Ex-Times Editor Boyd Dies of Cancer at 56
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Gerald Boyd, a former managing editor of the New York Times who was forced to resign amid a reporter’s plagiarizing scandal, has died. He was 56.
Boyd had been diagnosed with lung cancer in February and had been sick for most of the year, his wife, Robin Stone, said. He died yesterday at his home.
“Every wife would say she’d want her husband to be known as a great person, wonderful husband and father,good citizen,” she said from her home. “But as I’ve said before, as a journalist, he was my hero; and I know he was a hero to many journalists in the profession.”
Boyd and executive editor Howell Raines were brought down by the scandal caused by Jayson Blair, a journalist they had groomed,and criticism of their management style. He resigned in 2003.
The executive editor of the Times, Bill Keller, called Boyd a friend and colleague. “He was one of us,” Mr. Keller said in an e-mail to Times staff.
