March 28, 2024

D. J. R. Bruckner, Columnist and Critic, Dies at 79

The cause was complications of cancer, his cousin Steve Langan said.

At The New York Times, where he was on staff from 1981 to 2005, Mr. Bruckner’s official job was as an editor at the Book Review. But his byline appeared hundreds of times during his tenure, not only on book reviews but also on reviews of Off and Off Off Broadway theater and the occasional film.

A polymath and polyglot (the languages in which he was fluent included Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and those were merely the ancient ones), Mr. Bruckner was known for his stylistic prowess.

It was evident in his first article for The Times, an essay about grand-scale publishing projects, which appeared in the Book Review in 1981. In it, he described a series of ecclesiastical volumes issued over the course of a century by a Benedictine abbey in France, “in ivory vellum covers, like a long procession of robed abbots.”

Mr. Bruckner could consign a subject to eternal damnation with a single image. Reviewing an Arnold Schwarzenegger film in 1985, he wrote, “Mr. Schwarzenegger first appears in ‘Commando’ in parts — one huge bicep and then another.”

He could praise with the lavish economy of a single word. Reviewing a 1995 production of Edward Albee’s play “Seascape,” which requires actors to impersonate lizards, Mr. Bruckner lauded their “lizardry.”

Donald Jerome Raphael Bruckner was born in Omaha on Nov. 26, 1933. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English from Creighton University and, as a Rhodes scholar, a master’s in classics and English from Oxford.

Mr. Bruckner was a reporter on The Chicago Sun-Times in the early 1960s, covering labor. He joined The Los Angeles Times in the mid-’60s, serving as its Chicago bureau chief before becoming a syndicated columnist for the paper.

In one widely quoted column, from 1972, Mr. Bruckner lamented what he saw as a hardening despair among young black Americans. “There are issues enough,” he wrote. “What is gone is the popular passion for them. Possibly, hope is gone.” He went on: “In the light of what government is doing, you might well expect young blacks to lose hope in the power elites, but this is something different — a cold personal indifference, a separation of man from man. What you hear and see is not rage, but injury, a withering of expectations.”

For his liberal positions, Mr. Bruckner was accorded a spot on President Richard M. Nixon’s enemies list.

Before joining The New York Times, Mr. Bruckner was a vice president for public affairs at the University of Chicago.

Mr. Bruckner, a Manhattan resident, was the author of several books, including “Frederic Goudy” (1990), about the type designer.

No immediate family members survive.

One of Mr. Bruckner’s most personal articles was an essay on bibliomania published in the Book Review in 1982.

“Two years ago, needing to get rid of 600 volumes, I decided to sell duplicates,” he wrote. “Who needs two sets of Goethe in six volumes? But I’d made different notes in each set: no sale.” He added: “I did cull out duplicates from thousands of pieces of poetry I had bought since the 1950s — broadsides, pamphlets, little books bought for 50 cents or $1 years back. When a dealer named his price, I was stunned: If some had appreciated 300 percent in 15 years, what might they be worth when I am old? But I steeled myself and sold them — and then fell ill for a day.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/books/d-j-r-bruckner-columnist-and-critic-dies-at-79.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Digital Subscribers Buoy Newspaper Circulation

“Overall circulation industrywide is flat and digital is growing,” said Neal Lulofs, an executive vice president with the Alliance for Audited Media, which released the figures. “Newspapers are engaging with readers in a variety of media types wherever and whenever.”

The 593 daily newspapers that were audited had a 0.7 percent daily circulation decline. The Wall Street Journal has the highest circulation at 2,378,827, a 12.3 percent jump from the same time the year before. The New York Times replaced USA Today in second place with a circulation of 1,865,318 a 17.6 percent rise from a year ago. USA Today circulation was down 7.9 percent, dropping to 1,674,306. The Los Angeles Times and New York Daily News followed in fourth and fifth places.

The figures include both print and digital subscriptions.

For the 519 Sunday newspapers audited, total circulation declined 1.4 percent. The New York Times ranked first with an average circulation of 2,322,429, a 15.9 percent increase from the same time the year before. The Houston Chronicle ranked second, despite a 5.8 percent decline to 1,042,389. The Los Angeles Times was third; its circulation remained flat at 954,010. The Washington Post had a 16.5 percent circulation jump to 838,014, putting it in fourth place ahead of The Chicago Tribune.

Mr. Lulofs cautioned that growth for some newspapers could be attributed to how they have incorporated the community newspapers they own into their figures. For example, The Chicago Sun-Times experienced an 11.6 percent rise in its daily circulation growth, which included 55,241 daily copies sold by its regional papers. The Orange County Register recorded a 26.8 percent increase in its daily circulation, largely from the 84,071 generated by its branded newspapers.

Other papers showed growth because they started to include more varieties of digital editions, Mr. Lulofs said. For example, the Star Ledger of Newark, an Advance Publications paper that has been facing potential cuts in its daily coverage, experienced a 22.2 percent rise in daily circulation, with its digital circulation more than doubling in the past year, according to numbers provided by the Alliance.

Still, these digital figures should not be dismissed as simple maneuvering. Digital growth for The Wall Street Journal grew by 62.6 percent, to 898,012 in March 2013 from 552,288 in March 2012. Last week, The New York Times Company announced during its quarterly earnings call that the number of paid digital subscribers to The Times and The International Herald Tribune had grown to 676,000 by the end of March.

“You’re going to continue to see an evolution and I guess a transformation,” Mr. Lulofs said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/media/digital-subscribers-buoy-newspaper-circulation.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Koch Brothers Making Play for Tribune’s Newspapers

The first two pieces of the strategy — educating grass-roots activists and influencing politics — were not surprising, given the money they have given to policy institutes and political action groups. But the third one was: media.

Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

By early May, the Tribune Company is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. Koch Industries is among those interested, said several people with direct knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition they not be named. Tribune emerged from bankruptcy on Dec. 31 and has hired JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners to sell its print properties.

The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenue of about $115 billion.

Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.

One person who attended the Aspen seminar who spoke on the condition of anonymity described the strategy as follows: “It was never ‘How do we destroy the other side?’ ”

“It was ‘How do we make sure our voice is being heard?’ ”

Guests at the Aspen seminar included Philip F. Anschutz, the Republican oil mogul who owns the companies that publish The Washington Examiner, The Oklahoman and The Weekly Standard, and the hedge fund executive Paul E. Singer, who sits on the board of the political magazine Commentary. Attendees were asked not to discuss details about the seminar with the press.

A person who has attended other Koch Industries seminars, which have taken place since 2003, says Charles and David Koch have never said they want to take over newspapers or other large media outlets, but they often say “they see the conservative voice as not being well represented.” The Kochs plan to host another conference at the end of the month, in Palm Springs, Calif.

At this early stage, the thinking inside the Tribune Company, the people close to the deal said, is that Koch Industries could prove the most appealing buyer. Others interested, including a group of wealthy Los Angeles residents led by the billionaire Eli Broad and Ronald W. Burkle, both prominent Democratic donors, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, would prefer to buy only The Los Angeles Times.

The Tribune Company has signaled it prefers to sell all eight papers and their back-office operations as a bundle. (Tribune, a $7 billion media company that also owns 23 television stations, could also decide to keep the papers if they do not attract a high enough offer.)

Koch Industries is one of the largest sponsors of libertarian causes — including the financing of policy groups like the Cato Institute in Washington and the formation of Americans for Prosperity, the political action group that helped galvanize Tea Party organizations and their causes. The company has said it has no direct link to the Tea Party.

This month a Koch representative contacted Eddy W. Hartenstein, publisher and chief executive of The Los Angeles Times, to discuss a bid, according to a person briefed on the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conversation was private. Mr. Hartenstein declined to comment.

Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/business/media/koch-brothers-making-play-for-tribunes-newspapers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Academy Will Bring Back Oscar Producers for 2014

The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday afternoon reported that Mr. Zadan and Mr. Meron were rehired by the academy’s president, Hawk Koch, with the support of the group’s governing board.

The move is unusual in that Mr. Koch’s term is set to expire midyear and an incoming president is normally given considerable authority over the choice of the Oscar producers. In an interview, however, Mr. Koch told The Los Angeles Times that he acted early because “continuity is the most important thing” in mounting the annual Oscar telecast.

In February, the last Oscar show got a modest upturn in its overall rating, but attracted a much larger number of younger viewers, as its host, Seth MacFarlane, laced the broadcast with jokes that spurred a fierce debate about their propriety. A song taunting actresses who had done nude scenes, a joke about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and quips about Jews in Hollywood were among the show’s most controversial moments.

At the same time, Mr. Zadan and Mr. Meron raised eyebrows with an extended tribute to one of their own movies, “Chicago,” and rubbed academy members the wrong way when they used the orchestra to drum some winners off the stage.

At the show’s climax, Ben Affleck, who was the director and a producer of “Argo,” which won the Oscar for best picture, made a point of speed-talking to get his thank-yous squeezed in before Mr. MacFarlane returned for a final song and dance.

But the academy’s leaders have stood by the show, pointing toward its strong ratings and relatively trouble-free production process. “Craig and Neil have great relationships, a sense of showmanship, and a passion for our academy,” Dawn Hudson, the academy’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The Oscar show is broadcast annually on ABC under a long-term contract. The 2014 telecast is scheduled for March 2.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/business/media/academy-will-bring-back-oscar-producers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Media Decoder Blog: New Tribune Chief Signals Greater Television Focus

Two-thirds of the Tribune Company’s revenues currently come from the newspapers it owns. But that most likely won’t be true a year from now.

Peter Liguori, who was named the new chief executive of the company this week, said Friday that he was open both to selling some of the newspapers and buying more television stations. While he made no definitive statements on the matter, his sentiments lined up with investors’ expectations that Tribune will focus more on television and the Internet in the future.

Tribune emerged from bankruptcy at the end of December. It is now controlled by a number of private equity firms and banks. The company’s new board elected Mr. Liguori, a longtime television executive, to be chief executive on Thursday.

“I do think you’re going to see more television focus,” he said in a telephone interview on Friday, calling TV a “great opportunity” for the company. Tribune owns stations in big cities across the country, and operates a cable channel called WGN America that reaches about 75 million homes.

Mr. Liguori said he wanted to introduce more original programming on WGN America, including in prime time, and on the local stations. The stations, he said, “are a platform to introduce fresh, original content. If we own or co-own the content, that provides new revenue streams for us. We’ve yet to begin that fight, really.”

Then he brought up the statistic about two-thirds of the company’s revenue emanating from newspapers. Tribune owns The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and an assortment of other smaller papers. Newspapers are the tradition of Tribune, going back to its founding more than 150 years ago, he said, “and on a daily basis we’re going to have to focus on furthering that.”

Mr. Liguori spoke of being more “digitally focused” with a “deadline every minute mentality.” He described the company’s reporter bylines as brands. But he didn’t back away from the possibility that Tribune may sell off some of the newspapers in the months to come.

“People have called about the newspapers,” he said. “There are suitors. As the chief executive I have a fiduciary responsibility to hear these suitors out — to kind of weed out the contenders from the pretenders. And to see if in fact these suitors are willing to recognize the true value of these newspapers.

“With all that being said, I still think job one is managing the newspapers well; creating the best possible journalism; being as efficient as possible; creating programs for advertisers. And by concentrating on running the newspapers on a daily basis, we’re going to create the greatest value for the company.”

Separately, Mr. Liguori said Tribune is “certainly open” to acquiring more television stations.

“There are opportunities for us to look into duopolies and there are opportunities for us to horse-trade stations with other groups,” he said.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/new-tribune-chief-signals-greater-television-focus/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Media Decoder Blog: The Breakfast Meeting: Tribune Looking for Buyers, and Imus Stays Put

The Tribune Company, owner of The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, is looking for bankers to help sell some of its papers after it emerges from bankruptcy on Dec. 31, according to a Bloomberg News report. Rupert Murdoch has been reported to be interested at least in the Chicago and Los Angeles papers for his new publishing-focused News Corporation.

An aide to Britain’s culture secretary attempted to ward off reporters investigating the minister’s expense reports by warning them about her role in implementing press regulations outlined in the Leveson Report, according to The Daily Telegraph. The paper, which had reported that the secretary, Maria Miller, was submitting expenses for her parents’ house in London, said that her aide told reporters: “Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about.”

Don Imus, the 72-year-old host of “Imus in the Morning” has signed on to do his radio show for three more years. Mr. Imus has much lower numbers than hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity but his popularity in New York means that the show can charge higher advertising rates.

The authors of “Game Change” have signed a deal with Penguin Press to release their coming book about the recent presidential campaign, “Double Down: Game Change 2012.” HBO, which based a film on the 2008 book, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, has already optioned the rights to the new film.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation of Reed Hastings, the chief executive for Netflix, for possible violations of disclosures laws after he wrote about a company milestone on Facebook, says more about the flawed rules surrounding public information than it does about bad acts by Mr. Hastings, writes Steven M. Davidoff, the Deal Professor columnist for DealBook. Announcing that Netflix had streamed a billion hours of programming in one month doesn’t seem to divulge information that is either private or material, he writes.

Finally, Rupert Murdoch added some of his own reporting to a Times article on Monday that outlined Michael Bloomberg’s interest in buying possibly buying The Financial Times. In a tweet this morning, Mr. Murdoch wrote: “Bloomberg may buy FT but likes New York Times too. Both small change for him and new challenge after 12 years great public service.”

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/the-breakfast-meeting-tribune-looking-for-buyers-and-imus-stays-put/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Off the Shelf: Lessons in Communication, for Newspapers Themselves

Rarely will you see displays of this divide more vivid than in James O’Shea’s new book, “The Deal From Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers” (PublicAffairs, $28.99).

The subtitle seems misleading, as do so many these days. Mr. O’Shea, a onetime top editor at both The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, tells the story of these two papers’ magnificently botched corporate marriage — a fine tale, though from the subtitle it would appear that his publisher didn’t want to market it as such, perhaps thinking that no one much cared.

And the publisher is probably right. Many Americans may worry deeply about presidential elections, hurricanes and other major news, but I suspect that they care far less about the slow degradation of the newsrooms that provide it.

It’s just as misleading to suggest that the current troubles of “great American newspapers” result from being “plundered” by “moguls and Wall Street.” It’s true in some cases — and Mr. O’Shea trots out some splendid examples.

As evidence of Wall Street’s attitude toward newspapers, the book describes a JPMorgan Chase vice president being congratulated by a colleague for securing the oh-so-profitable task of restructuring The Tribune’s corporate parent. The V.P. responds by e-mail from Aspen: “Tnx dude. Can you say ka-ching?” Next time I hear an investment banker ask in exasperation why the public so hates Wall Street and its minions, I’ll point him to that exchange.

But it wasn’t investment bankers, no matter how irksome their behavior, who caused newspapers’ woes. It was, by and large, newspapers themselves, especially their managements, as Mr. O’Shea makes abundantly clear.

The abysmal state of newspapers today has largely been precipitated by the loss of classified advertising to Craigslist and other online sites; by the mass migration of readers to free online news sites; and, to a degree I hadn’t appreciated, the scandals in the early 2000s that revealed how thoroughly some newspapers had been misstating circulation numbers for years. Once those papers had to issue correct numbers, official circulations fell sharply, with a corresponding loss of credibility among major advertisers.

Mr. O’Shea argues that what’s killing newspapers isn’t the Internet and other forces, but rather the way newspaper executives responded to those forces: “The lack of investment, the greed, incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy and downright arrogance of people who put their interests ahead of the public’s are responsible for the state of the newspaper industry today.” Strong stuff, but Mr. O’Shea can back it up.

The problem, however, goes deeper than that. For years, most large American newspapers were owned by families — the Grahams in Washington, the McCormicks in Chicago, the Chandlers in Los Angeles — but as those families grew and spread, their far-flung members sought greater returns. Beginning in the 1960s, many of the companies began going public, and therein can be found the underlying problem.

The demands placed upon publicly held companies — more profits, a higher stock price — cannot easily be reconciled with the demands of quality journalism, which needs more people and higher salaries than a cut-rate alternative. When newspapers faced any kind of challenge, whether from the Internet or higher newsprint costs, the answer has long been to cut costs, which leads inevitably to lower-quality journalism.

“The Deal From Hell” is chockablock with examples of what happens when bean counters take over newspapers. In the mid-1990’s, Mark Willes, a former General Mills executive, became C.E.O. of Times Mirror, then the parent of The Los Angeles Times. The book describes Mr. Willes bringing in consultants who held a meeting so that executives could literally sniff the paper; they felt that declining circulation might be caused by newsprint that smelled like fish. And this happened even before the Tribune Company bought Times Mirror in 2000.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/26shelf.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The Media Equation: Ugly Details in Selling Newspapers

James O’Shea, the former editor in chief of The Los Angeles Times, found a classic of the genre in the course of reporting out “The Deal From Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers,” his deep dive into the two deals that tipped over the companies that owned, among many other newspapers, The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune.

Here’s the capsule version: in 2000, The Tribune Company, owner of the Tribune and many other papers, bought the Times-Mirror Company, owner of The Los Angeles Times, for a then-record $8.3 billion. The merger never yielded much in the way of synergy, and the combined company put itself in play in 2007, when there were few buyers left.

Enter Sam Zell, a real estate tycoon with a fondness for distressed assets, who took over the business with the help of an Employee Stock Purchase Plan that saddled Tribune with $13 billion in debt. The company is now mired in a two-year, hugely expensive bankruptcy.

That’s all known. What Mr. O’Shea focused on was how the bankers — who he said should have known the deal would render the company insolvent — seemed to be too busy counting their fees to care. Here’s a note he found buried deep in court records from Jieun Choi, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase Company, that demonstrated a breathtaking level of cynicism and self-dealing:

“There is wide speculation that [Tribune] might have so much debt that all of its assets aren’t gonna cover the debt in case of (knock-knock) you know what,” she wrote to a colleague, in a not very veiled reference to bankruptcy. “Well that’s what we are saying, too. But we’re doing this ‘cause it’s enough to cover our bank debt. So, lesson learned from this deal: our (here I mean JPM’s) business strategy for TRB but probably not only limited to TRB is ‘hit and run.’ ”

She then went on to explain just how far a bank will go to “suck $$$ out of the (dying or dead?) client’s pocket” in terms that are too graphic to be repeated here or most anywhere else.

The court-appointed bankruptcy examiner, Kenneth Klee, was skeptical of her ability to make such a judgment, saying “Choi’s e-mail reflects a misunderstanding by a junior analyst who failed to understand the nature and purpose of the analysis she was asked to perform.” Mr. Klee sought to interview her, but she declined and has since returned to her native Korea. Mr. O’Shea said her e-mail reflected an overall mentality that was pervasive among the banks.

JPMorgan ran the deal, but other banks, including Citibank and Bank of America took part. There were two separate rounds of funding to raise the approximately $12 billion that Mr. Zell borrowed to take the Tribune Company private. The banks received an eye-popping $161 million in fees for just the first round — a number sufficient to run The Los Angeles Times newsroom for a year, as Mr. O’Shea points out — and a total of $283 million in fees for both rounds.

He also reports that Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan expressed some doubts about the fundamentals of the deal based on his firm’s analysis, but ultimately the bank decided to keep Mr. Zell’s business. JP Morgan was a substantial lender in the deal as well, lending hundreds of millions of dollars, and will share in the pain of the bankruptcy.

JPMorgan’s lawyers declined to comment, but the bank has said in the past that both it and Mr. Dimon were obligated by contracts signed during phase one of the lending, and that they did so based on a solvency opinion that later came into dispute.

Mr. O’Shea said in a phone call that he “was stunned by how this small group of powerful bankers, all of whom seemed to know each other, lined up to get Mr. Zell’s business. Like him, they didn’t know much about the news business, but they were basically doing billion dollar loans with a wink and nod.”

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;
Twitter.com/carr2n

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Abramson Named Executive Editor at The Times

Ms. Abramson has been one of Mr. Keller’s two top deputies since 2003, serving at his side as he steered The Times through a period of journalistic distinction and economic distress. Mr. Keller said that with the paper’s finances now on surer footing, he felt at ease handing the reins to Ms. Abramson.

The move was accompanied by another shift in senior management. Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief and former editor of The Los Angeles Times, will become the managing editor for news.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the paper’s publisher and the chairman of The New York Times Company, thanked Mr. Keller, calling him a “truly valued partner” in a speech Thursday morning in the Times newsroom, where the staff stood shoulder to shoulder to hear the publisher announce the first changeover in the top editing jobs in eight years.

Turning toward Ms. Abramson, who will become the first woman to be editor of the paper in its 160-year history, Mr. Sulzberger said, “Jill, Bill’s decision to step down may be bittersweet. But the thought of you as our next executive editor gives me and gives all of us great comfort and great confidence.”

The appointments are effective Sept. 6. John M. Geddes, 59, will continue in his role as managing editor for news operations.

Over the course of Mr. Keller’s tenure, the paper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes and expanded its online audience to some 50 million readers worldwide. But the economic downturn and the drift of readers and advertisers to the Web also forced the paper to lay off members of the news staff and tighten budgets considerably.

“A couple of years ago, everybody was wringing their hands about doomsday for the news business,” Mr. Keller said to the staff, his voice emotional at times. “People talked, some of them rather smugly, about even The New York Times not being long for this world. And now you look around, and we are economically sturdy. We are rich in talent. We are growing.”

Mr. Keller will continue to write for The Times Magazine and as a columnist for the new Sunday opinion section, which will make its debut this month. Mr. Sulzberger said he accepted Mr. Keller’s resignation “with mixed emotions,” adding that the decision to leave was entirely Mr. Keller’s.

Mr. Keller, 62, is still a few years shy of the paper’s mandatory retirement age for senior executives, but he held the top job for roughly the same period of time as Max Frankel and Joseph Lelyveld, two of the editors who preceded him. Mr. Frankel and Mr. Lelyveld returned to the newsroom for the announcement.

Mr. Keller had asked Ms. Abramson to be his managing editor in 2003 as he assembled a team that he hoped would restore confidence in the paper after the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal. Ms. Abramson had been part of a group of editors who clashed with Howell Raines, the executive editor who was forced out after Mr. Blair’s fraud was discovered.

Ms. Abramson, 57, said being named executive editor was “the honor of my life” and like “ascending to Valhalla” for someone who read The Times as a young girl growing up in New York. “We are held together by our passion for our work, our friendship and our deep belief in the mission and indispensability of The Times,” she said. “I look forward to working with all of you to seize our future. In this thrilling and challenging transition, we will cross to safety together.”

The selection of Ms. Abramson is something of a departure for The Times, an institution that has historically chosen executive editors who ascended the ranks through postings in overseas bureaus and managing desks like Foreign or Metro.

Ms. Abramson came to The Times in 1997 from The Wall Street Journal, where she was  a deputy bureau chief and an investigative reporter for nine years. She rose quickly at The Times, becoming Washington editor in 1999 and then bureau chief in 2000. She stepped aside temporarily from her day-to-day duties as managing editor last year to help run The Times’s online operations, a move she asked to make so she could develop fuller, firsthand experience with the integration of the digital and print staffs.

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