TV news personalities have been covering yesterday’s shakeup at the New York Times, where executive editor Jill Abramson was dismissed, and managing editor Dean Baquet replaced her to become the first African American executive editor of the Times.
Howard Kurtz wrote a piece for Foxnews.com today, noting how unusual an abrupt departure like this is at the Times; he also praised Abramson.
Abramson can be a tough customer, but there is no room for shrinking violets at the top of major media organizations. Since she was an inside player who rarely appeared on television, I don’t think she got enough credit for some important work done by the Times—including some early critical reporting about ObamaCare.
AdvertisementInstead, she got trashed by unnamed sources, such as in a Politico piece last year that reported she had once “blown up in a meeting,” traveled a lot and once told an editor to leave a meeting and change a photo. Horrors!
On “Fox and Friends” this morning, the co-hosts talked about the “war on women” at the New York Times, referencing reports that Abramson had made less than her male predecessor, Bill Keller. On “Morning Joe,” Mika Brzezinski said she believes reports of the Times’ pay gap based on her own experience in the TV news business, also citing MSNBC.
“We have our own story here that we’ve written about, so we can put that aside,” Brzezinski said about having previously made it public that she was being paid significantly less than co-host Joe Scarborough.
Other talent took to Twitter.
Does anyone care that Jill Abramson deserved the job and has been a terrific journalist all her life? Enough already w/ the “inside” stuff.
— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) May 15, 2014
That’s a really important point from @jimcramer. The NYT has been, I think, the best its ever been in my life the last two years.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 15, 2014
Shocking news in newspaperland: Jill Abramson executive editor @nytimes was just fired! Seems like she was just hired.
— Larry King (@kingsthings) May 15, 2014