From WNYKRs in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Bob Garfield is away this week.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

The man passed over two years ago for the executive editorship of the New York Times

was named on Monday to just that prestigious post.

Times columnist and former managing editor Bill Keller will replace Joe Lelyveld, the former executive editor who

came out of retirement to run the paper last month after Howell Raines resigned. Rains, of course,

was sent packing in the wake of the Jason Blair scandal, but in the end, he did not go quietly.

Three nights before Keller's appointment, Res went on the Charlie Rose show to

give his version of the story and to discuss his relationship with Times publisher Arthur

Salzberger. Arthur sent me to the newsroom to be a change agent, to lead a talented staff

that was settled into a kind of lethargic culture of complacency, into being a performance

culture.

I'm joined now by Times Executive Editor to Be, Bill Keller.

Bill, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

It's nice to be here.

Now, there was a good deal of revisionism in the Raines interview on Charlie Rose.

Mickey Cowse notes in Slate.com, and I

quote, guess all that contrition reins displayed when he was campaigning to save his job was bogus.

He wouldn't admit to a single mistake except having excessively high standards and moving too fast.

His argument is he was done in by lazy, Lelyveldian pygmies who were defending the status quo

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