Hot Times

By David Gregorio ’80

It was a hot, rainy summer in New York City, and nowhere was hotter or stormier
than the newsroom at The New York Times. Two high-profile reporters had
resigned in a scandal involving plagiarism and other ethical lapses. Morale melted
as The Times and the rest of the media ran stories about problems at the nation’s
newspaper of record. The paper’s two top editors resigned in early June.

At the end of July, The Times tapped Deputy Managing Editor John Geddes ’74 and Washington Bureau Chief Jill Abramson to help lead the newspaper out of its summer of discontent. Bill Keller, the new executive editor, promoted Geddes to managing editor for news operations and named Abramson managing editor for news gathering. With Keller, they took on the task of boosting morale and making reforms while keeping news operations humming.

His title suggests that Geddes concentrates on the operations side, but things are much more fluid at the paper with a staff of more than 1,200 who need decisions in a New York minute.

"We operate as a triumvirate," Geddes said. "You have an area of concentration and yet at the same time anyone is interchangeable with anyone else. The efficiency of any organization depends on: Can you get an answer quickly?"

In their first few weeks the new editors faced tough questions from staffers disgruntled about the scandal. Jayson Blair, a 27-year-old national reporter, resigned in May following a plagiarism charge, and The Times published a lengthy story about how he managed to draw top assignments despite numerous errors and complaints about shoddy work. Management named a committee to review its policies. And then Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Rick Bragg resigned in late May. The Times said he had taken a byline on a story that was largely the work of a freelancer. Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd later resigned amid heavy criticism.

Facing questions about how they planned to reform the hiring and promotion policies, the new editors eschewed the approach of using big, formal meetings to address the staff. Instead, they spent a lot of time in the newsroom, talking with people individually.

"You walk the newsroom floor every day, and people stop you and ask you questions; you try and answer them the best you can," Geddes said during a recent interview. "Visibility counts, I think, more than any official meeting. People appreciate the impromptu one-on-one sessions."

He thinks morale has turned the corner. "A newsroom’s—or any organization’s—morale, really, is a very changeable beast," he said. "It hit a trough here in July."

That was lucky, because in August the power went out.

Shortly after 4 p.m. on August 14, the summer got even hotter as air conditioners shut off all over New York City and in much of the Northeastern United States and nearby Canada. Keller was on vacation; Abramson was at a journalism conference in California. Geddes had to remake page one and lead The Times through the first big disaster story of his tenure as managing editor.

The story was literally at the front door. Thousands of people poured out of office buildings into the streets of midtown Manhattan trying to figure out ways to get home. Thousands more were stuck underground as subway trains stopped moving.

As the sun set, an eerie darkness settled over Times Square, where acres of neon billboards and TV screens were blank. Police patrolled the streets, and tourists slept on the sidewalks when hotels found themselves without electronic reservation systems and room keys. Federal officials in Washington reassured Americans that terrorists were not behind the power failure. After all these stories and more were written and edited, some staffers could not get home to the suburbs because the trains weren’t running. Geddes invited some to crash at his place in Manhattan’s West Village.

"We were here until about 2 a.m. or so," he said, "and I brought a couple of folks from the news desk back home to sleep at my place because they couldn’t get home. Walking down there from here was just so other-worldly. It was incredible."

Things have returned to normal—as normal as things get in the news business, anyway. Geddes gets to work by 8 or 9, reads the papers, then heads to the morning news meeting.

"After that, it depends what the day is. It may be fielding calls or answering messages from department heads or correspondents." Geddes also belongs to a committee that plans the paper’s long-term strategy. His latest project in that area was the takeover of The International Herald Tribune. The Times bought out its longtime partner, The Washington Post, to take full control of the English-language newspaper based in Paris that serves Americans in Europe.

A Providence native, Geddes majored in economics at URI and also took journalism classes while working at The Good 5¢ Cigar. He earned a master’s in business journalism from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then started his career in 1976 at a small newspaper in Connecticut. Within two years he was the bureau chief for the AP-Dow Jones news wire in Bonn, Germany.

The New York Times hired him as a correspondent, then The Wall Street Journal hired him as Bonn bureau chief. He later moved to Brussels and helped launch The Wall Street Journal/Europe, which named him managing editor. When he returned to the States, he worked at The Wall Street Journal in various positions, including senior editor/national news editor.

In 1993 he left the newspaper business for a stint at a partnership funded by large investors to explore opportunities in the media. One of his partners was John Struck ’74, his college roommate at URI and also business manager of The Cigar when Geddes worked there.

Geddes returned to newspapers when The New York Times asked him to run its business and financial news section. By 1997, he was deputy managing editor. While his latest promotion came during a summer of turmoil, Geddes was ready to face the heat.

"It’s always hard to pinpoint any one class or professor or moment in your college career that prepared you for all the challenges ahead," he said. "But learning how to deal with people, your peers, whether they’re in a college dorm or in a classroom or at The Good 5¢ Cigar, is critical. The maturation I got at URI in that area has really made a difference in my life."

A former reporter for The Good 5¢ Cigar, Dave Gregorio ’80 is a desk editor at the financial news desk of Reuters in New York City. He lives in Milford, Conn.