“He caught a 21-inch rainbow trout and he told me that was a good thing,” said Mr. Sulzberger in a June 10 interview. “I don’t fish so I don’t know.”

But Mr. Sulzberger has begun searching for The Times’ next big fish from around the country. The greatest newsroom in America is being run by Joseph Lelyveld, the former executive editor of the paper, who in a short time has restored the front page of The New York Times to looking like--well, it did before: news, news, news, and a lot of dignity. But Mr. Lelyveld will only be in place for a matter of weeks or months, until Mr. Sulzberger finds his long-term replacement.

“The target for when I have the next executive editor and managing editor in place is when I have them,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “I’m not going to announce them before I have them. There is no target. Joe is in place. The newsroom is working. I will deal with the issues that come up and the good news is that it gives time for me and my colleagues to find the right executive editor and the right managing editor to move forward. There’s no need to dawdle on this, but we’re going to take the time we need.”

There are the names, but they are conventional-wisdom names: former Times managing editor and current Op-Ed columnist Bill Keller, who was passed over for the job when Mr. Raines was chosen; Boston Globe editor Marty Baron; former Timesman and current Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet.

Mr. Sulzberger, for his part, said he’d pick someone who was, first, “a great journalist;” and second, “someone who can manage a complex newsroom,” now providing content for the local and national editions of The Times, a Web site, a cable television channel and The International Herald Tribune.

That, he admitted, will take a strong hand.

“Leadership is what I’m looking for,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “Leadership means not just telling people what to do, but empowering people to tell you what they need. The best leaders are the ones who know how to listen and then provide those tools. It’s leadership.”

“And Howell was a great leader,” he added. “Joe is and was a great leader. But times change, needs change.”

They certainly do, and quickly. When the Blair incident blew open, newsroom speculation and published reports suggested that the Sulzberger family had been divided and instructed Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to get rid of Mr. Raines or walk the plank himself. Reports painted a portrait of Mr. Sulzberger as the susceptible publisher whose family, which owns 16 percent of the company stock but holds 70 percent of the shareholder votes, had to rein him in from his brilliant, intemperate friend Howell.

“I’ve read a lot of poor journalism on this subject. Let me be crystal clear,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “The board of directors of the New York Times Company, whom I report to, was in complete support of these actions when we were trying to deal with the Jayson Blair issue, through the aftermath of the Jayson Blair issue, up to Howell and Gerald’s retirement. I never once felt pressure from them to make a decision or a call. The same is absolutely true of the family. The trustees … were entirely supportive of what we were doing and what we were trying to do. Up to and including Howell and Gerald leaving. If somebody told you differently, they don’t know the facts.”

Mr. Raines, who left the third-floor newsroom of The Times on June 5 with his straw hat in his hand and his new wife, Krystyna Stachowiak, on his arm, went straight to his country house in Pennsylvania without even stopping off at his Greenwich Village townhouse, according to a Newsweek report.

“You know he has a lot to think about, like I have had a lot to think about over the past few weeks,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “It has been a very difficult time for me, for my newsroom; we all need some time to clear our heads and step back from this for awhile.”

For Mr. Raines, destiny seemed to come calling five weeks ago in the person of Jayson Blair, an appealing, smart and aggressive reporter who seemed to hold just the kind of promise Mr. Raines and his friend and boss Arthur Sulzberger Jr. held out for America in the pages of their version of The Times--until that promise was broken, and Mr. Blair was revealed as a fraud. At that point, Mr. Raines began to ooze blood into The Times’ shark pool, and that was that. June 5, Mr. Raines and his trusted deputy, managing editor Gerald Boyd, tendered their resignations to Mr. Sulzberger. The blow was direct, quick and stunning, in the way the guillotine is said to be. One day Mr. Raines was the embattled editor of the world’s most important newspaper; the next, he was fishing in Pennsylvania.

“You know he has a lot to think about, like I have had a lot to think about over the past few weeks,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “It has been a very difficult time for me, for my newsroom; we all need some time to clear our heads and step back from this for awhile.”

But one thing Mr. Sulzberger does not have is time, and there is no stepping back. The interim leadership of former executive editor Joe Lelyveld is already making its mark, and may be doing more to set the terms for Mr. Raines’ permanent successor than many now speculate. And while Mr. Lelyveld is restoring order at The Times, his own exit 21 months ago was not without acrimony, and his return has given new life to feudal rifts at the paper that were suppressed under Mr. Raines’ powerful leadership.

Meanwhile, the aftertaste of a kind of mutiny is still on the breath of Mr. Raines’ detractors, and Times sources have told The Observer that Raines loyalists feel they are finding themselves vulnerable.

To restore his credibility as a leader at The Times, Mr. Sulzberger has to show that the paper’s 21-month affair with Mr. Raines was not a joyride. He will have to proceed along the course he marked out for himself when he took the reins, and first saw potential for change in an organization whose tremendous historical weight sometimes makes it seem impossible to budge. He will have to place Mr. Raines’ successor decisively, successfully and reassert himself as the real arbiter of The Times’ future.

“It’s been a tough time for my stewardship,” Mr. Sulzberger said.

But he retains his signature self-assurance.

“Does it affect my authority?” he asked, then responded to himself: “No.”

“I’m the publisher of this paper and we’re going to learn from this experience, fix what went wrong and we’re going to go forward,” he said firmly. “And that’s just what’s going to happen.”

Sources within The Times told The Observer that the Times leadership is working to find the next executive editor quickly--“Arthur wants the thing done,” a Times staffer said. Asked by The Observer when a permanent editor would be hired, Mr. Sulzberger would not set himself a target date.

Mr. Lelyveld--not quite the cuddly avatar of open communication that revisionists made him in retrospect during the bumpy Raines era---has made it clear who’s in charge.

“Joe’s very confident,” said business and financial editor Glenn Kramon. “It feels like he never left, like those 21 months just disappeared. And he looks better.”

Mr. Lelyveld has reaffirmed his interim status by telling masthead editors that hirings that had already been agreed upon should continue as planned.

But on Tuesday, June 10, he held an enterprise-reporting meeting to re-examine the kind of long-term projects that, sources said, fell away under Mr. Raines’ mandate of spending vast resources to cover the biggest news story of the moment. He also has gone to work reaching to Times constituencies alienated under Mr. Raines. He began calling on bureaus, especially the roiling Washington bureau, to assess what could have happened, how the historically irritable adjunct of the paper managed to become a maelstrom powerful enough to reverse the publisher’s confidence in his most trusted general.

“What you have is a very steady hand at the rudder,” one senior Times reporter said of The Times under Mr. Lelyveld.

To many, Mr. Lelyveld’s paper already looks more focused, more sober.

Not to Mr. Sulzberger.

Asked about the front page since Mr. Raines’ departure, and whether it heralded a new regime at The Times, he bristled.

“Now we’re going to parse the Bible?” he said incredulously. “Trust me, you’re going to find what you look for.”

The product, he said, was the same great product it was under Mr. Raines’ leadership.

But the real party for Mr. Lelyveld is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 5., and you're not invited. The affair, hosted by publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., will be held at the New York Public Library. ( The Times announced earlier this summer that Sept. 6 is Mr. Raines' first day as executive editor.)

Mr. Lelyveld no doubt deserves a bash, but the trouble is that the chosen space at the Public Library holds around 200 guests. And because the Times editorial staff numbers over 1,000, there are a lot of people on West 43rd Street asking, "Why wasn't I invited?"

According to sources, it appears that all the masthead biggies will be there. That includes the deputy managing editors (like Gerald Boyd, who will be Mr. Raines' managing editor) and assistant managing editors like Craig Whitney and Michael Oreskes, as well as editorial-page editor Gail Collins. Also getting nods are the department heads, like John Darnton, who edits the culture section, and Adam Moss, who edits The Times Magazine .

Some writers will be there, too–but mostly just the senior writers, a well-paid grade of veterans at the paper. And some younger reporters whom Mr. Lelyveld considers protégés made the cut as well.

"People's feelings have been hurt," said one reporter who didn't. "[Mr. Lelyveld] is apparently saying that he's not controlling the guest list."

Another source, who also wasn't invited, said, " The Times never does these things very well." He pointed to the 1996 centennial party celebrating 100 years of Sulzberger-Ochs ownership of the paper, when many Times people were left off the guest list in favor of celebrities like Martha Stewart and Tom Brokaw.

A spokesperson for The Times said: "It's a celebratory moment for Joe and his career, and there isn't any more we want to say about it."

–Gabriel Snyder

He's baaaa-ack! On Thursday, Aug. 30, Cahners ended Peter Bart's dunce-cap stint in the corner when it announced that the Variety editor in chief would return to his post on Monday, Sept. 10.

Mr. Bart's career obit, of course, had already been written. Here was one of Hollywood's biggest free-swinging machers –the man who greenlighted The Godfather at Paramount and moved on to journalism, where he wielded the heaviest of pens over the heads of studio bosses and stars–undone by the forces of politics, journalistic correctness and his own tongue. Mr. Bart was suspended on Aug. 17, following the release of a Los Angeles Magazine article that alleged Mr. Bart's use of John Rocker-esque slurs and also that he'd sold a script while serving as editor of Variety . The day the piece broke, many figured him for toast.

But there was Mr. Bart on Thursday, back in Variety 's newsroom, meeting with members of his staff. Cahners Media division president Tad Smith said that after an internal probe, it was decided that Mr. Bart's 21 days without pay had been punishment enough, but that he'd still have to attend sensitivity training (oh, to be a fly on that wall!).

Hardly a career-ender, to say the least. It was, as one source who knows Mr. Bart put it, "a slap on the wrist."

"We all knew he was coming back," said one Variety source. "Our only question was: Why'd it take so long?"

Indeed, for all the hand-wringing in the national media, many of those in Hollywood's innermost circles never thought that Mr. Bart would be axed. They simply presumed that he would sit poolside, take his lumps in the press and wait out the storm.

And now that he's back, they're doubtful that he'll change his old take-no-prisoners approach. As former Universal Pictures chairman Tom Pollock politely put it: "I think Peter Bart is who he is. I doubt he's going to change very much. He's been a very good editor of Variety , and I'm sure that'll continue."

Another was more blunt: "He's 69 years old! I can't see that this will make him change his spots. He's still going to say potentially obnoxious things. I don't seriously think that sensitivity training will help. He's too old to change."

But how long will Mr. Bart last? The West Coast scuttlebutt following Mr. Bart's reinstatement was that Cahners brought its embattled editor back in the fold with the understanding that he'd retire by the end of next year. That way, Mr. Bart would get his graceful exit, and the company would have time to figure out who comes next. One source who knows him told Off The Record, "I wouldn't be surprised if he stepped aside as soon as January."

"In my opinion, he'll be leaving after he turns 70," another source said. "I think Cahners probably asked themselves, 'How much longer is he going to be around?' Now, whomever his successor will be, he'll end up being trained."

A spokesperson for Cahners declined to comment. Likewise, when reached, Mr. Bart politely told Off the Record: "I wish I could help. But the agreement is, I can't talk. Alas."

For the moment, though, a battered but not beaten Mr. Bart is once again running the most powerful entertainment publication in the world. So look out, sources said.

"All of those people who said bad things about Peter during this," one source who knows Mr. Bart said, "better watch their ass."

Does that mean Mr. Bart will be gunning for them?

"That's what I would do."

–Sridhar Pappu

Late on the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 31, callers to the New York Post who asked for columnist Rod Dreher heard this voice-mail greeting:

"Hi, it's Rod Dreher at the New York Post . If you're calling about the Aaliyah column, press 1 to leave a death threat. Press 2 to leave a bomb threat. Press 3 if you want to get me fired. Press 4 if you wish to use profanity. Press 5 if you wish to use racist rhetoric. Press 6 if you want to use anti-Semitic slurs. And please remember to speak as grammatically as you can."

Starting around 9:30 that morning, calls began flooding into the Post about Mr. Dreher's Aug. 31 column questioning the elaborate plans for the 22-year-old pop singer's funeral following her death in a plane crash.

Mr. Dreher wrote: "Right, so we're all sad that Aaliyah is dead, and no one begrudges her a proper sendoff. But a traffic snarling, horse-drawn cortege in honor of a pop singer most people have never heard of? Give us a break!"

Hot 97, the hip-hop radio station, urged its listeners to call Mr. Dreher to complain (somewhat ironic, given that Hot 97 suspended one of its own staffers, a D. J. named Star, for making light of Aaliyah's death on-air). Mr. Dreher told Off the Record that almost 99 percent of the calls accused him of being a racist. The following day, the Reverend Al Sharpton held a press conference to excoriate Mr. Dreher and the Post .

Asked if he had received any actual death threats, Mr. Dreher said, "I've got a couple of them I've saved on my voice mail in case it turns into anything. But I've gotten more threats from people implying there's going to be violence against me: 'Oh, you better watch your back! We're going to come at you with force'–and it's all very racial."

But the volume of calls was enough to cause problems with the Post 's phone and e-mail systems newsroom sources said. And the paper took the threats seriously enough that it increased security at its offices, posting security guards outside the newsroom.

That Friday, Mr. Dreher said, his editors wanted him to write a follow-up column, and he filed one that recounted some of the outraged reader comments. But that column didn't run. The next day, the Post put a mournful photo of the funeral on its front page with the headline "FANS' TEARS FOR AALIYAH," and tapped Andrea Peyser to write a column with the headline "Tragedy Unites Two Different Worlds." And the entirety of the letters column was dedicated to angry Aaliyah fans.

A spokesman for the New York Post said that neither Post editor in chief Col Allan nor publisher Ken Chandler had any comment for Off the Record. Mr. Allan was quoted in the Post 's own story about Mr. Sharpton's press conference as saying, "I stand by Rod Dreher. He had a right to express an opinion."

Mr. Dreher was a bit bemused by all the commotion. "People have said, 'If this was Madonna or Britney Spears or Paul McCartney, you wouldn't be saying the same thing.' Well, of course I would," he said. "And even in that column, you could see I was sort of rolling my eyes at the outpouring of sentimentality around Princess Diana. The column is about celebrity worship, not black celebrity or anything like that."

He added, "What I wish I would have said now, just to sort of further defuse the race thing, and this is what I believe: that, say, Martin Luther King Jr. would have deserved this kind of grand funeral, or even an African-American artist like Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald–somebody of that stature."

And Mr. Dreher was also thankful for the grainy head shot that runs with his column. "My picture that runs with my column, it doesn't really look like me. So a lot of people don't really know what I look like."

–G. S.

On Sunday, Sept. 2., The New York Times ran a long, contemplative piece in its City section about a group of young New York City friends who rented a beachside bungalow at Rockaway Beach. The story–written by Field Maloney, who was identified in an inset caption as "being on the editorial staff of The New Yorker "–was conspicuous in that Mr. Maloney himself did not identify his employer, nor a single one of his housemates. He wrote that the bungalow buddies "worked together at a magazine in the city," but that's kind of like saying you "go to college in New Haven." Mr. Maloney, who himself went to college in Princeton, N.J., was similarly cryptic in referring to one of his bungalow mates as a "tough-nerved editorial assistant" and another as "a fact checker who claims to have body-surfed 6,758 waves," but nowhere did he give their actual names. The absence of names seemed especially strange considering The Times ran a photograph of all the New Yorker -ites inside the section.

And a couple days later, Mr. Maloney still wasn't into divulging the names. When contacted by Off the Record, he referred the phone call to a New Yorker spokeswoman, Perri Dorset. (A call at deadline to City section editor Connie Rosenblum went unreturned.)

"No one was identified because it wasn't relative to The New Yorker ," Ms. Dorset said. "There was no need to identify anyone. It was a piece about Far Rockaway."

O.K. Well, as a service to all, these are the names of the Garbo-esque New Yorker staffers in the Times photo: Lauren Porcaro, William Cohen, Mr. Maloney, Gibbe Slife and Willing Davidson. That's how they appear in the shot, with a guest–Ms. Porcaro's brother–standing in the background.

As A.J. Benza would say: Fame, ain't it a bitch.

–S.P.

Dow Jones & Company and its employees' union seemed to get into scraps over everything this year: health-club membership fees … cafeteria prices … union meetings on company grounds. Now comes word that the union–the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, C.W.A. Local 1096–is ready to butt heads with The Wall Street Journal 's parent company over … birth-control pills.

In an internal memo sent to the company on Friday, the union calls out Dow Jones for its inaction following a June 18 request for the company to include prescriptive birth control in all of its health plans. Citing both a recent federal-court decision and a ruling last December by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to support its case, the letter reads: "We hope the company's answer comes soon and is positive. However if one doesn't come by the end of next month, we are fully prepared to explore filing a formal EEOC complaint."

Dawn Kopecki, head of the union's health-care committee, wouldn't comment on the memo or on possible legal action, but did say: "This is a matter we brought before the company in June. We're waiting to hear back from them."

Dow Jones spokesman Steven Goldstein told Off the Record: "We're looking into it. We haven't made a decision yet. Everyone would like their health plans to cover absolutely everything, and sometimes that's not possible."

Mr. Goldstein also didn't think that the recent series of tiffs foreshadowed negotiations for the new union contract, set to begin next March.

"It's just natural give-and-take," Mr. Goldstein said. "I don't think the union leadership would get elected if they talked about how well the company treats its employees."

Needless to say, the union leadership sees matters quite differently.

"Most of us think it's going to be a tough round of negotiations," said union secretary and treasurer Virgil Hollender.

–S.P.

If Us Weekly editor Terry McDonell's not careful, he may end up inside the pages of his own magazine, just like his Wenner Media colleagues at Rolling Stone , who back in April showed off their good looks in a fashion spread.

"Yeah," Mr. McDonell told Off the Record. "I'm clearly cover material for myself. I look like a healthy middle-age white guy."

Mr. McDonell said he's lost almost 30 pounds since March. And while we'd love to attribute it to the stress of having to constantly clean his desk for the benefit of his famously neat-freak boss, Jann Wenner, the truth is that Mr. McDonell did it the way all those people in Ohio and Indiana do: by cutting out those pesky carbs, eating a lot of meat and working out.

"You realize you should probably get in shape," Mr. McDonell said, "when you're walking alongside one of those big building windows and you look in the glass and suddenly ask, 'Who's that guy?' It had nothing to do with the magazine."

–S.P.

Off the Record can be reached by e-mail at spappu@observer.com or gsnyder@observer.com.

Mr. Weinraub, after meetings on Sept. 15 with Mr. Keller, executive editor Joe Lelyveld and cultural editor John Darnton, will no longer cover the box-office roundups that have become staples of media coverage, Times sources told Off the Record. In their place, Mr. Weinraub will train his eye on other cultural outlets, such as the theater, and expand his beat to Western locales outside California. Mr. Weinraub, however, will continue to pen the Hollywood personality and trend stories he's been writing.

Mr. Weinraub's sin: He's married to Amy Pascal, the president of Columbia Pictures, one of Sony Corporation's Hollywood outposts. This state of affairs is nothing new, as Ms. Pascal and Mr. Weinraub have been linked romantically for several years. When Ms. Pascal moved from Turner Pictures to Columbia last December, Mr. Weinraub recused himself from covering any stories to do with Sony; James Sterngold handles those.

But sources said there was much grumbling among Times editors about the arrangement. Although no one could point to any story in which Mr. Weinraub went easy on Sony, the perception problem nagged. These sentiments came to a head at a management retreat held Sept. 4-6 in Tarrytown, N.Y. The 75 attendees were split into smaller groups to discuss everything from the design of the newsroom to requisites for double bylines. But in the group led by Monday business section editor Felicity Barringer, which included sports editor Neil Amdur as well as foreign editor Andrew Rosenthal, issues of integrity and conflicts of interest quickly became the most heated topic of all.

"The issues are so hard, they have become so much more complicated than they used to be," said one editor who attended the get-together.

What happens when a reporter covering a controversial court case is approached by a book publisher and asked if he or she can get access to one of the principals? Or if a sportswriter is asked to be a ghostwriter for an athlete?

And then there's the ticklish dilemma of modern-day relationships. "In the era of two-career couples, this is a real big problem," said one senior Times editor. A number of examples came up as case studies in the group, sources said. Mr. Weinraub's situation seemed to attract the most attention, perhaps because it was the most visible in the demimonde of the entertainment industry.

Some present were stalwart defenders of the faith, saying all conflicts-both real and perceived-must be avoided. Others thought that was overdoing virtue and argued that reality is what counts, not appearances.

While The Times has always been one of the more diligent newspapers in dealing with conflicts of interest, sources said it is a priority for Mr. Keller, who takes over from Gene Roberts as managing editor later this month. "I do get the feeling that Bill is more of a hard-liner on it," said one attending editor, although it's unlikely any hard or fast rules will be set down.

Mr. Lelyveld, a longtime friend of Mr. Weinraub (he attended Mr. Weinraub's wedding), had no problems with the Hollywood situation. "There's feeling on the part of Lelyveld and others in management that Bernie's done a good job on the beat," said one Times editor. "It took a while to find someone, so they're reluctant to disturb it." In fact, the Los Angeles Business Journal published a laudatory article on Mr. Weinraub on Sept. 15. The headline: "Weinraub gets under Hollywood's skin, and defenses." Mr. Roberts also had no complaints.

But faced with the vocal clamoring of some on staff and Mr. Keller's leanings, Mr. Lelyveld decided to make a move.

Mr. Weinraub and Mr. Darnton declined to comment. Mr. Keller and Mr. Lelyveld could not be reached for comment.

The retreat, however, was not all gnashing of teeth (although the Thursday-night dinner of the masthead descended, as usual, into recriminations). The attendees who spoke to Off the Record expressed astonishment that the event was so productive, given The Times' checkered history with retreats. Some chalked up the difference to the topics: For the first time, issues stretched past the managerial and into content and policy. And the mood was celebratory. The paper was about to go to six sections on most weekdays, get color on days beside Sunday and bid a mostly fond farewell to Mr. Roberts. Mr. Lelyveld, not one known for his public displays of emotion, spoke at length, extemporaneously and from the heart, about how good he thought the paper had become. He said he was most proud of the remakes of the metro, business and magazine sections of the paper.

When Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a fund-raiser of dubious distinction, set up his own lobbying and public relations firm, the National Review became one of his first clients. But William F. Buckley's conservative magazine has handed the smooth-operating Mississippi native his walking papers, deciding it didn't need Mr. Barbour's costly P.R. expertise.

"A lot of that stuff we can do here," said Ed Capano, the magazine's publisher. "We weren't making much of an impact, and it wasn't worth the money we were paying." Rumors around National Review offices put that figure at $50,000, but Mr. Capano said the number was significantly less. ("He gave us a little break," said Mr. Capano.)

Mr. Barbour and his staff at Policy Impact Communications Inc. scatter-faxed advance copies of National Review stories to select people up on Capitol Hill. But the magazine's main reason for hiring Mr. Barbour was to court advertisers at dinners where he would exhibit his considerable charm.

"We felt this made a lot of sense," said Mr. Capano. "We get a lot of advertising out of Washington. With Haley's name, maybe we could attract some more advertisers."

The result? "Not much," said Mr. Capano.

Mr. Barbour attended just two dinners in May and June, and advertisers have not flocked to the magazine. Ad pages so far in 1997, through the Sept. 15 issue, are down nearly 17 percent from the same period last year, to 278.8 pages from 335. The magazine world is having one of its best years ever, but political magazines are not sharing in the bounty. Mr. Barbour, whose masterful spinning powers were on display earlier this summer when he defended his foreign fund-raising schemes in front of a Senate committee, could not snap the National Review out of its advertising malaise.

Despite the lackluster results, Mr. Capano said, Mr. Barbour remains a good friend of the magazine. In fact, Mr. Barbour sailed as a guest on National Review 's annual cruise, where lucky readers willing to pony up the money get to hobnob with top editors of the magazine and assorted political types like columnist Robert Novak, family-values pontificator Gary Bauer and right-wing economist Milton Friedman. The event, which took place last month in the waters off Alaska, drew about 475 people.

Civilization , adrift without an editor in chief since Capital Publishing L.P. bought the magazine in January, has finally found its new leader.

Nelson Aldrich Jr., already the editor of Capital's The American Benefactor , will add the Library of Congress-affiliated magazine to his portfolio. But Mr. Aldrich will have help, thanks to an editorial gimmick now very much in vogue. Each of the bimonthly's issues will have a guest editor, and Mr. Aldrich is about to approach Martin Scorsese, Nelson Mandela and Oprah Winfrey for their views on the meaning and mysteries of civilization. Also on the wish list are Vaclav Havel and Ralph Lauren, said W. Randall Jones, the chief executive of Capital, which also owns Worth . "We're trying to focus the magazine through the unique lens of some of the most fascinating people on the globe," he said. "It will be the voice box of the most extraordinary minds on the planet today." Mr. Jones added that he is not sure how much the celebrities will get for their journalistic efforts. "Certainly a honorarium," he said.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Aldrich resorted to the Star Search method of editing as they try to make the Washington, D.C.-based magazine a viable business. While the 250,000-circulation magazine has been lauded editorially, even winning a National Magazine Award for general excellence in 1996, it had had a tough time getting advertising. That's the main reason its former owners decided to kill it last Christmas after founding editor Stephen Smith departed for the National Journal .

Capital then picked up the magazine at a fire sale. "I thought we were lacking very little other than more promotional support and a handle that the media community could understand," said Mr. Jones. "[The new approach] means every issue is an event, and I think it will garner interest from advertisers." The magazine is also planning a $500,000 ad campaign to raise the publication's profile.

The New Yorker has received the most buzz for bringing in guest editors such as Roseanne to help out, although executives there quickly get testy if anyone assumes that the outsiders actually are running the show. Glenda Bailey, the editor of Marie Claire , has no such qualms. She's given Gwyneth Paltrow the run of the place for the magazine's January issue.

The New Yorker' s Mark Danner angrily yanked his opus about NATO enlargement from the magazine's special April 28-May 5 issue on Europe rather than let it be cut to a mere 10,000 words. But the 13,000-word essay, "Marooned in the Cold War: America, the Alliance, and the Quest for a Vanished World," will not disappear into scrapheap of writing history. World Policy Journal , a quarterly publication from the New School for Social Research, has decided to run it-in full-in its fall issue.

"We think it is the major issue in foreign policy right now," said editor James Chace, who is also the Henry R. Luce Professor in freedom of inquiry and expression at Bard College.

Mr. Danner, however, will not receive New Yorker -level compensation for his work. The World Policy Journal doesn't have much of a budget, and will pay him about $1,000.

Mr. Danner doesn't mind. He gets his work published after all.

The troubles at The New Yorker began after Mr. Danner turned in a 16,000-word essay that lamented the pitiable lack of debate over NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe, a decision that would extend American military protection to Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, possibly unsettling Russia. According to sources close to the magazine, editor Tina Brown loved the piece, but asked that it be cut to about 13,000 words. Mr. Danner complied. Then, other editors decided to cut the essay to 10,000 words, stripping it of the rhetoric that made it more than just a long, wonkish Op-Ed piece. After an angry phone call with Ms. Brown and exchange of some nasty letters, Mr. Danner pulled the piece, sources added. Mr. Danner has not had an article appear in the magazine since.

But the cold war appears to be over. Mr. Danner is completing an article for Ms. Brown about Haiti and the legacy of the Duvalier family.

Wasserstein, Perella & Company, the new owner of American Lawyer Media L.P., has struck out in its first attempt to hire an editorial director for its flagship magazine, The American Lawyer , and its 12 affiliated publications.

Stephen Adler, the deputy page 1 editor and investigative projects editor at The Wall Street Journal , turned down the offer to assume the editorial duties of departed founder Stephen Brill. "I'm staying at The Wall Street Journal ," said Mr. Adler when reached by Off the Record.

Mr. Adler worked at The American Lawyer in the 1980's and wrote a feature in 1983 on investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, now one of the magazine's new owners. Mr. Wasserstein is considering approaching writers like Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker and Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times , said a source with knowledge of Mr. Wasserstein's thinking. Randall Weisenberger, managing director at Wasserstein Perella, declined to talk about the search.

Wasserstein Perella will also have to find a replacement for Karen Dillon, the editor and publisher of The American Lawyer . She is heading to Boston to become deputy editor of Inc. , a magazine for people who own or toil in small businesses. Ms. Dillon had told Mr. Brill of her plans to leave before the company was put up for sale by Time Warner, but opted to stay on through the transition. Depending on whom Wasserstein Perella chooses, the candidate may combine Mr. Brill's and Ms. Dillon's responsibilities. Barbara Johnson, the president and chief operating officer of American Lawyer Media, has been asked to stay on by the new owners.

Wasserstein Perella, through its United States Equity Partners investment fund, bought the company for about $60 million. The firm plans to purchase other legal and business-related publications; spin off newsletters, conferences and legal-book imprints; and attract national advertisers such as luxury auto makers and cellular phone makers.

Meanwhile, Steven Brill will no longer be able to put off prospective employees for the media magazine he's been working on. He's decided to give Content the green light.

"Oh, it's a go," Mr. Brill told Off the Record.

The responses to direct-mail packages sent out at the beginning of September are coming in ahead of expectations, so Mr. Brill expects a launch next April or May. Mr. Brill mailed out 230,000 solicitations, hoping for a 3.5 percent (8,050) response-a number considered more than decent in the world of new magazines. So far, the percent of response is shaping up to be two to three times that.

One letter did miserably. It was sent to 5,000 elite lawyers and mentioned Mr. Brill more than any of the other letters. "It's almost like someone didn't mail it," said Mr. Brill, whose in-your-face approach to magazines and employment techniques has made him a controversial character.

Mr. Brill plans to make Content a glossy mainstream magazine, charging $14.95 for 10 issues to start. A sample cover in the mailing features stories about how TV networks are loath to make corrections, how Fortune got so good, and which five financial pundits are never right. Many industry experts, however, wonder where the advertising and reader base for a large-circulation magazine about the media are going to come from. (Mr. Brill expects the magazine to ultimately reach the 700,000-circulation level.) "It's not just about an industry," Mr. Brill responded. "It's a consumer guide for the information age."

Mr. Brill may also have trouble finding the 45 members of the editorial staff he plans to build. Journalists intent on protecting their viability within the system may not be too happy to work for a magazine that vows to hold the media accountable, root out its abuses and hold them up to the cold, cruel light of day.

Mr. Brill said he's not worried. He said Content will also applaud those who do things right. "I think there are a lot of journalists who feel frustrated and embarrassed about being journalists and see the magazine as a way to improve journalism."