Hard Times: I just finished Howell Raines's apologia in this month's Atlantic (preview here). Although the piece runs on for page after page, here's all you need to know, according to Raines:

1. I was just about to save the Times. They're screwed now.

2. Cabals of neoconservatives in the newsroom! Honestly. (Howell seems confused here, using neoconservative to mean rascist social conservatives, which is not exactly what the term means. At least he doesn't use it, like Reenie Dowd, as a synonym for "Jews.")

3. Artie Sulzberger? Nice guy, but cheap as the day is long.

4. I should have caught Jayson Blair earlier, and I take responsibility, but you see, I was in the middle of saving the Times from decay and total failure at the time, so I was kinda busy.

5. I got fired for the Blair thing, but it was just an excuse. It was really because my brilliant plan to take the Times into the 21st century upset the hidebound bureaucracy.

To his credit, he makes some fair points. For example, it is odd that there is no NYT International Edition. But his "vision" seemed to be that the Times could be all things to all people. It should be the "paper of record" but still be a pleasure to read, introducing pop culture to the sophisticate world (the famous Britney Spears "exegesis" stands for this sort of journalism, I suppose), etc. It should also, by the way, do books better than the NYRB, finance better than the WSJ, and sports on par with Sports Illustrated. ("And character assassination as well as the NY Post!" he might well have added. In a guarded section, he is obviously talking about that great tabloid and Rupert Murdoch when he speaks of certain publications' "debased [] principles" and their "craven [] ownership.") This is a big vision even for a minor media empire with diverse publications and breadwinning perennials. (That evil neoconservative Rupert Murdoch's mini-empire comes to mind.) It's a foolish vision for a daily paper. Even more so right about the time that the bottom dropped out of the advertising market.

Then there is Raines's explanation of the Blair crisis. He never got the memos. (Including one, which screamed for higher review, from editor Jon Landman that said, "We have to stop Jayson from writing for The Times. Right now.") He didn't pay close enough attention to Blair's corrections, just his correction rate, which was not unusual. Even when the world comes crashing down, Raines still seems to be in a fantasy world. On his way to the meeting that effectively took his head off, Sulzberger asks how Raines is feeling.

"Calm," I said. "Completely calm." He looked at me with genuine alarm.

Later, hoping to reassure him, I said that I had been thinking about his question, and I had a more complete answer . . . "I feel interested," I said, adding that this was one of the most fascinating experiences I'd ever had.

I'm surprised Sulzberger didn't shoot him before the meeting. "Howell, you just brought the newspaper of record to its knees in a scandal that makes its reporters seem like liars and its management asleep at the switch. Our reputation is in tatters. How do you feel?"

Oh, calm. But interested, too!