After less than three years of heading the New York Times newsroom, Jill Abramson is out. Fired. Axed. Canned, like a Star-Kist tuna filet.
Why?
Well, here, excerpted from his article in The New Yorker, is the take of long-time New York political operative Ken Auletta:
Severalweeks ago, I\’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and herpension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, asmanaging editor were considerably less than the pay and pensionbenefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in bothjobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said,and this may have fed into the management\’s narrative that she was”pushy”, a characterization that, for many, has an inescapablygendered aspect. Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times,as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some ofits generous pay and pension benefits; Abramson, who spent much ofher career at the Wall Street Journal, had been at the Timesfor far fewer years than Keller, which accounted for some of thepension disparity. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times,said that Jill Abramson\’s total compensation as executive editor”was directly comparable to Bill Keller\’s”-though it was notactually the same. I was also told by another friend of Abramson\’sthat the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained.But, to women at an institution that was once sued by its femaleemployees for discriminatory practices, the question brings up uglymemories.
Is Mr. Auletta correct? I, of course, do not know for sure. But I do know that if anyone might have an inside track on the goings-on in New York – whether political, journalistic or just about anything else – he\’s the guy.
What a fascinating narrative for the Times, though.
This staunch defender of women\’s rights and equality, paying a woman less than her predecessor for the same job, only making things somewhat (not completely) right after she complained about the disparity…which made her not aggressive and self-sufficient, but “pushy”. And, as an extra-added attraction, Auletta\’s reminder that the Times has a history of women complaining the paper gave them short shrift — which, at least until recently, was also true regarding the dearth of Black journalists. That is something Abramson\’s Black replacement, Dean Baquet, ought to keep in mind.
Will any of this change the fortunes of the Times – specifically the way it covers news? I doubt it. But you never know, so we\’ll keep an eye out.
Who knows, maybe, in the Baquet era, both sides of the political aisle will get something remotely approaching the same kind of coverage. What a refreshing change that would be.
Oh, one other thing: If you link to Mr. Auletta\’s article, look at the top-left corner of the page, and notice that top-hatted, bygone-era caricature The New Yorker still uses as its signature icon, it might interest you to know the character has a name: Eustace Tilley. If you find out anything less important today (or even this year), let me know.
