A Head of the Times

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Last week's news defers the succession hopes of such seeming contenders as editorial-page editor Howell Raines, 51, and two figures who stand out from the white-male phalanx of Times management -- columnist Anna Quindlen, 40, and assistant managing editor Gerald Boyd, 43, who is black. Says Lelyveld: "The relative shortness of Roberts' return to the Times will mean that it doesn't cut off their career paths."

Roberts, a slow-spoken Southerner -- Lelyveld once timed a conversational pause at 65 seconds -- is all but legendary for his ability to inspire reporters and find assignments that bring out their best. At a newspaper where management tends to be austere, his informality (shambling around a newsroom in stocking feet with his shirttail out) and people skills are likely to have impact. But his biggest challenge will be to strengthen the paper's city and suburban coverage.

At the Times, metro reporting has long been seen as just a steppingstone. Thus, while incomparable at covering Sarajevo or Beijing, the paper is often upstaged at city hall by the tabloid Daily News and it was trounced by Long Island-based Newsday on the World Trade Center bombing and the racially linked shooting of Long Island Rail Road commuters in December.

Up-and-comers have always assumed that the key to their future lay in Washington or foreign bureaus -- as it did for Rosenthal, Frankel, Lelyveld and Roberts. Roberts tacitly concedes this status problem in praising Lelyveld as an exception: "One of the things that impressed me was that he could command any foreign assignment he wanted, but every so often he would come back to metro without any hang-ups." If the two new bosses are to strengthen the far-flung Times's hold on its home terrain, they will probably have to keep weaving that inspirational tale into its institutional mythology.