A Bloomberg LP overture to New York Times No. 2 editor Dean Baquet may have helped trigger the events that resulted in his elevation to the top spot and the ouster of Executive Editor Jill Abramson.
Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger acknowledged in a staff memo Thursday that there were long simmering “concerns about aspects of [Abramson’s] relationship with the newsroom” that prompted him to make the move.
Baquet apparently had bristled for a while under Abramson.
But things really seemed to pick up steam over the past week.
Baquet was informed May 8 that the change was afoot, according to the Times’ report of events — a full six days before Abramson was given the heave-ho.
During that period — when Abramson didn’t know she was a “dead” woman walking — Baquet and Sulzberger appeared together on Monday at a City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism awards dinner honoring Alan Rusbridger for his work on the National Security surveillance and the Edward Snowden stories.
Abramson was absent from the Times table at the event — held in the Times building.
As his frustration with Abramson grew over time, Baquet had spoken with Laurie Hays, a senior executive editor at Bloomberg.
Hays was looking for someone to take over the Washington bureau and government reporting and talks were very informal, insiders said.
But when world leaked out in a report in the Huffington Post, it was said to have alarmed Sulzberger.
There had already been a steady stream of high-profile journalists exiting. “It would have caused tremendous damage in the newsroom if Dean left,” said one well-connected source. “You can assume that one of the problems with her management of the newsroom was her relationship with Dean.”
It may have reached a head when Abramson, chaffing under a 96-page internal report that said the Times was not moving fast enough on the digital front and that the barriers between church and state — advertising and editorial — should become more porous.
It probably did not help that the report was prepared by Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the 33-year-old son of Pinch, who was working as a reporter on the Metro desk when he was picked to head up what became the Newsroom Innovation Team.
The report focused on outfits such as BuzzFeed, and start-ups like Vox and First Look Media.
“The pace of change requires us to rethink traditions and quickly identify new opportunities to adjust to the massive shift to mobile, the growing importance of social media and other disruptive trends,” the report read.
In trying to address some of the pressing needs, Abramson is said to have reached out to hire Janine Gibson from the Guardian — with the idea that she would be a co-managing editor with Baquet.
The move was said to have infuriated Baquet, who took his complaints directly to Sulzberger.
“I think that was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said one insider. “I think the publisher realized he had to pick Dean or Jill, and he picked Dean.”
Noted one former Times hand: “Dean was beloved in the newsroom. When he was editor of the Los Angeles Times, people were quitting the [New York] Times to go to work for him.”
Abramson’s brusque management style was no secret. Even Abramson’s daughter, Cornelia Griggs, in a tweet more than a year ago, seemed to acknowledge as much: “A hugger she isn’t. Yes, intimidating and hard to read. But most of all my mom’s a rock star for ambitious women.”
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On Thursday, Griggs tweeted a photo of her mother in gym gear and boxing gloves slamming a punching bag under the title “mom’s badass new hobby.”
And Abramson, 60, seemed to half acknowledge her flaws.
In a roundtable discussion at Harvard University on what it takes for women to succeed, she was quoted as saying, “You can spin your wheels and spend an awful lot of effort trying to sandpaper off supposed rough edges other people, especially men,” ascribe to you.
“I’ve been described as having some very rough edges. And maybe I do, but at the end of the day, to lead you have to make some difficult gut calls — you’ve got to believe in yourself.”
Those rough edges, perhaps, were a bit too rough for Pinch and Baquet.
Abramson has not commented on her ouster other than a “Thank you very much” statement issued Wednesday.
Ken Doctor, an analyst who writes for the Newsonomics blog, noted many believed the Times was doing fine in executing its digital strategy.
“Its major achievement, under Abramson’s tenure in the newsroom, is the building of 800,000 digital subscriptions,” he said.