Behind the fall of Raines Scandal-scarred and resented by a newsroom fed up with his arrogant style, the top New York Times editor finally pays the price.

– – – – – – – – – – – – *By Eric Boehlert*

June 6, 2003 | A long-building controversy over Howell Raines’ leadership of the New York Times ended abruptly Thursday when the executive editor and his second-in-command, managing editor Gerald Boyd, resigned their posts.

No top editor of the Times had ever resigned or been forced out under a cloud of controversy. Raines’ predecessor, former executive editor Joseph Lelyveld, will return to the paper and serve as interim editor, giving publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. the time he needs to pick a permanent replacement. The publisher did not immediately name a new managing editor.

The duo are paying the ultimate professional price for the Jayson Blair scandal. It erupted a month ago when it became clear that the young reporter disgraced the paper by not only plagiarizing work from other newspapers, but also concocting fictional accounts of news events he never covered. Almost immediately, critics inside and outside the Times questioned whether Raines, as an avowed Southern liberal, and Boyd, as the paper’s first black managing editor, gave the young black reporter too many second chances. But in the past month, the story has transformed from one about a troubled reporter into one about Raines’ domineering, often arrogant leadership style and whether he had the ability to remain in the job he has held since September 2001.

In recent days, rumors were rampant that the Wall Street Journal was set to publish yet another damaging story about the Times, raising new questions about newsroom practices under Raines. The Times is notorious for preempting moves by other news outlets to air the newspaper’s laundry in public, and the timing of the resignations on Thursday may have been a way to head off a possible Journal exposé.

It was a stunning turn of events for Raines, considered among the most gifted — and polarizing — editors of his generation. “This is a man who was just saluted for having led the Times coverage of 9/11, which won seven Pulitzer Prize awards, and then it all fell apart,” noted one veteran Times source. “It’s almost Shakespearean.”

Indeed, a year ago Raines was toasted as editor of the year by industry trade magazine Editor & Publisher. He was the subject of a 17,000-word profile in the New Yorker, which came complete with an appropriately weighty, statesman-like headline: “The Howell Doctrine.”

“Jayson Blair was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow,” says Jim Dwyer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Times, referring to the firestorm that’s swept the newsroom in the last month. “His misbehavior, his betrayal, opened up a lot of score-settling, not only inside the newspaper but outside as well.”

Within hours of the resignations, conservative critics escalated their attacks on the paper, demanding that the Times appoint news leaders who were free of perceived liberal bias. “Now that Mr. Raines and Mr. Boyd have resigned, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. has a crucial decision to make,” said Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center. “He can either continue to use the Times to promote an arrogant, left-wing advocacy agenda or he can return to the news. The New York Times’ return to respectability is dependent upon whether it presents the news in an accurate, evenhanded manner. ‘All the news that’s fit to print’ is meaningless if the reporting is skewed to promote a liberal agenda.”

Blair himself issued a statement Thursday saying he was sorry for the damage he’d caused to the newspaper. But by many accounts, he may end up profiting from the debacle, with a book deal that could approach or exceed $1 million.

The story of Blair’s corruption and fall, and the extraordinary aftermath at the Times, is a cinematic tale of ambition and power practiced on a grand scale, a story of vision and success, arrogance and venality. And for the past month, reporters — and critics — have swarmed to the story. Rival newspaper journalists, some no doubt anxious to dent the Times’ national standing as the most important daily newspaper in the country, continued to circle the paper looking for fresh evidence of Raines’ mismanagement, while an army of angry staffers who felt misused under Raines were grousing openly (if anonymously) about their editor.

And there seemed no end in sight.

The bridge that turned the Blair story into a Raines story was constructed last week with the revelation that Pulitzer Prize- winning Times reporter Rick Bragg, a close friend of Raines’, had been suspended for not crediting the work an unpaid intern had done on a story that appeared with Bragg’s byline. As the story mushroomed, Bragg’s response was, essentially, that everyone at the Times does it; when that provoked open revolt among some of his colleagues, Bragg called his good friend Raines and resigned <3201 https://ianbell.com/2002/12/05/att-ibm-vcs-set-up-wireless-internet-company/ Fri, 06 Dec 2002 01:09:35 +0000 https://ianbell.com/2002/12/05/att-ibm-vcs-set-up-wireless-internet-company/ http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID60511 AT&T, IBM, VCs Set Up Wireless Internet Company Thu December 5, 2002 05:51 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – AT&T Corp. T.N , International Business Machines Corp. IBM.N and three venture capital firms including Intel Corp.’s INTC.O investment division on Thursday said they would create a wireless Internet access company targeted at workers on the go.

Venture capital firms Apax Partners, 3i Group PLC III.L and Intel Capital are financing the company. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

IBM said it would provide back office services and AT&T said the wireless Internet traffic would travel on its high-speed network.

The company, to be called Cometa Networks, will aim to increase the number of spots that have wireless Internet networks, such as retail stores and hotels, targeting 50 major urban areas, from Mobile, Alabama, to New York, New York.

An IBM executive said potential users of the Cometa wireless network include so-called “windshield warriors,” such as pharmaceutical sales representatives who work out of their cars.

The reps would be able to access the Internet through wireless networks in retail establishments like a bookstore, coffee shop or gas station, IBM vice president of telecommunications industry Dean Douglas said.

The sales representatives or their companies would pay for access to the network, he said.

The company is headed by Lawrence Brilliant and chaired by Theodore Schell, a general partner at Apax.

———–

-Ian.

—- http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny– rapperkilled1031oct31,0,7789769.story

Jam Master Jay, founding member of Run DMC, shot dead at studio By AMY WESTFELDT Associated Press Writer

October 31, 2002, 9:16 AM EST

NEW YORK — Jam Master Jay, a founding member of the pioneering rap trio Run DMC, was shot and killed at his recording studio near the Queens neighborhood where he grew up, police said.

A small group of fans gathered near the studio early Thursday, and some had placed flowers, candles and remembrance messages next to a fence.

Two men were buzzed into the second-floor studio shortly before shots were fired inside the studio lounge at 7:30 p.m., police said. As of early Thursday police had made no arrests.

The 37-year-old rapper, whose real name was Jason Mizell, was shot once in the head in the studio’s lounge and died at the scene, said Detective Robert Price, a police spokesman. Urieco Rincon, 25, who was not a member of Run DMC, was shot in the leg, police said. About five other people in the studio at the time were not hurt.

The studio’s entrance was cordoned off by police tape, and next to the candles and flowers, someone had placed an Adidas sneaker _ a reference to the group’s hit song “My Adidas” _ with “R.I.P JMJ” handwritten in marker.

Fan tributes also were posted on Run DMC’s official Web site, which featured a picture of Mizell captioned, “Rest in Peace Jam Master.”

“Jay, your legacy is one of beauty, beats, love, hope and funk,” wrote one fan. “You were the King.”

Mizell served as the platinum-selling group’s disc jockey, providing background for singers Joseph Simmons, better known as DJ Run, and Darryl McDaniels, better known as DMC.

The group is widely credited with helping bring hip-hop into music’s mainstream, including the group’s smash collaboration with Aerosmith on the 1980s standard “Walk This Way” and hits like “My Adidas” and “It’s Tricky.”

“We always knew rap was for everyone,” Mizell said in a 2001 interview with MTV. “Anyone could rap over all kinds of music.”

Dozens of fans who gathered Wednesday night near the studio, located above a restaurant and a check-cashing business, included many people from the Hollis section of the borough, where the members of Run DMC grew up.

“They’re the best. They’re the pioneers in hip hop,” said Arlene Clark, 39, who grew up in the same neighborhood. “They took it to the highest level it could go.”

Doctor Dre, a deejay for a New York radio station who said he had been friends with Mizell since the mid-1980s, said, “This is not a person who went out looking for trouble. … He’s known as a person that builds, that creates and is trying to make the right things happen.”

Chuck D, the founder of the rap group Public Enemy, blamed record companies and the advertising industry for perpetuating “a climate of violence” in the rap industry. “When it comes to us, we’re disposable commodities,” he said.

Leslie Bell, 33, said the band members often let local musicians record for free at the studio, and had remained in Queens to give back to the community.

“He is one great man,” said Bell. “As they say, the good always die young.”

Publicist Tracy Miller said Mizell and McDaniels had planned to perform in Washington, D.C. on Thursday at a Washington Wizards basketball game. Mizell had performed on Tuesday in Alabama, she said.

Mizell was married and had three children, she said.

Run DMC released a greatest-hits album earlier this year. In 2001, the rappers produced “Crown Royal,” breaking an eight-year silence.

In 1986, the trio said they were outraged by the rise of fatal gang violence in the Los Angeles area. They called for a day of peace between warring street gangs.

“This is the first town where you feel the gangs from the minute you step into town to the time you leave,” Mizell said at the time.

___P>

On the Net:

http://thadweb.com/rundmc/

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

———–

washingtonpost.com

FCC OK Unleashes XtremeSpectrum

By Michael Bruno Washtech.com Wednesday, May 29, 2002; Page E05

It’s been a long wait for Vienna-based XtremeSpectrum Inc.

The company has been developing semiconductor technology for wireless transmission of information since it was first funded in November 1998. But the ultra-wideband technology, caught up in a 3 1/2-year examination by the Federal Communications Commission, was just approved a month ago. The company now plans to ship its ultra-wideband chips to its business partners in the next two months.

The move means that by Christmas 2003, consumers may be able to wirelessly transfer movies, digital photos, MP3 clips and other large multimedia files between their computing devices at speeds 10 times faster than the current leading technology.

It also means that XtremeSpectrum hopes to become a leading provider of consumer-focused UWB technology, a field some analysts believe will burgeon soon.

UWB is the latest technology to take on the personal-area-network market, the mass of cables and electronic devices that pervades many homes and small businesses. For the past few years, users have had the option to go wireless, but the trade-off was that their data transfer speeds were not as fast.

Devices such as digital TVs, personal data assistants and MP3 players all use data formats where the speed of the data flow ranges from thousand of bits per second, such as MP3 at 320 Kbps, to millions of bits per second, such as DVDs at 10 Mbps.

Up to now, users had to choose from three formats — Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (802.11b) or 802.11a — to connect their equipment, and each has a downside. Bluetooth, once promoted by big-name tech companies, requires little power but offers speeds of only around 1 Mbps. Wi-Fi, the most prominent of the three technologies, offers speeds of 11 Mbps but needs more power. And 802.11a offers speeds of 54 Mbps but requires lots of power.

On the other hand, UWB promises speeds up to 100 Mbps and requires low power. A stand-alone device can be powered with a single AA battery, according to XtremeSpectrum.

The difference is in how the technology works. Traditionally, a carrier, such as a radio station, has an assigned frequency. UWB operates across a wide gamut of spectrum — 3.1 to 10.6 gigahertz and 24 GHz — and pulses the information instead of carrying it.

“We believe this will be a serious threat to Bluetooth and 802.11,” said David Hoover, an analyst at the Precursor Group in Washington.

Gemma Paulo, a wireless analyst with Arizona-based market research firm In-Stat/MDR, is less sanguine. She said UWB could complement Bluetooth but that it is “not really” a serious threat because federal regulations say it must limit its effectiveness to within 10 meters — although that limitation could be loosened.

According to In-Stat, the home networking market is expected to reach $3.5 billion in 2004 and $4.9 billion in 2006. The wireless portion of that market should hit $2.5 billion in 2004 and grow to $3.7 billion in 2006.

Neither Precursor nor In-Stat provide consulting or investment banking services, the analysts said. Their respective research groups also do not have financial relationships with the companies they cover.

The UWB concept was first developed in the 1950s but didn’t get anywhere until the late 1970s when the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency, a research and development organization for the U.S. military, became interested. In other forms, UWB can be a radar technology that can “see” through walls, forests and under ground.

“They got very interested in ultra-wideband because of its very low cost,” said Robert J. Fontana, president and founder of Germantown-based Multispectral Solutions Inc.

Multispectral Solutions has completed 64 contracts on UWB systems, such as ground-penetrating radar, with the military since late 2000. The 15-person company has been profitable from the start, and Fontana predicts that annual revenue will grow from almost $3 million to $4.5 million or $5 million as the federal government beefs up homeland defense efforts.

But before UWB could be applied commercially, the FCC had to approve it, and that was a long and controversial process. Since UWB spans a range of frequencies already used by wireless phone carriers and various federal agencies, including the global positioning system community, several established interests saw UWB as competition or merely interference. It took the National Telecommunications and Information Administration from September 1998 to February 2002 to negotiate a compromise. The FCC finalized its approval on April 23.

Because UWB pulses a low-power signal across a swath of radio spectrum, rather than streaming a signal on a specific frequency, it would not interfere with broadcasts on any one band.

“It probably produces less interference than a hair dryer being turned on,” said Rich Doherty, an analyst at the Envisioneering Group of Seaford, N.Y.

Still, the FCC is permitting its use in stages; the radio-frequency noise from a UWB device must be2,000 times lower than that emitted by a personal computer, baby monitor or garage door opener. If that produces no interference with other systems, higher levels of power — and increased range of effectiveness — may be approved.

Likewise, because UWB does not boost a signal on a particular frequency, UWB providers do not have to use equipment needed to carry a signal, which in turn knocks down the cost of UWB products.

XtremeSpectrum invested heavily in winning approval of UWB. Although Martin Rofheart, XtremeSpectrum chief executive and co-founder, declined to discuss how much was spent lobbying the government, the company hired 18 people for the effort.

“It was huge,” said analyst Hoover. “They spent a good portion of their [money] on lobbying.”

It was worth it, Rofheart said. Because XtremeSpectrum — formed a month after the regulatory debate began — was so intimately involved in the regulatory process, its chipsets were ready as soon as the FCC gave the final go-ahead.

“We’re trying to beat everyone to market,” Rofheart said.

“They basically designed their [chipset] around how they thought the FCC was going to rule,” analyst Paulo said.

Rofheart won’t discuss revenue projections for 57-person XtremeSpectrum, but he said the company won’t start counting sales until next year when its manufacturing partners start selling their consumer products during the holidays. He expects profitability in 2004.

Meanwhile, the company will rely on its venture capital. Funders include Cisco Systems Inc., Motorola Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Alliance Technology Ventures, Granite Ventures and Novak Biddle Venture Partners. XtremeSpectrum officials have declined to discuss how much they have raised but plan to announce more funding, including new investors, within a month.

That’s good news since the competition is growing. Multispectral Solutions is expanding from government sales to the commercial market. Fontana said his company would introduce geolocation services and audio networking, such as audio systems in churches and arenas, over the next six months.

XtremeSpectrum’s leading rival, Time Domain Corp. of Alabama, has said its PulsON chipsets also will be available to its partners this year. Time Domain, which has an office in the District, is focusing on wireless broadband links and precision radar products.

According to analyst Hoover, Time Domain and XtremeSpectrum are sitting pretty: They are the leading companies in a marketplace that looks to take off.

“They definitely have their foothold,” he said. “They’re going to be around.”

Paulo with In-Stat said XtremeSpectrum has the edge.

“Time Domain wants to be in the consumer space, but they don’t seem to have an organized focus,” she said. “XtremeSpectrum is the only company that seems to know how to play in the commercial realm. The other companies seem to be a little bit more disorganized.”

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

———–