The action came yesterday - the same day the paper ran an "editor's note" regarding a front-page story on the lives of Florida oystermen that ran last June 15 with an Apalachicola, Fla., dateline under [Rick Bragg]'s byline. The Times said a reader questioned where the reporting took place, prompting it to review the material.

The paper said "it found that while Mr. Bragg indeed visited Apalachicola briefly and wrote the article, the interviewing and reporting on the scene were done by a freelance journalist, J. Wes Yoder," adding that the article should have carried a double byline.

Yoder told The Post he spent the summer of 2002 as an unpaid intern working directly for Bragg - not for the paper. Yoder said that, in return, Bragg picked up the cost of his apartment in New Orleans as well as food. He said he believed the Times was aware of the unusual arrangement.