The New York Times (NYT) dismissed Jill Abramson as executive editor on Wednesday, replacing her with Dean Baquet, the managing editor, in an abrupt change of leadership.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the publisher of the paper and chairman of The New York Times Co, told a stunned newsroom that had been quickly assembled that he had made the decision because of “an issue with management in the newsroom.”
Abramson, 60, had been in the job only since September 2011. However, people in the company briefed on the situation described serious tension in her relationship with Sulzberger, who was concerned about complaints from employees that she was polarizing and mercurial. She also had clashes with Baquet.
In recent weeks, people briefed on the situation said Baquet had become angered over a decision by Abramson to make a job offer to a senior editor from the Guardian, Janine Gibson, and install her alongside him in a co-managing editor position without consulting him. It escalated the conflict between them and rose to the attention of Sulzberger.
Abramson had recently engaged a consultant to help her with her management style. Sulzberger nevertheless made the decision earlier this month to dismiss her and on Thursday last week, he informed Baquet of his promotion, according to the people briefed on the situation.
Abramson did not return messages seeking comment. As part of a settlement agreement between her and the paper, neither side would go into detail about her firing.
Baquet becomes the first African American to serve as the NYT’s executive editor. Abramson’s hiring also made history — she was the first woman to run the newspaper. Her dismissal, after less than three years in the job, was met with disappointment by some women in the newsroom and could be perceived as a step backward in the cause of female leadership at the NYT and the industry.
In accepting the job, Baquet, 57, made several promises to the staff in the newsroom.
“I will listen hard, I will be hands on, I will be engaged. I’ll walk the room... That’s the only way I know how to edit,” he said.
Baquet thanked Abramson, who was not present, for teaching him “the value of great ambition.”
Both Baquet and Sulzberger praised Abramson for her efforts, but at a newspaper where executive editors generally serve until they are 65, her tenure was five years shorter than many thought it would be.
“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,” Abramson said in a statement, noting her appointment of many senior female editors.
The NYT won eight Pulitzer Prizes under Abramson and she won praise for journalistic efforts both in print and on the Internet.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
RSS