NEW YORK (AP) — Joseph Lelyveld, a profession journalist who rose from copy boy to overseas correspondent to government editor at The New York Instances and received a Pulitzer Prize for a nonfiction e book, died Friday. He was 86.
Lelyveld handed away at his Manhattan house resulting from issues from Parkinson’s illness, Janny Scott, his longtime accomplice and a former Instances reporter, instructed the newspaper.
“Cerebral and introspective, Mr. Lelyveld was for practically 4 many years one of the vital revered journalists in America, a globe-trotting adventurer who reported from Washington, Congo, India, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and London, successful popularity of his prolific and perceptive articles,” the Times reported in a narrative about his loss of life.
Lelyveld was employed by the Instances as a duplicate boy in 1962 and went on to carry plenty of reporting posts. He was government editor from 1994 to 2001, retiring every week earlier than the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults.
Throughout his tenure in that put up, “The Instances climbed to file ranges of income and earnings, expanded its nationwide and worldwide readerships, launched shade images to the entrance web page, created new sections, and ushered within the digital age with a Instances web site and round the clock information operations,” the paper stated.
Lelyveld oversaw the paper because it coated main tales from the Oklahoma Metropolis bombing and the O.J. Simpson trial to the Catholic Church’s intercourse abuse scandals and the 2000 presidential election received by George W. Bush.
The Instances received a number of Pulitzers beneath his watch, and he himself received a Pulitzer in 1996 for his nonfiction e book “Transfer Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White.”
Lelyveld retired in 2001 however returned two years later to serve briefly as interim government editor after the resignations of Government Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd within the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal.
Present and former staffers took to social media to reward Lelyveld on Friday.
“He gently guided my Instances profession and ensured that I had one of the best care once I was fairly ailing. I’m ceaselessly indebted to this nice journalist and even higher man. Deep respect,” senior author Dan Barry posted on X, previously often known as Twitter.
Lelyveld was born in Cincinnati in 1937 and lived in a number of locations earlier than settling together with his household on the Higher West Facet of Manhattan. He was the oldest of three sons of Arthur Lelyveld, a rabbi and civil rights activist, and Toby Lelyveld, a former actress and Shakespeare scholar, the Instances reported.
He graduated from the Bronx Excessive Faculty of Science and Harvard, the place he earned a bachelor’s in English literature and historical past and a grasp’s in American historical past, in keeping with the Instances. He would later earn a grasp’s in journalism from Columbia.
In his 2005 memoir, “Omaha Blues: A Reminiscence Loop,” Lelyveld stated he had a knack for remembering names and different data.
“It got here in helpful telling the tales of others, which is what I finally did for a dwelling,” he wrote. “I may recall obscure details, make intuitive connections, ask the fitting questions.”
Lelyveld is survived by Scott, two daughters from his marriage to Carolyn Fox, who died in 2004, and a granddaughter.