Ousted New York Times editor Jill Abramson said she feels no shame following being fired – and doesn’t even really miss the prestigious gig, a new interview revealed Tuesday.
“Is it hard to say I was fired? No. I’ve said it about 20 times, and it’s not. I was in fact insistent that that be publicly clear because I was not ashamed of that,” Abramson, 60, told “Cosmopolitan” magazine.
“And I don’t think young women — it’s hard, I know — they should not feel stigmatized if they are fired. Especially in this economy people are fired right and left for arbitrary reasons, and there are sometimes forces beyond your control.”
The former first female executive editor of the famed broadsheet – who sports a tattoo of the “T” from the paper’s logo – also said she doesn’t even miss job all that much.
It can be a danger to define yourself by your job. I miss my colleagues and the substance of my work, but I don’t miss saying, ‘Jill Abramson, executive editor.’
- Jill Abramson
“It can be a danger to define yourself by your job. I miss my colleagues and the substance of my work, but I don’t miss saying, ‘Jill Abramson, executive editor.’ I don’t,” she claimed.
“I was once told a former executive editor of the Times, who knew he was going to stop being editor, made sure to make reservations at a particular restaurant because he was afraid after that they wouldn’t give him a table anymore. That’s not high on my priority list!”
She also talked about the photo of herself wearing boxing gloves and striking a pugilistic pose – a photo that ran on the cover of The Post after she was dumped by Times Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr.
“I knew I was being fired beforehand, but it went public on a Wednesday. My kids were upset, and the loudness of the coverage was surprising. So I arrive at my trainer in Manhattan, where I always went early on Thursdays. He had these boxing gloves, and he said, ‘You need this.’ I said, ‘Take a picture of me.’ I wanted to send it to my kids to see I wasn’t at home crying and sitting in a corner,” she told the magazine, which posted the interview on its Web site Tuesday.
“ Within a nanosecond, my daughter, Cornelia, had put it on Instagram, and it went viral. The next morning, it was on the cover of the New York Post. I did the boxing once more after that. It feels fantastic.”
Abramson seemed more upset with a harsh profile in Politico – which called her “stubborn,” “condescending,” and “uncaring” – than she did with getting the ax from the Gray Lady.
“I did cry after reading [that] article about me in Politico. I don’t regret admitting I did,” she said.
The left-leaning Abramson also gushed about her close ties to the Clintons – whom she first met in 1978 when Bill was first launching his run for president.
“Both [Bill and Hillary] have first-class minds, and that is a great building block for a successful presidency. I think he was a successful president, and I think she would be too,” Abramson said.
Since her firing, she said, she’s caught up on reading and TV – with her favorites including the HBO hit “Girls” starring Lena Dunham.
“I love ‘Girls’ although I didn’t love the last season. Marnie has completely fallen apart as a character, although Allison Williams is a good actress,” she said.
“I’ve watched every Yankees game, and I’ve gone to a couple of day games that I would never have been able to. I’ve reread a couple of novels that I read in school.”
She told the magazine she will return to Harvard – her alma mater – to teach in the fall.
She also appeared briefly Tuesday on WABC Radio’s “The Ride Home with Pat Kiernan and Rita Cosby,”, and talked about how she felt as a journalist finding herself under intense media scrutiny.
“It’s definitely an odd experience to suddenly become the story yourself but you know I tried to maintain my equilibrium and keep my head high through that,” she said.
And she also took a shot at the Obama Administration’s obsession with press leaks.
“I feel the most regrettable thing about this administration and its dealings with th e press are the criminal leak investigations. There have been eight of these cases,” she said, adding that Times reporter James Risen faces possible jail time for not revealing his sources.
The hosts also tried to get her to talk about pay disparity at the paper under Sulzberger’s reign – but she wouldn’t take the bait, saying she was not going to “rehash” the details of her firing.