« Lapdogs? | Main | Voting with your fingertips »
May 11, 2006
A dark and stormy night
Abe Rosenthal’s obituary in today’s New York Times included the adjectives “stormy,” “combative,” “self-centered,” “intimidating” and “abrasive.” This was no surprise to me. I first encountered – I won’t say met – Rosenthal in 1985, when he addressed my class of Nieman Fellows. He was the executive editor of the Times, and I was on sabbatical as editor of the Monitor, finishing an academic year of soaking up all I could at Harvard.
Rosenthal came to dinner one night, and we fellows, all journalists, expected a cordial but frank discussion with one of the lions of our profession. Instead, Rosenthal was cranky. He also probably drank a little too much wine at dinner, even while crabbing about its quality.
When we sat down afterward to talk, Rosenthal had no opening remarks. He just wanted to answer our questions and converse with us. Or so he said.
Joseph C. Goulden interviewed several of us about this session for his 1988 book, Fit to Print: A.M. Rosenthal and His Times. Rather than relate what happened that night from memory, I’ll just quote Goulden's passage about it:
“The nastiest exchange of the evening began when Ed Chen of the Los Angeles Times asked Rosenthal if he had read a recent New Republic article by Fred Barnes saying The New York Times had become neo-conservative. Rosenthal said he had not read it, then he ‘flew into a tirade about how no one had called him, and how dare anyone venture an opinion of the Times without calling him,’ Mike Pride recollected. Howard Simons [curator of the Nieman program and former managing editor of The Washington Post] sent for a copy of the article, and Rosenthal skimmed part of it. . . . This guy never talked to me, he repeated, and we would never do a thing like this in The New York Times without talking to the head guy. That kind of journalism would never appear in The New York Times.
“To the surprise of most persons in the room, Pride spoke up. The other fellows considered him the most mild-mannered member of their group, the unlikely person to challenge Rosenthal, especially given Rosenthal’s visibly mounting temper. But Pride had heard enough.
“ ‘It occurred to me that what he was saying was absurd. I said to him, ‘Hey, wait a minute, your newspaper runs play reviews, book reviews, without talking to the authors. You run political commentaries, opinion pieces, without talking to the principals. Although I haven’t read the Barnes piece, it seems to me The New Republic is a journal of opinion and commentary. . . .
“ ‘I don’t think I got all this out before he turned on me. His denunciation was loud and personal. “Maybe that’s the way you do it in your newspaper, but we never allow that kind of crap in The New York Times.”
“ ‘I tried to restate my question, but he shouted me down, so I just sat back, a little red-faced, and clammed up. . . . There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Howard Simons jumped in to cool things down and change the subject.’
“The evening broke up, and several fellows commiserated with Pride. ‘I didn’t see much reason to take Rosenthal seriously. He had no basis for criticizing me or my paper.’ Simons called the next day. ‘He said Abe had asked him to apologize to me. Howard said Rosenthal knew he had gotten out of hand and wanted me to know he was sorry I had borne the brunt of it. I thanked Howard and told him not to lose any sleep over it.
“ ‘For me, the editor of a 21,000-circulation newspaper in the rock and ice of northern New England, this was a humorous outcome worth the moment of discomfort the night before. Here was the former managing editor of The Washington Post calling the editor of the Concord Monitor to apologize for the executive editor of The New York Times over an argument about an article neither of us had read.’ ”
In the ensuing years, I had other more positive encounters with Rosenthal, but of course this is the one I remember best. Reading his obituary today, I recognized that his testiness and imperiousness that night were typical of his authoritarian management style. Some might say that this style, combined with his ambition, brilliance, experience and principles, served him well in transforming the Times. I think he’d have been even better without it.
Posted by Mike Pride at May 11, 2006 10:04 AM
Comments
Glad I checked in on your blog today. I never met Rosenthal or any big wheels at the Times, but I went to college with Howard Simons' daughter Anna and so I met him once or twice. He was a perfect gentleman, sharp as a tack but very courtly, and quite a counterbalance for some of the larger than life personalities then at the Post. It's nice to see him remembered here. But my most vivid memory of Anna's parents is when I made the mistake of asking her mother, when a bunch of us were passing through DC, if she was going to read the NYT "Week in Review" section as we had an informal brunch. "We already know everything that's in it, so why on earth would I...."
Posted by: Michael Herrmann at May 11, 2006 04:26 PM
It was interesting reading that excerpt from Fit to Print about your encounter with Abe Rosenthal. I remember well our chat of many years ago, and thanks for bringing the anecdote back to mind. Even at this late remove, I have mixed feelings about Rosenthal. A man of immense talent, to be sure, but was all the noise really necessary? What surprises me is that, during all those years, no one took a punch at him. When I was at the Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1960s, we were cursed by the presence of an editor who would...well, drink too much soda pop with dinner, and who was a nasty SOB for the rest of the evening. Another editor would warn us from time to time that the Guild contract did not protect anyone who struck a person in the news room, for whatever reason. Perhaps that is why this guy -- and Abe -- went unpunched.
As I wrote in the book, a blend of Caesar and Caligula. He told me years ago he had a $300,000 contract with Random House for a biography. I am sorry that it was never published.
Posted by: Joe Goulden at May 15, 2006 10:19 AM