Philip Taubman Named Deputy Editorial Page Editor Of The New York Times.

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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 1, 2001

Philip Taubman, the assistant editorial page editor of The New York Times, has been named deputy editorial page editor, effective in March 2002.

He will succeed Philip M. Boffey, who plans to retire in March.

In making the announcement, Gail Collins, editorial page editor of The Times, said, "Phil's talent for writing and editing, combined with his depth and breadth of knowledge, will make him a tremendous leader for the editorial pages in the years ahead. He'll make a worthy successor to Philip Boffey, whose tenure as deputy editor has been marked by strong, eloquent writing and a commitment to the highest journalistic integrity."

Mr. Taubman, 53, became assistant editor of the editorial page at The Times in November 1994. He served previously as deputy national editor from 1993 to 1994, and deputy Washington editor from 1989 until 1992. Mr. Taubman was based in Moscow from 1985 until the end of 1988, covering the first turbulent years of Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as Soviet leader. He served as Moscow bureau chief from 1986 to 1988.

Mr. Taubman joined The Times in 1979 as a reporter in the Washington Bureau, initially covering the Justice Department and working on investigative projects and later specializing in national security and intelligence issues.

Mr. Taubman has received two George Polk awards - the first in 1981, shared with Jeff Gerth and Seymour M. Hersh, for national reporting about two former C.I.A. employees who provided aid to Libya, and the second in 1983 for foreign affairs reporting for coverage of American policy in Central America.

Mr. Taubman's career in journalism began in 1970 as a correspondent in Boston for Time magazine. Later he moved to New York as a staff writer and sports editor and then went to the magazine's Washington bureau to cover labor and economic policy. His reporting there led to an article in Time exposing the tangled finances of Bert Lance, President Carter's budget director. He left Time in 1977 to become a writer at Esquire magazine.

While at Stanford University, where he graduated in 1971, Mr. Taubman was editor of the campus newspaper, The Stanford Daily. He was a member of the University's Board of Trustees from 1978 to 1982.

Mr. Boffey, 65, has served as deputy editorial page editor since 1990. He joined The Times as an editorial writer in July 1977, switched to the science reporting staff in September 1981 and joined the Washington bureau in July 1982. He returned to New York as deputy science and health editor in 1988, became science and health editor in 1989, and deputy editorial page editor in 1990.

Mr. Boffey was a member of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes: the first in 1986 for a series on the "Star Wars" missile defense system, the second in 1987 for coverage of the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.

He served as president of the National Association of Science Writers, the leading professional group of science journalists, from 1984 to 1986 and is a director of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

Mr. Boffey began his career in journalism in 1961 as a reporter for The Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal. He joined The Chicago Daily News in 1964 and The Wall Street Journal in 1966. From 1967 to 1971 and again from 1975 to 1977 he was a reporter for Science, the journal of the American Association for the advancement of Science. In the interim, he was managing editor of Science and Government Report, a Washington-based newsletter, and assistant editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mr. Boffey is the author of "The Brain Bank of America," an investigation of the National Academy of Sciences, published in 1975. Mr. Boffey also received the American Psychiatric Association's Robert T. Morse Award in 1987 for a series on schizophrenia; the American Association for the Advancement of Science-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award in 1986 for space shuttle coverage; the Page One Award of the Newspaper Guild of New York in 1986 for "Star Wars" coverage; and the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society journalism award for coverage of the swine flu immunization campaign.

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