I’m sure most of you have heard about The New York Times firing its executive editor, Jill Abramson, last week.
It surprised the heck out of me when I heard about it while vacationing in Washington D.C., but after learning more about what triggered it, it was clear that Abramson had to go.
The Times’ great media columnist David Carr laid all the cards on the table Monday. The backdrop was that Abramson, the first female executive editor at The Times, and Managing Editor Dean Baquet — who has now succeeded Abramson in the top newsroom job — had been at war for some time.
POLITICO reported last year that earlier in 2013 Baquet once slammed his fist against a newsroom wall after Abramson privately chastised him for the paper’s coverage not being “buzzy” enough in the days or weeks before the reprimand.
The POLITICO story went on to say this:
Abramson
“In recent months, Abramson has become a source of widespread frustration and anxiety within the Times newsroom. More than a dozen current and former members of the editorial staff, all of whom spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity, described her as stubborn and condescending, saying they found her difficult to work with. If Baquet had burst out of the office in a huff, many said, it was likely because Abramson had been unreasonable.”
It didn’t hurt that Baquet apparently is just the opposite of Abramson — supportive and solicitous of employees and, consequently, well liked.
Now, if otherwise successful, a top editor can get away with being stubborn and condescending, but you can’t get away with making a fatal personnel mistake.
What Abramson did was attempt to bring in a senior editor at The Guardian of London as a co-managing editor for digital. That would have put the prospective hire, a woman named Janine Gibson, on equal footing with Baquet. Trouble is Abramson didn’t tell Baquet about her intention. It’s not clear if she told Sulzberger, but she would have had to get his approval for the hiring at some point.
Carr called the secretive hiring attempt “a big tactical mistake.” Baquet, he said, “was furious and worried about how it would affect not only him but the rest of the news operation as well.”
Baquet
That prompted Baquet to go “all in,” as they say on poker TV, by going to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and saying he would leave the paper if Gibson’s hiring went through.
It was the ultimate bold play, but Baquet was holding the silver bullet — Abramson’s overt attempt to circumvent him — and Sulzberger chopped her head off and elevated Baquet, who is the first African-American to become executive editor of The Times.
The firing triggered “a gleeful frenzy in Manhattan media,” as Carr put it, with Abramson being stoutly defended by several writers. Inside the newsroom, the eruption sparked considerable anxiety, according to Carr, particularly among female employees who are wondering if The Times is “a fair place to work.”
But here’s what I love about The Times…In the larger scope of things, the masthead revision probably will make very little difference in how the paper operates.
Here’s how Carr explained that:
“We have a talented executive editor, a stable if challenged business outlook and a very dedicated audience. To the extent that The New York Times does anything remarkable, it emerges from collaboration and shared enterprise. It’s worth remembering that its legacy begets an excellence that surpasses the particulars of who produces it.”
Carr
Carr experienced the importance of that sense of shared enterprise before he was hired. He recalled being interviewed by then-managing editor Gerald Boyd, and Boyd being skeptical of Carr’s lack of daily experience and “my more noisy tendencies.”
But Carr, being quick on his feet and blessed with extraordinary perspective, realized what Boyd wanted to hear and said, “I understand that if I come to work at The New York Times, the needs of the many will frequently supersede the needs of the one.”
And with that, Carr was in…And now, with a brand new executive editor, The Times rolls on.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I’m trying to remember, was it an article about The Times, or The Post that discussed the growing irrelevancy of its editorial department and how no one cared what their opinion writers wrote anymore?
Great subject you bring up here, John. Thanks.
…I went looking for that story after reading your comment and found it. It appeared earlier this year in the New York Observer, and I recommend that anyone interested in the state of journalism read it. It’s titled “The Tyranny and Lethargy of The Times Editorial Page.”
http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/
Essentially, it says that while The Times news division has been getting progressively stronger, the editorial side has fallen off badly. Times reporters put the blame squarely — if anonymously — at the feet of editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal, who is reported to be lazy and imperialistic.
I have to agree with the Observer’s conclusion. The Sunday Review section seldom has much of interest to offer, and it’s an entire section! Also, The Times’ daily editorials often lack punch, and some of the Op-Ed writers seem to be losing their way. For example, Paul Krugman, who writes mostly about economic matters, tends to be terribly redundant, and he is absolutely incapable of turning a phrase or writing an entertaining line. His prose lies like a frozen turd. Thank God for Gail Collins, whose wit and rapier pencil lift the Op-Ed page from somnolence.
Rosenthal has been editorial page editor since January 2007. I predict he won’t make it to his eighth anniversary. With last week’s action, it’s clear that Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is not in a mood to tolerate anything or anyone imperiling his aspiration that The Times stand head and shoulders above all other news-gathering operations on both the print and digital sides.
While almost all the newspaper family dynasties have thrown in the towel and run with the cash, Sulzberger has given every indication he’s in it for the long haul. And coming along behind him is his apparent successor, young A.G. Sulzberger, who did a year’s stint as The Times’ Kansas City correspondent a few years ago. I visited with him just once, but he struck me as the kind of guy to whom money was not the driving force.
Type A women really don’t get the same pass as Type A men do.
Most valuable person at the Times is Margaret Sullivan. She is a must read everyday for me. Sure wish the Star had a public editor/ombudsman that truly represented the readers AND journalism.
And SERIOUSLY? “More than a dozen current and former members of the editorial staff, all of whom spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity..” Sullivan has always harped on the use of anon sources in stories, it would appear the reporters have other ideas on the subject……
I don’t like the gratuitous granting of anonymity, either, Jennifer, but at least the Observer spoke to more than a dozen people. Free shots, though, when you can speak behind the veil of anonymity.
I’m not sure Type A men can get away with very much any more, though. You’ve gotta be really good at handling people to succeed in almost all top-management positions today, regardless of the field.
To flog my favorite dead horse, I personally think that opinion pages are the ultimate buggy whip of the journalistic profession. Anyone can throw up a blog page and opine on the day’s events, often with far more independence and credibility than those on the editorial page. The one thing most bloggers cannot do, however is provide professionally vetted, original news stories. And so it puzzles me when The Star fires Karen Dillion (who’s now kicking their ass over at 41) and keeps a useless dud like Barb Shelly who only denigrates the paper’s reputation with a sizable portion of their potential audience.
Most editorial pages also have a negative impact on the perceived fairness of the reporting since many assume that the preceived bias in the articles is a function of the editorial positions found on the editorial page.
Fire the lot of the editorial page. Forget letters to the editor. People can comment directly below the articles. A page can be maintained for people who believe an article, since there will be no columns, has treated them unfairly, or for As I See It types of informed citizen input.
I’m betting the paper’s reputation for fairness would increase dramatically almost overnight. the additional money could be used for solid reporters, and, in some cases, some of these folks were solid reporters before they became columnists, and could possibly do so again (Mike Hendricks being a good example of this).
With one exception — Mark Funkhouser — Yael Abouhalkah has kept City Hall and the county, to a lesser extent, on their toes the last 25 years or so. He used to beat me to news occasionally, which was maddening but demonstrated his acuity…The editorial page is a solid function of a good paper; papers just have to hire and fire wisely.
I mean, there’s Yael, and then there’s Lewis Diuguid. I know how to explain it, but it’s still criminal.