Howell Raines

Howell Raines was Executive Editor of The New York Times from 2001 until his resignation following the Jayson Blair scandal in 2003. He currently writes political commentary for British newspaper The Guardian.

His career in journalism began in 1964 as a reporter for the Tuscaloosa News and WBRC-TV in Birmingham in his native Alabama. After a year as a reporter at the Birmingham News, Raines became political editor of the Atlanta Constitution in 1971. His position at the newspaper lasted until 1976, when he became political editor at the St. Petersburg Times.

Raines' affiliation with the New York Times began in 1978, when he joined as a national correspondent based in Atlanta. By 1979, Raines was the bureau chief in Atlanta, a position he remained in until 1981, when he became a national political correspondent. By the next year, Raines had been promoted to a White House correspondent for The Times. His ascent within management continued in 1985, when he became deputy Washington editor. In 1987, Raines transferred to London and worked as the newspaper's London bureau chief. The next year, he returned to Washington D.C. to become the Washington bureau chief. In 1992, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. His longest lasting assignment within The Times began in 1993, when he left Washington for New York to become the paper's editorial page editor. He was appointed to Executive Editor in September 2001.

Raines was lauded by many for instituting a program to increase diversity and to revive advocacy journalism. Although there was a period in the early unfolding of the Enron story regarding that energy company's corrupt practices when the Times had to play 'catch up' to the Wall Street Journal, the Times did later develop some hard-hitting articles on that subject, a highly praised accomplishment due in part to Raines' insistence on aggressive investigations. Widely cited as a "hard-charging" Executive Editor, Raines was known for his policy of "flooding the zone"- using all The Times' available resources to cover important stories.

Widely known for his liberal politics, Raines often alienated many on The Times' staff and angered media watchers with his perceived inability to keep his politics off the press. Raines faced particularly harsh criticism for the thirty-two stories published by The Times on the Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters Tournament, and their policy of not admitting women as members, nearly twice the number of articles published on the Club as in comparable newspapers. Also, he may have spiked opinion columns on the sports page that expressed dissent from his own position on that subject.

The Jayson Blair scandal forced his resignation after 20 months as Executive Editor. In a statement published in The Times, Raines apologized for his part in the scandal, admitting that Blair was promoted at least twice because of his race and the paper's renewed emphasis on diversity had encouraged editors to overlook Blair's fabrications.

Raines took an in-depth look at his tenure as Executive Editor in "My Times", published in the Atlantic Monthly.

In addition to his work as a journalist, Raines has published several books; "My Soul Is Rested" and "Whiskey Man" in 1977 and "Fly Fishing Through The Midlife Crisis" in 1993. He contributed to "Campaign Money", published in 1976.