Howell Raines is the central character in a great Shakespearean story that is being billed as the world’s most famous newspaper coup d’etat

“LIFE is sometimes about loss, it’s not always about struggle and triumph,” muses the man who commanded the New York Times for 21 months, winning an unprecedented 13 Pulitzers for the newspaper universally acknowledged as America’s most influential and the world’s best. But then he hit a landmine and got blown away.

Howell Raines is the central character in a great Shakespearean story, where brilliance, arrogance, hubris, intrigue, competition, jealousy and ambition ganged together to bring his downfall. “I was on a march (to change things in the newsroom) which Arthur and I planned very carefully, but during the course of that march, I stepped on a landmine called Jayson Blair.”

Arthur, as most of us may not know, is the Publisher of the NYT and a “friend” of the former Executive Editor, Howell Raines. He is the aristocratic heir of the House of Ochs-Sulzberger that has owned NYT for over a century. And Jayson Blair, of course, is the maestro of page-one stories in NYT, conning the hard-nosed editors with his phony interviews and high jinks for two years before being discovered.

Impossible? How could the young African American reporter escape the multi-layered editing system impeccably locked in at NYT. Furthermore, how could Raines remain clueless of Blair’s diddle despite dire warning memos to two of his mid-level editors from someone who had found Blair to be a cheat. About the memos, Raines says stoically: “They were filed away and rested there...they never went anywhere...no reporter or editor ever informed me about Jayson (being a habitual liar), otherwise I would have dealt with it.”

Obviously, the information was deliberately kept away from the Executive Editor as a conspiracy by his staffers thirsty for his blood.

Eighty million Americans enjoy an “intellectual appetite” for a paper like the New York Times that sells 1.2 million copies a day. “That told me something — in order to get the remaining 78 million Americans, we had to change the paper’s vitality, graphics and how stories are selected. Also, the future of the Times was in its massive distribution and not just to rely on the dead pine trees (the traditional newspaper), but to extend it to the Internet, cable, television and book platforms.”

So “Arthur brought me in as an agent of change,” says Raines hungry for a bigger market. “There was a kind of lethargy that had settled in the newsroom, a culture of compliance. The NYT just stood around while men like Bradlee and Bob Woodward at the Washington Post were kicking about (the Watergate scandal).”

“Competitive metabolism” is what Raines wanted pumped into the 150 year-old newspaper.

But Raines, 60, — out of which he spent 25 years at NYT — spiralling from the ranks to the highest slot of the most powerful paper in the world, now admits: “I have a passion for the news, but I came across as too aggressive with an adversarial intensity — my wife and sons call it ‘the look’ when I get focused on a news story and look like an angry hawk!”

“I thought I could do it in seven years, but it will take several generations of Executive Editors to make it (change) happen.”

Raines had to quit: “Arthur asked me to step aside...he said ‘we can’t calm this place down’. I am a professional, I understand the risks. I had become a political liability.”

So, here for the first time (in Raines own words) is the intriguing story of the “searing personal tragedy that broke his heart” and is being billed as the world’s most famous newspaper coup d’etat.

Accused of being autocratic, too demanding and imperious to others except the small coterie in the masthead that ran the NYT, Raines introduced the star system: “I wanted to make the Times a truly national paper of record and since in my eyes, performance was the highest value and therefore deserved the highest reward, I sought out talented reporters (with superior genes) to match them with big stories as a reward.

“Humility and modesty are not adjectives that lead the paper — you can’t run the Times with a humble and modest demeanour,” says the once powerhouse in his defence.

Critical of past practices in the Times, where reporters got stories printed on the basis of their connections depending on whom they knew and “how well they were plugged in around the Executive Editor and the old boys network,” Raines tried scrapping the honcho system.

But trying to change NYT’s fustian culture, entrenched with a deep sense of pride segued into a deep sense of satisfaction, Raines “competitive metabolism” invited an uprising.

“I have a certain management style. I moved forward into the news answering the information needs of our readers — the most sophisticated readership in the world — by giving them the best in high culture, business and sports.”

He says, “Arthur and I had decided that the Times’ future lay in our editorial, business news. In the past, NYT’s business section didn’t mind being beaten by the Wall Street Journal.” But under Raines’ stewardship, NYT dominated the Enron story and was in the lead.

Having become Executive Editor only six days prior to the attack on the World Trade Centre, Raines raised the bar of newspaper industry with their coverage in the NYT, “We truly became a national paper of record we really had not been in the past and a global journalistic force, the likes of which the world had not seen before....”

But seizing world notice took its toll on the staff. “I should have been quicker to recognize that I was putting tremendous pressure on them...I worked, I moved the newsroom too far and too fast against the culture of the Times. It was a mistake on my part.”

Knifed by his Washington bureau chief and the Metropolitan editor — the two who spearheaded the revolt against him — the uprising gained momentum since most wanted a status quo and favoured the old system of selecting stories, running the newsroom as it had been doing for a century-and-a-half. They wanted to let NYT remain a parochial newspaper.

No newsroom has ever been friction-free — “most are a hotbed of dissent, misery and complaint” and “Arthur and I knew what was going on and we were planning to aggressively heal the scratches and bruises we had caused.”

But it was too late — the floodgates of emotion and animosity against Howell Raines flew wide open up when Jayson Blair hit the headlines.

Still, many think that giving up the stewardship of the New York Times really didn’t fit the crime.

“I am in the business of living my life...I was disappointed when those who shared my vision didn’t speak up for me, but what disappointed me most was that while NYT puts high expectations on its staff, the staff was not willing to meet that challenge.... When greatness becomes static, it becomes regressive, therefore I wanted (NYT) to broaden its frames to appeal to the 1.2 million 40-plus readership.”

“While I love the NYT and I leave it with some regret, at the end of the day, I am who I am. It’s not my whole life, I have other things....”

After 39 years in journalism, he’s shifting gears and will be now sitting in front of a “typewriter” to tell his side of the story in his book on journalism.

Arthur, meanwhile, has scooted off on a motorcycle tour upstate New York: “I told him to drive carefully as the paper needs him,” says Raines. His tone is elegiac.

The moral of this story...well, you decide.