piling up debt," The New York Observer says today.

Andrews is among 74 NYT staffers getting a buyout this week, as the paper jettisons 100 newsroom jobs.

"The only value for the buyout was that it essentially provides me with enough money to do a thoughtful exploration of new possibilities,'' he told the Observer. "My economic problems-which are not over-are not really changed by buyout."

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 green rail, upper right.