The Vindication of Joseph Lelyveld

Son of Duanesburg, NY, Stephen Dubner (of Freakonomics fame) writes a long article in New York magazine about Joseph Lelyveld (who visits today) and his long career at the New York Times. Lelyveld met with a variety of criticisms from both within and outside the newspaper organization for his long term of leadership of the Times after his retirement as executive editor in 2001.

"Long before he became executive editor of the New York Times, Joe Lelyveld was a writer, a very fine writer, who as a scrawny, overeducated 23-year-old traveled through Southeast Asia on a Fulbright and, along with his young bride, became enamored of the writer’s expat life, concluding that he would like to become the Times’ man in New Delhi. It wasn’t long before he did exactly that. Starting out as a copy boy, he rose and rose and rose at the Times, a quite unlikely ascension given Lelyveld’s reluctance to do what was expected of him and a writerly arrogance that could be extreme. He also had a manner so awkward that it bordered on antisocial. He was given to painfully long pauses; his intended drolleries fell flat, or were too sharp...." More.