A controversy in 2003 about the reporting of Jayson Blair forced both Boyd and the executive editor, Howell Raines, to resign that year.

Boyd started his journalism career in 1973 at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in his hometown city, after graduating from the University of Missouri.

After their mother's death at a young age from sickle cell anemia, their father left the family and they were raised by their paternal grandmother.

By the early 1990s, he moved to New York City, where he led coverage that won three Pulitzer Prizes:[1] Boyd also shared the leadership of The Times reporting following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[2] Boyd and executive editor Howell Raines resigned in June 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair reporting controversy related to plagiarism and fabrication.