March 13, 2012
Romenesko
3 Comments

How a byline problem was solved

Jessica Silver-Greenberg had a front page byline, along with Nelson Schwartz, after her first day at the New York Times. There was one problem, though: her name wouldn’t fit. Business Day night editor Keith Leighty explains how that was solved:

From: Leighty, Keith
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 11:13 PM
To: !NYHQ-bizback
Subject: nite note 03/13

I don’t know if A.M. Rosenthal started this way.
But Jessica Silver-Greenberg would not fit in a one-column space on Page A1.
Nor would Jessica SilverGreenberg, and Jess Silver-Greenberg just wasn’t right.
Thus arises: J.B. Silver-Greenberg.
Thanks a tip of the Stetson to our newest writer.

Cheers,
kel

* Feb. 17: Silver-Greenberg leaves WSJ to cover banking for NYT

Comments

comments

3 comments
  1. Rich Jaroslovsky said:

    The summer between high school and college, I worked at the weekly Santa Rosa (CA) News-Herald, where the byline “By Richard Jaroslovsky” absolutely couldn’t be made to fit in one column. Since I was also doing the pasteup, I put an X-acto knife to work, and “Richard” became “Rich,” as it has been ever since.

  2. anon said:

    By Nelson D. Schwartz
    and
    Jessica Silver-Greenberg

    That seems a better solution than two initials.

  3. bob sheridan said:

    for christopher lehmann-haupt, editors simply never placed him under a one-column headline.