Erlanger takes cultural reins at Times
Vet Darnton named associate editor for special projects
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The newspaper's Berlin bureau chief, Erlanger will succeed one of the Gray Lady's venerable editors, and a Pulitzer-winning writer and novelist.
Darnton, 60, who has worked for the newspaper in various capacities for 36 years, will take the newly created position of associate editor for special projects, a role that entails moderating and arranging forums on international, domestic and cultural issues for the daily, its TV division and Web site.
Several insiders and Times watchers noted that parachuting a foreign correspondent -- albeit a very respected one -- into one of the most influential arts jobs in the country seems like an unusual decision.
The paper doesn't agree.
"It is the Times' policy to identify people with superior talent and move them through a variety of positions," spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said. "By behavior, education and sensibility, he is very well suited, and we believe he will do an outstanding job."
Traditionally the paper holds its foreign reporters in extremely high esteem and prides itselfon the adaptability of its writers and editors. Darnton was London bureau before the previous executive editor, Joseph Lelyveld, put him in charge of the paper's arts coverage in 1996.
Meanwhile, several insiders didn't seemed shocked by Darnton's departure, adding that Raines had made some high-profile changes to establish his own mark on the institution.
Erlanger's appointment, however, may contradict the much-publicized notion that Raines sought more pop culture in the arts coverage.
A Phi Beta Kappa and a former teaching fellow at Harvard U. and then at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Erlanger was a co-winner of a Pulitzer this year for being part of a team that uncovered the provenance of the terrorist syndicate Al Qaeda.
Before moving to Berlin, he was bureau chief for Central Europe and the Balkans and held the same position in Moscow.
His most recent posting in the United States was in Washington, where from 1996 to '99 he was chief diplomatic correspondent.
"He's clearly not a pop culture guy. He's more about affairs of state," an insider said. "He's not someone who's going to turn the section into Spin Magazine."
