Colleagues:
More than most sections, the Week in Review is in a constant state
of ferment. As the main news pages become more analytical, the Review has
to continually develop new ways to remain distinctive, finding interesting
angles of entry to the week's news without toppling over into the more
opinionated writing that is the proper job of Op-ed. More than most
sections, the Review depends on the ability of its editors to entice
original thoughts from overworked staffers on tight deadlines, mostly in
their free time, by challenging them or provoking them or engaging them.
For five years and change, Katy Roberts and a terrific supporting
cast have kept the Week in Review sharp and surprising. Her breadth of
knowledge and range of interests; her ability to ask the intriguing
question that makes the beat expert come at a subject fresh; and her
impatience with the merely okay make her an editor that reporters (I can
testify from personal experience) are glad to work with.
For her next act, Katy will be joining Jon Landman in the expanding
experiment that is Nytimes.com
Katy's first mission will be to vastly enlarge the ambition of our
Topics Pages by designing a way to open them, selectively, to expert
outside contributors. The idea is to recruit and cultivate a network of
credentialed outsiders to stretch our resources far beyond anything we've
done before to turn our Topic Page menu into an unimaginably rich reference
source.
There's no blueprint here, so it will be up to Katy to assemble the
network, construct a system for managing and supporting them, figure out
(with a little help from her friends) how to build the right tools and
develop the right standards. As one of her colleagues put it, it's about
developing the ideas community. At first, she'll spend some time with John
O'Neil's merry band, constructing pages herself and working with others in
the newsroom. She'll study at the feet of product specialists and technical
people. Then she'll invent.
And in keeping with the laboratory tradition of the Week in Review,
we've come up with something completely different for that section.
In January, Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the Book Review, will expand his
responsibilities to include the Week in Review.
Under Sam's leadership, the Book Review has been replenished. He,
with a strong cast of TBR veterans and sharp recruits, has enlarged the
review in size and influence. He has restored the big cover review,
enlisted a sterling cast of writers, rejuvenated the best seller list (in
large part by adding Dwight Garner's column), introduced more reporting and
livelier debate, overseen a complete redesign, and pushed aggressively onto
the Web. He has also found time to write, brilliantly, for his section --
and for the Magazine and, yes, the Week in Review -- and to curate an
on-line reading group on the review's website, among other things. I can't
wait to see what creative energy he will bring to the continual reinventing
of the Week in Review.
Oh, by the way: Who was the astute talent-spotter who first brought
Sam Tanenhaus to the NYT? Katy Roberts, when she was editor of the Op-ed
page.
Nobody should mistake this for a diminution of enthusiasm for either
the Book Review or for the Week in Review. Quite the contrary. Both are and
will remain, undiminished, franchise sections of The New York Times. This
new configuration would be unimaginable if Sam was the kind of editor who
made himself indispensable to every assignment, who vetted every line of
copy, who hoarded the responsibility. But he is a leader who -- as his Book
Review colleagues will attest -- surrounds himself with tremendously
capable people, sets a direction, and backs off. Editors under Sam stretch
and grow. (Ask Dwight, or Bob Harris.) At the Week in Review, as at the
Book Review, Sam will have talented collaborators -- beginning with the
matchless Dave Smith, whose role will grow in the new arrangement. They are
in for a treat, and readers are, too.
Cheers,
Bill
Related: New York Times, Politics
