In a move that stunned most observers, Jill Abramson was ousted Wednesday as the executive editor of the New York Times — and was replaced by Dean Baquet, managing editor for news.
The move seemed to cap a period of growing discord between Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Abramson, the first woman in the paper’s history to lead the newsroom.
“Everyone was slack-jawed,” said one insider. “No, gobsmacked would be the better word.”
While no official reason for Abramson’s heave-ho was given by Sulzberger, two theories emerged in the hours following the afternoon announcement.
One centered on pay — the 60-year-old Abramson, 17 years at the Times, felt she was paid less than her immediate predecessor, Bill Keller, and confronted Sulzberger on the issue.
The second put forth that Abramson was too slow to adopt a more digital-friendly approach to running the newsroom.
The pay issue, advanced by the New Yorker’s Ken Auletta in a story on Wednesday, seemed to have blown up in Abramson’s face, as the Times immediately refuted the claim.
Dean Baquet presiding over his first page 1 meeting as executive editor of the New York Times.
“There is no meaningful difference between her compensation and Bill’s,” insisted a spokesperson. “So that is just incorrect.”
“There is a meaningful difference in their pensions,” acknowledged the spokeswoman “but that is because pensions have to do with your length of service.”
Keller had worked at the Gray Lady for 30 years; Abramson joined the paper in 1997.
Plus, all pensions were “frozen” with no more accrued time added since 2009.
The digital dilemma was also gaining traction in the newsroom late Wednesday.
Abramson was said to be less than enamored by a six-month study on the pace of digital transformation in the newsroom — a study headed by Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the son of the publisher.
Abramson and Baquet a week earlier had put out a memo praising the report prepared by the Newsroom Innovations Team.
While it had perfunctory praise for Times journalism and some digital moves, a former staffer and friend of Abramson’s said there were a lot of key elements within the report that “would have gotten under her skin.”
It hailed outfits such as BuzzFeed, which rely on revenue from “native advertising” — advertising that blurs the line between sponsored copy by advertisers and independent editorial by journalists.
“The pace of change in our industry demands that we move faster,” said the report shepherded by young Sulzberger, who had been working on the Metro desk before heading up the project.
One of the conclusions from the Innovation Team was that, “not every department on the business payroll has to be kept at arm’s length.”
Baquet becomes the first African-American to lead the Times newsroom.
Abramson did not return calls but said in a statement, “I’ve loved my run at The Times. I got to work with the best journalists in the world, doing so much stand-up journalism.”
Sulzberger broke the news of Abramson’s ouster to the staff in an afternoon newsroom talk. Abramson was not there, apparently having already left the building.