New York Times Announces Columnist Anthony Lewis to Retire.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2001

The New York Times announced today that Anthony Lewis, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, would retire as a columnist for the newspaper effective December 15.

His column, called Abroad at Home, has appeared on the Op-Ed page since 1969. Mr. Lewis's final column will appear on December 15.

"Working with Tony Lewis has been an honor and an inspiration," said Gail Collins, editorial page editor of The Times. "His fearlessness, the clarity of his writing and his commitment to human rights and civil liberties are legendary. And he's also one of the kindest people I have ever known."

Prior to becoming a columnist Mr. Lewis, 74, was based in Washington, D.C., covering the Supreme Court, and in London as Times bureau chief.

From 1948 to 1952 he worked for the Sunday Department of The Times. In 1952 he became a general assignment reporter for the Washington Daily News where in 1955 he won his first Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, for a series of articles on the dismissal of a Navy employee as a security risk. The articles led to the employee's reinstatement.

Mr. Lewis joined the Washington Bureau of The Times in 1955, to cover the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and other legal subjects. From 1956 to 1957 he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, studying law. In the following years he reported on, among other things, the Warren Court and the federal government's responses to the civil rights movement. He won his second Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for his coverage of the Supreme Court.

Mr. Lewis became London Bureau chief of The Times in 1964 and began writing his Abroad at Home column from London in 1969. Since 1973 he has resided in Boston.

He is the author of three books: "Gideon's Trumpet," published in 1964, about a landmark Supreme Court case giving impoverished criminal defendants the right to an attorney, "Portrait of a Decade," about the great changes in American race relations, and "Make No Law," published in 1991 by Random House, about The New York Times v. Sullivan case, the landmark Supreme Court decision which changed the course of First Amendment litigation in America. He has also published numerous articles in legal journals.

Mr. Lewis was born in New York City on March 27, 1927. He attended the Horace Mann School in New York and received his B.A. degree from Harvard College in 1948.

Mr. Lewis was a Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School, teaching a course on The Constitution and the Press for fifteen years. He has taught at a number of other universities as a visiting professor, among them the Universities of California, Illinois, Oregon and Arizona. Since 1983 he has held the James Madison Visiting Professorship at Columbia University.

He has received a number of honorary degrees. In 1983 he was the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Fellow at Colby College. In 1987 he delivered the John Foster Memorial Lecture at University College, London.

The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT), a leading media company with 2000 revenues of $3.5 billion, publishes The New York Times, The Boston Globe and 16 other newspapers; owns eight network-affiliated television stations and two New York radio stations; and has more than 40 Web sites, including NYTimes.com and Boston.com. In 2001 the Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune's list of America's Most Admired Companies. In October 2000 the Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune's survey of the Global Most Admired Companies. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

This press release can be downloaded from www.nytco.com