A. M. Rosenthal

Abraham Michael "Abe" Rosenthal (May 2, 1922 – May 10, 2006) was a Canadian-born American journalist who served as The New York Times executive editor from 1977 to 1986. Previously he was the newspaper's metropolitan editor and managing editor. Following his tenure as executive editor, he became a columnist (1987–1999). Later, he had a column for the New York Daily News (1999–2004).

He joined the newspaper in 1943 and remained at the Times for 56 years, to 1999. Rosenthal won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for international reporting. As an editor at the newspaper, Rosenthal oversaw the coverage of numerous major news stories including the escalation of the United States military's involvement in the Vietnam War (1961–1975), the New York Times scoop of the Pentagon Papers (1971), and events that were part of the Watergate scandal (1972–1974). Rosenthal was instrumental in the paper's coverage of the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder case, which established the concept of the "bystander effect", but later came to be regarded as flawed and not credible.

Together with Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, he was the first Westerner to visit a Soviet Gulag camp in 1988. His son, Andrew Rosenthal, was The New York Times editorial page editor from 2007 to 2016. His eldest son, Jonathan Rosenthal, is a retired physician who specialized in infectious diseases. His middle son, Daniel, is a retired financial executive who now owns a horse farm.

Early years

Rosenthal was born on May 2, 1922, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, to a Jewish family. His father, Harry Shipiatsky, was a farmer who immigrated to Canada from Poland in the 1890s and changed his name to Rosenthal. He also worked as a fur trapper and trader around Hudson Bay, where he met and married Sarah Dickstein.

The youngest of six children, he was still a child when his family moved to the Bronx, New York, where Rosenthal's father found work as a house painter. During the 1930s, though, tragedy hit the family when Rosenthal's father died in a job accident and four of his siblings died from various causes.

Rosenthal developed the bone-marrow disease osteomyelitis, causing him extreme pain and forcing him to drop out of DeWitt Clinton High School. After several operations at the Mayo Clinic, Rosenthal recovered enough to finish public schools in New York City and attend the City College of New York. and in 1943, while still a student, became the campus correspondent for The New York Times. He assigned the story to reporter Martin Gansberg, who wrote an article published March 27, 1964, titled "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police." (The article actually claimed there were 38 witnesses, but an error reduced the number by one in the headline.) The story was a sensation, prompting inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect or "Genovese syndrome." Rosenthal wrote a book on the subject, and the incident became a common case study in American and British introductory psychology textbooks.

Immediately after the story broke, WNBC police reporter Danny Meehan discovered many inconsistencies in the article. Meehan asked The New York Times reporter Martin Gansberg why his article failed to reveal that witnesses did not feel that a murder was happening. Gansberg replied, "It would have ruined the story." Not wishing to jeopardize his career by attacking powerful The New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal, Meehan kept his findings secret and passed his notes to fellow WNBC reporter Gabe Pressman. Later, Pressman taught a journalism course in which some of his students called Rosenthal and confronted him with the evidence. Rosenthal was irate that his editorial decisions were being questioned by journalism students and angrily berated Pressman in a phone call.

Decades later, researchers confirmed the serious flaws in The New York Times article. Only a dozen people saw or heard the attack, and none of them saw the entire incident. The newspaper admitted in 2016 that the witnesses did not know that a murder was taking place, assuming that two lovers or drunks were quarreling. Two people called the police, and one person went outside to Genovese and held her in her arms as she died.

Editor

In 1969, Rosenthal became managing editor of The New York Times with overall command of the paper's news operations.

Political views

Rosenthal supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and suggested that the United States should give Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Sudan an ultimatum and order the countries to deliver documents and information related to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations. Otherwise, "in the three days the terrorists were considering the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries would be urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day."

Rosenthal was also criticized for being extremely homophobic, with his views affecting how the New York Times covered issues regarding gay people including the early years of the AIDS epidemic. According to former Times journalist Charles Kaiser, "Everyone below Rosenthal (at the New York Times) spent all of their time trying to figure out what to do to cater to his prejudices. One of these widely perceived prejudices was Abe’s homophobia. So editors throughout the paper would keep stories concerning gays out of the paper."

Later career

Rosenthal had a weekly column at the New York Daily News following his run as a columnist at the Times until 2004.

Titles at The New York Times

1943-1945—General assignment reporter: New York.
1945-1954—Reporter: United Nations.
1954-1967—Foreign correspondent: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Ceylon, New Guinea, Vietnam, Switzerland, Poland, Africa and Japan.
1963-1967—Metropolitan editor.
1967-1968—Assistant managing editor.
1968-1969—Associate managing editor.
1970-1977—Managing editor.
1977-January 1, 1988—Executive editor.
1988-1999—Columnist.

Awards and honors

Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (1960)
The Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award
An honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College
The Light of Truth Award (1994)
The Guardian of Zion Award (1999)
The Presidential Medal of Freedom (2002)

Bibliography

One More Victim: The Life and Death of a Jewish Nazi. New York: The New American Library, 1967. Rosenthal, A.M. & Gelb, Arthur.
Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case. University of California Press. .

References

External links

Obituaries

"A. M. Rosenthal, Editor of The Times, Dies at 84", The New York Times, May 11, 2006 and video (4:48 min.)
Obituary by Charles Kaiser, former NY Times reporter
"A.M. Rosenthal, who reshaped the Times, dies in NYC", CBC, May 11, 2006
"Just the circus, and no elephants", Washington Times, editorial with Rosenthal anecdotes
"A.M. Rosenthal (1922–2006). Ugly genius", Slate, May 11, 2006

Books about Rosenthal and/or The New York Times

The Kingdom and the Power, by Gay Talese, 1969, 2007-reprint, Random House Trade Paperbacks, ;
Fit To Print: A. M. Rosenthal and His Times, by Joseph C. Goulden, 1988, Lyle Stuart, 403 pp. ;
My Times, by John Corry, Putnam, 1994, ;
My Times: A Memoir of Dissent, by John L. Hess, Seven Stories Press, 2003 ;
City Room, by Arthur Gelb, Putnam Adult, 2003, ;

Rosenthal articles

"How the U.S. Can Win the War", September 14, 2001
"Get the Taliban & Saddam, Too", September 28, 2001