Let's get started on the layout!

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2002 7:20 am

NEW YORK -- The New York Times is gearing up for another major investigative project that Executive Editor Howell Raines believes could rival the 15-part series on race that brought home a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2001. Two months ago, Raines sent a memo to the entire editorial staff seeking ideas for a multipart series, which drew about 200 responses.A newsroom committee created to review the ideas has whittled them down to a "handful," Raines told E&P, and the topic will be chosen in coming weeks. "They include, in some cases, familiar themes like health care and some others that I don't want to get into," he said. "The subject matter will dictate the scope."
But Raines predicted that the project would likely be at least a five-part report, and possibly could match the 15 parts that the race series spanned. (Editor & Publisher)***Have I gone mad or is Raines doing things a little out of order?***

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2002 8:40 pm

Why do you assume the two are mutually exclusive?

jmcg · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2002 10:11 pm

The reason for doing these overdone projects,
of course, is to win Pulitzers. Readers will
tend to pass 'em over, but Pulitzer judges will bite. Only hasn't Raines and his paper won enough
of those already?

jmcg · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2002 10:26 pm

P.S. -- There may be a larger sense of method
to the madness blanp suspects on Raines' part.
Has anything he's done flopped, really? (Aside from "Portraits of Grief," at least?) Is there
a readily identifiable part of the paper that's
declined since Raines took over? The only part of the paper I see in serious decline is the editorial page, and Raines doesn't
edit it anymore. Giving that up was the price of becoming editor.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu May 16, 2002 7:21 am

News travels slowly, at least to me, sometimes. I just learned that Howell Raines booted Andrew Sullivan out of the New York Times Magazine. That more than offsets Raines's planning for a Pulitizer Prize.[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: blanp ]

jmcg · **Posted:** Thu May 16, 2002 8:00 pm

Why it's been the main topic of one
"blog" after another for a few days
now. Which I guess says something about
the relevance of blogs. 'Course this
isn't blanp's blog, is it?

mrspynchon · **Posted:** Thu May 16, 2002 11:58 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
NEW YORK -- The New York Times is gearing up for another major investigative project that Executive Editor Howell Raines believes could rival the 15-part series on race that brought home a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2001. Two months ago, Raines sent a memo to the entire editorial staff seeking ideas for a multipart series, which drew about 200 responses.A newsroom committee created to review the ideas has whittled them down to a "handful," Raines told E&P, and the topic will be chosen in coming weeks. "They include, in some cases, familiar themes like health care and some others that I don't want to get into," he said. "The subject matter will dictate the scope."
But Raines predicted that the project would likely be at least a five-part report, and possibly could match the 15 parts that the race series spanned. (Editor & Publisher)***Have I gone mad or is Raines doing things a little out of order?***<hr></blockquote>

mrspynchon · **Posted:** Thu May 16, 2002 11:59 pm

First time at the new site - a major improvement.

drew4au · **Posted:** Fri May 17, 2002 1:11 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jmcg:
The reason for doing these overdone projects,
of course, is to win Pulitzers. Readers will
tend to pass 'em over, but Pulitzer judges will bite. Only hasn't Raines and his paper won enough
of those already?<hr></blockquote>Aren't Pulitzer judges the only people who actually read the Times?

jmcg · **Posted:** Fri May 17, 2002 10:05 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Drew4AU:
Aren't Pulitzer judges the only people who actually read the Times?<hr></blockquote>No, Drew. Lots of people read the paper,
for this reason among others: Flaws, pretense and meaningless prizes and all, it's still without question the best paper in the country.You sound rather like Cole Campbell, at least to me, when you pose questions like that. And,
no, that's not something you should want to do.

Testy Copy Editors

Let's get started on the layout!

Who is online

What They're Saying

Useful Links