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The departure of top editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson, was announced on Wednesday, according to The Huffington Post. Questions still linger as to why she was removed from her post, but many reports indicate that there have been clashes between Abramson and publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Mark Thompson, who is the CEO.
One report, from Ken Auletta of the New Yorker, said that Abramson confronted her bosses over being paid ‘considerably less’ than her male predecessor, Bill Keller.
Abramson spent less time at The New York Times, coming over from the Wall Street Journal, which is one reason why her pension was less than Keller’s.
With this news, the reminders of a lawsuit filed by the company’s female employees over discriminatory practices against the paper come to mind.
The New York Times told Politico the following: “Jill’s total compensation as executive editor was not less than Bill Keller’s, so that is just incorrect. Her pension benefit, like all Times employees, is based on her years of service and compensation. The pension benefit was frozen in 2009.”
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Joe Pompeo, from Capital New York, said that Alison Mitchell, a staffer, told Sulzberger the removal of Abramson “wouldn’t sit well with a broad swath of female Times journalists who saw her as a role model.”
Multiple unnamed sources said that Sulzberger never felt comfortable with Abramson as editor, despite appointing her to the position three years ago. He was worried about her loyalty, having been part of the previous editorial team led by Keller.
Despite all of the rumors from the newsroom, it seems as though Sulzberger handled the situation poorly. This is the second editor fired by Sulzberger in the past 11 years. He fired Howell Raines back in 2003 due to the Jayson Blair scandal.
Blair had plagiarized some of the stories he wrote for the New York Times and also fabricated some of the information in the stories.
