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Center for Communications, Capital, NY Post

Two Reporters Well-Known to Those in the TV Business Are Leaving The New York Times: TV Reporter Bill Carter and Advertising Reporter Stuart Elliott Take Buyouts. Both Are 20 Year-plus Vets of the Paper

Dec 8, 2014  •  Post A Comment

Bill Carter and Stuart Elliott, who cover the TV business and Madison Ave., respectively, for The New York Times, are both leaving the paper, taking buyouts as the paper seeks to reduce its staff by 100 positions.

According to a bio of Carter, 65, found on the site of the Center for Communications, he “joined The New York Times as a national media reporter in 1989. In addition to his work for the newspaper, Mr. Carter has written numerous articles for The New York Times Magazine, including four cover stories.

“Mr. Carter has covered the television industry for over 25 years. From 1975 until 1989, he was a television critic for The Baltimore Sun, writing four to six columns, reports and features per week, as well as a weekly television sports column. From 1973 to 1975, Mr. Carter was assistant foreign editor at The Sun, substituting at times as foreign editor, national editor and news editor.”

According to Keith Kelly, the media reporter for the New York Post, Carter “is leaving with a new book contract from Viking in hand.”

Says Carter’s bio, “Mr. Carter is the author of the 1994 best-selling book ‘The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno and the Network Battle for the Night.’ He is also the co-author of the 1987 book ‘Monday Night Mayhem: The Inside Story of ABC’s Monday Night Football.’ In 2006, Mr. Carter published the book ‘Desperate Networks,’ a behind-the-scenes story of some of the biggest shows on television.”

Carter also wrote the 2010 book “The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy.”

According to the website Capital, “Carter called the decision to leave ‘tremendously agonizing … I love this job and I love The New York Times and I have many close friends here. … It’s really not because I want to work somewhere else.’

“Rather, Carter said he was swayed by the financials of the offer. ‘This is a pretty amazing offer for journalists who don’t expect to get that kind of severance ever,’ he said. ‘I felt like I owed it to my family and myself to sort of get a nest egg out of this.’ ”

According to Kelly, the terms of the buyouts are “three weeks’ pay for each year of work plus a sweetener equal to 35 percent of the final annual salary.”

The ad reporter, Stuart Elliott, has been with Times since 1991. Prior to that he wrote about advertising for USA Today, and, before that, at Advertising Age, a publication, like TVWeek, owned by Crain Communications.

According to the Post, Elliott wrote on his Facebook page, “For many, many years covering advertising, marketing and media, I’ve written about people who are ‘leaving to pursue other interests’ or leaving ‘to explore career opportunities’ or even to ‘spend more time with (his/her) family.’ Now I am going to be one of those people.

“After 23 1/2 wonderful, stressful, exciting years at The New York Times — writing the daily Advertising column, daily and weekly Addenda (with all those people items) and for almost 14 years the weekly In Advertising email newsletter — I am going to be leaving.”

Other well-known names taking the buyout include Floyd Norris, the Times’ chief financial correspondent, and Christine Haughney, who covers magazines and newspapers.

Dec. 19 will be the last day of work at The Times for many who took the buyouts, according to Capital.

Bill-CarterBill Carter on Charlie Rose’s PBS program

stuart-elliottStuart Elliott being interviewed on TV

One Comment

  1. Both can now write books full-time.

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