Torch Passed at House of Luce (new TIME ed. backs Cooper's testifying)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: The Torch Is Passed at the House of Luce
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: October 17, 2005


When Norman Pearlstine, the editor in chief of Time Inc., decided early this summer that Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, should testify before a grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case, Mr. Pearlstine's No. 2, John Huey, was uncharacteristically circumspect about what he would have done, had he been in his boss's shoes.

A lot of people wanted to know, especially in the magazine's Washington bureau, which felt hung out to dry by Mr. Pearlstine's decision. It was a defining moment for Time. And Mr. Huey, as Mr. Pearlstine's heir apparent, would soon be in the position of making such decisions himself.

Now he is. Time Inc., a division of Time Warner, the world's largest media company, is to announce today that Mr. Huey, 57, will succeed Mr. Pearlstine, 63, on Jan. 1. This makes Mr. Huey the sixth editor in chief of the storied magazine empire since Henry R. Luce published the first issue of Time in 1923 (though Mr. Luce did not assume the title of editor in chief until the 1940's).

So the question was put to Mr. Huey in an interview last week: Would he have had Mr. Cooper testify before the grand jury?

Yes, he said, he would have reached the same conclusion as Mr. Pearlstine but with two caveats: "If I know then everything I know now," he said, more than three months after the fact, "and if I'm faced with exactly the same situation and data, then yes, I make the same decision."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/business/17time.html?ei=5094&en=dd5fb30fec89bcfa&hp=&ex=1129608000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all