Tribute to Abe Rosenthal

Here's the New York Times editorial on Abe Rosenthal who died May 10, 2006. A fitting tribute to Rosenthal was written by Times columnist Clyde Haberman. Click on the headline above to read his column titled "The Guy Who Fired Me Was Right."

Abe Rosenthal of the Times

When A. M. Rosenthal's years as executive editor of this newspaper were over, he wrote fondly of his first day on the job here as a 21-year-old cub reporter. He rushed off on an assignment - a hotel homicide - and after he had proudly flashed his press card and asked to see the corpse, he was told by a detective, "Beat it." That rebuff was a perfect ,
starting point for Abe Rosenthal. He died on Wednesday at the age of 84 after a remarkable six-decade career that included numerous newspaper achievements but none more of a personal memorial than his fierce defense of press freedom - his bristling refusal to accept "Beat it" from government.

This toughness culminated momentously in The Times's battle with the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, the government's own classified history of the grievous missteps that mired the nation in the Vietnam War. He put it this way: "When something important is going on, silence is a lie." In the newsroom, where he led the paper through 17 years of unparalleled journalistic and economic growth, Abe Rosenthal could be a fearsome presence, punishing editors and reporters
for perceived shortcomings. But he was just as un-apologetic in rebuffing outside critics. In both cases, he envisioned The Times as a precious institution that had to be protected daily - "a world of land, sea and mind in which to roam," he once exulted.

The Rosenthal legacy could not be more timely for the current wartime turmoil of an obsessively secretive government's attempts to impinge on traditional press freedoms in new ways. His advice to all in his beloved news business was to beware of gradualism in trying to appease government in this area: "Fight like hell every inch of the way." Conservative in many of his personal views, he never brought his own politics to the newsroom. His passion for the paper's right to get the Pentagon Papers out to readers was never qualified by his private feelings about the Vietnam War.

"Newspapering is not a philosophy, it is a way of spending a lifetime," Abe Rosenthal concluded when his time running this newspaper ended. He added, "If you don't have a sensation of apprehension when you set out to find a story and a swagger when you to sit down to write it, you are in the wrong business."

We are grateful that Abe Rosenthal was in the right business.