View from the top: the life of an editor

What’s it really like to head up a world class news organ­iz­a­tion? The New York Times’ Bill Keller shares with read­ers the loneli­ness of command:

Q. I think a lot of young journ­al­ists and edit­ors, myself included, are curi­ous about what a day in the shoes of Bill Keller is like. Can you walk us through a nor­mal work day for The Times’s exec­ut­ive editor?
— Devin Baner­jee, Stan­ford, Calif.

A. Really? You’d be inter­ested in that? Well, I think my life is pretty much what you would ima­gine it to be.

I wake up most morn­ings to the tele­phone, invari­ably some world leader or inter­na­tional celebrity seek­ing my coun­sel. Lately it’s been a lot of Pres­id­ent Obama — again with the damn puppy? — but some­times it’s Richard Hol­brooke to pick my brain about Afgh­anistan, or Bruce Spring­steen ask­ing if it isn’t time for another Arts and Leis­ure cover story about Bruce Spring­steen. The valet brings break­fast with the hand­ful of news­pa­pers that have not gone out of busi­ness. In the limo on the way to the office, I help War­ren Buf­fett sort out his port­fo­lio and give trad­ing advice to George Stein­bren­ner, not that he ever listens.

At the office, Arthur Sulzber­ger Jr. and I have our morn­ing con­fer­ence call with Vladi­mir Putin, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-il and Mah­moud Ahmad­ine­jad — plus Fidel Castro when he’s com­pos mentis. Dic­tat­ing the world’s agenda entails a lot of con­fer­ence calls. I’ve been encour­aging the cabal to save some money by using iChat, but first we have to per­suade Putin to wear a shirt.

Lunch at the Four Sea­sons is always a high point. Today it’s my weekly tête-à-tête with Bill O’Reilly. He’s really not the Neander­thal blow­hard he plays on TV. He’s totally in on the joke. After a couple of cos­mo­pol­it­ans, he does a wicked impres­sion of Ann Coulter. We usu­ally spend the lunch work­ing up out­land­ish things he can say about the New York Times and mak­ing fun of Fox exec­ut­ives. (Once Rupert Mur­doch showed up for a lunch date, and O’Reilly had to hide under the table for half an hour.)

I spend most of the after­noon writ­ing all the stor­ies for the front page. (You knew those were all pseud­onyms, right?) I write Tom Fried­man’s column, too, but, I swear, Bill Kris­tol wrote all his own stuff.

By then it’s time for drinks and din­ner. If you’re read­ing this, Julian, I think the duck tonight. I had the foie gras for lunch. And no time for dessert. The Sec­ret­ary of State is com­ing by to give me a back rub.

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Ann Coulter, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Bill Keller, Bill Kristol, Bill O'Reilly, Bruce Springsteen, California, Conference Call, Devin Banerjee, Fidel Castro, George Steinbrenner, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Obama, Richard Holbrooke, Rupert Murdoch, Stanford, The New York Times, The New York Times Co, The Times, The Times Global Broadcasting Co Ltd, Tom Friedman, United States, Vladimir Putin, Warren Buffett