For Young Journalists, Gerald Boyd Pointed the Way

Accurately covering race in America was another one of Boyd's passions. During his career he would help guide his paper to several Pulitzer Prizes on many topics, including terrorism, poverty and one for the series "How Race Is Lived in America."

We didn't talk regularly. We didn't have to. But whenever we did, it was not so much as student-teacher anymore but as colleagues. And that made us both proud.

I saw him that first year he became managing editor at the Times. I was in the city for work and stopped in to say hello. He was in his new office and he talked about how excited he was to have the job, and how hard a job it was.

There was a lot of work to be done, he said. I knew, too, that throughout his climb at the Times there had been all kinds of pressures, including those that come with being a black man in management.

It would be a year later when Jayson Blair would blow up the New York Times. Blair was a troubled young man who fabricated stories and shook the newsroom -- and the paper's credibility -- to its core. The scandal ended the two-year leadership of top editor Howell Raines and Boyd. It was a heartbreaker. But I wasn't just sorry that my teacher and friend had been short-circuited. I was angry.

I, like many journalists, and not just black ones, was incensed when some charged that because Boyd and Blair were black men, Boyd had gone easy on the young reporter. How, after Boyd had proved himself for so many years, could his integrity, and the integrity of all black journalists, be called into question simply because of race? Boyd was a black man, and a black man who cared about race in America, but he was not crippled by it.

I knew how exacting and tenacious he was, how much he demanded excellence, and how much he believed in what he was doing. I had even fended off complaints from other black journalists who charged that he was too hard or didn't care about them. Though Boyd acknowledged that he and Raines had made mistakes, coddling Blair because of his race wasn't one of them.

When I called him after his resignation, he assured me that he would be all right. And I knew he would, but I also knew how much he had loved the work and how long he had loved it.

As his wife, Robin Stone, who is left to care for their young son, Zachary, said the other day, "Journalism was his life."

And though I still miss deadlines on occasion, I know I have been enriched by that life. As have we all.