New York Times Names Two Managing Editors

The appointments come one day after The Times created a new “public editor” position to address readers’ complaints and scrutinize news coverage.

The newspaper appointed Jill Abramson and John M. Geddes as the new managing editors, effective September 2, Bill Keller, the paper’s new executive editor, announced Thursday.

“In Jill and John, I will have two sidekicks who are superb journalists, genuine leaders, straight shooters, deeply committed to this paper and all it stands for,” Keller said.

Abramson, 49, has been The Times’s Washington bureau chief since 2000 and Geddes, 51, has served as the newspaper’s deputy managing editor since 1997. The Times has not yet named Abramson’s successor, and Geddes, who currently serves as deputy managing editor, will not be replaced since his promotion is an expansion of his current responsibilities, The Times said in a press release.

Abramson’s duties will focus on newsgathering and Geddes will oversee news operations.

The new positions mark the first time in the newspaper’s history to have two managing editors, reflecting The Times’s latest effort to reform its newsroom culture and management policies.

Thursday’s announcement comes one day after The Times said it would create a “public editor” position, similar to an ombudsman, to address readers’ complaints and scrutinize news coverage, in the paper’s latest effort to restore its credibility and staff morale.

“What we are out to do is raise our accountability for the management of our people, and acknowledge that it is inseparable from the making of our journalism,” Keller said in a staff memo.

Keller said the public editor would “have license to write about issues of our coverage, and to have those independent, uncensored commentaries published in our pages.”

The public editor will review reader complaints and ensure that editors address reader concerns. The public editor will recommend corrections, editors’ notes and other measures, Keller said.

In addition to the new ombudsman position, The Times will also create two masthead-level positions: a standards editor toreview compliance with the paper’s rules; and an editor to examine newsroom hiring and promotion practices.

All three jobs will be “refined and filled within the coming weeks,” Keller said in his five-page memo.

Creation of the new positions came as a result of an internal review conducted by a 28-member committee, led by Assistant Managing Editor Allan Siegal. The committee issued its recommendations in a 57-page report, known as the Siegal Report, which is available on The New York Times’s Web site.

The Times formed the committee in the wake of a scandal involving the extensive journalistic fraud and plagiarism committed by former reporter Jayson Blair. Following Blair’s resignation May 1, The Times disclosed that the 27-year-old reporter filed at least three dozen plagiarized or fabricated stories between October 2002 and April 2003.

The Times’s publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. called the Blair scandal, which led to the resignations of executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd, “a low point” in the paper’s 152-year history. Raines and Boyd received strong criticism for not catching Blair’s chronic errors, plagiarism and fabrications. Newroom staffers also complained that the two top editors promoted Blair, despite his questionable work record.

As the newspaper struggled to restore reader trust and staff morale, The Times authorized the Siegal committee to “conduct a comprehensive review” of newsroom policies.

“Behind the Blair story… lay a misguided pattern of tough supervision and lenient forgiveness that led to retaining him, and in fact promoting him, when at several points he was demonstrating that he was not yet ready to join the staff of The New York Times,” wrote three outside journalists who sat on the committee.

The three journalists concluded “a series of management and operational breakdowns made it possible for a junior reporter in his mid-20’s to get past one of the most able and sophisticated newspaper editing networks in the world.”

Accordingly, the Siegal committee recognized problems in the newsroom management, urging for “a permanent climate of discussion and collaboration” and the need “to make us conspicuously accountable to readers and the public.”

The committee acknowledged that The Times has “traditionally resisted” suggestions to follow other newspapers in appointing an ombudsman.

“We worried that it would foster nit-picking and navel-gazing, that it might undermine staff morale, and worst of all, that it would absolve other editors of their responsibility to represent the interests of readers. Indeed, some papers have found their experience with ombudsmen disappointing, and have dropped the system,” Keller wrote in his memo introducing the report.

But, Keller concluded, The Times would “profit from the scrutiny of an independent reader representative… A pair of professional eyes… can make us more sensitive on matters of fairness and accuracy, and enhance our credibility.”

The public editor position will have a one-year term, as recommended by the Siegal committee.

At the end of the term, the newspaper will evaluate the position and decide whether it should continue or be adapted, Keller said.

Thursday’s announcement to name two managing editors also represents a shift in the newspaper’s management structure.

The Times on Thursday said in a press statement that the decision to appoint two managing editors “honors the work of the Siegal Committee, which proposed greater attention to the management of the newsroom, including training and career development.”