Baquet in two-way derby to run NYT, Observer says

The New York Observer's Sridhar Pappu writes today that newsroom sources at the New York Times say the derby to become executive editor is now a two-man race between former NYT managing editor Bill Keller and current L.A. Times M.E. Dean Baquet. Seconding earlier conventional wisdom, Pappu reports: Privately, according to sources with knowledge of the situation, Mr. Baquet has told friends that he wouldn't accept what many within the paper had earlier viewed as the ideal compromise: bringing him in as managing editor to serve under Mr. Keller, to be groomed as the eventual executive editor in his turn."

Meanwhile, veteran L.A. Times staff writer Kenneth Reich has sent Romenesko a defense of Howell Raines and calls for his return:"It is time for journalists who have different views to speak out. Under Howell Raines, a courageous battler for human rights who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights struggles there, The New York Times was a great newspaper. Already, in the two weeks he has been gone, it has seemed bland by comparison."