Mutiny at The Times

CHIP EAST/REUTERS
Managing Editor Gerald Boyd (L) and Executive Editor Howell Raines before they resigned from the New York Times

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The Bragg case caused a minor public flap compared with Blair's, but it was ultimately more damaging to Raines. Journalists started giving anti-Raines quotes to competitors; they ranted against Bragg and Times management on a popular website for journalists. It didn't help that when Sulzberger went to the Times Washington bureau for a brown-bag lunch, an employee said, "he got a harsher message than he expected."

Some have speculated that his family, particularly his father, pressured him to act, but Sulzberger says that although he talked with family members, he made the decision to accept Raines' resignation himself. He also insists that he did not order the editors to quit. "There was no single 'aha' moment. There was a sense from the two of them that the hill that they had to climb was becoming too steep. And that the cost of that to the institution was becoming too great," says Sulzberger. "And, sadly, I had to agree."

Sulzberger named Joseph Lelyveld, Raines' predecessor a measured manager, liked in the newsroom to be the interim executive editor while a replacement search is under way. Sulzberger tells TIME he's looking for a "great journalist" who is "an effective leader and a manager"--which, in the wake of the Raines war, may be more than mere corporate-speak. "If employees are happy and fulfilled," he says, "generally what they produce is good." Times employees say they are relieved to have a respite from the turmoil with Lelyveld, who addressed the newsroom Friday, ending with four simple words: "Let's go to work."