Why the Jill Abramson story interests me
I know a lot of you aren’t interested in it. After all, who cares what’s going on at that leftist Pravda the Times, except for the fact that the story vaguely embarrasses the paper and exposes its hypocrisy and disorganization?
I confess to a bit of fascination with the story, but it’s probably for different reasons than most people who are taken with it. I’m not especially interested in whether there was gender discrimination involved, for example. If there was, it wouldn’t be the first or last time, and if there are merely false accusations of it, it wouldn’t be the first or last time, either. No, it’s the ins and outs of workplace power struggles and personalities that interest me, something like the problems of families or of any group, the interpersonal brouhahas that get people going.
Workplace intrigue stories have many of the same qualities as problem families. They involve groups of people interacting, miscommunications and misunderstandings, power struggles, and intense feelings. The workplace is a little like the family, minus the love and the sex (although, come to think of it, sometimes plus the love and the sex). There are no children in the workplace, but there are certainly people there who can be very very childish.
I don’t read detective novels, but I do like to try to figure out how people tick and especially how groups of people interact with each other. With the Abramson story, we get a tiny little window of the information we’d need to figure out how this snafu happened, and I like to try to guess. That’s it for me—a sort of real-life whodunnit and why.
You can skip the rest of this post if you’re utterly and completely bored by such things. But I’m still interested, and I was happy to see today that David Carr of the NY Times has revealed what I had suspected from the very start, which is that Dean Baquet, who ascended to Abramson’s job when she was canned, had not only complained about her to his buddy Sulzberger but had threatened to leave the Times if she stayed. Baquet played his biggest card, and he triumphed.
Carr’s column, which appeared in the Times itself, is pretty bold considering that fact, and worth reading if you’ve followed the story at all:
When The Times’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., stood up at a hastily called meeting in the soaring open newsroom where we usually gather to celebrate the Pulitzers and said that Jill was out, we all just looked at one another. How did our workplace suddenly become a particularly bloody episode of “Game of Thrones”?
It is one thing to gossip or complain about your boss, but quite another to watch her head get chopped off in the cold light of day. The lack of decorum was stunning…
Mr. Sulzberger, working with Mr. Baquet and Mr. Thompson, may have failed to understand the impact Ms. Abramson’s firing would have, both internally and with the public. Planning went into immediately erasing her name from the masthead, but not so much into the splatter it would create…
The current mayhem aside, Mr. Sulzberger’s real failing has been picking two editors who ended up not being right for the job.
Sulzberger is Carr’s boss, too. Wonder if Carr has a back-up offer from another newspaper?
I’m not interested in it because you are; I make myself interested. What my superior calls important, I hardly deign not to import.
Could it be that Jill is a product of S trusting B? Well, S times B has happened millions of times. Executives are fired for esoteric reasons.
Neo, you don’t state, and therefore leave to supposition, you’re real interest in this imbroglio. You state this: “No, it’s the ins and outs of workplace power struggles and personalities that interest me, something like the problems of families or of any group, the interpersonal brouhahas that get people going.”
My gosh, there it is. Even if so, big deal? Jill will survive quite nicely. More than you and me. It’s just another corporate thing, but made explicit because of her and her gender.
So, I don’t believe your denial that it wasn’t about her gender because you give no evidence.
waitforit:
I’m not interested in whether the firing was about her gender. That aspect—the pay aspect, or whether she was fired because she was a woman and bossy rather than a bossy man—doesn’t much interest me, and I offer as proof that I’ve hardly written about those aspects at all. The ins and outs of office personal (and personnel) interactions interest me, and that’s mostly what I’ve written about.
However, I probably am interested in the story in part because of the variety of “types” in the players themselves: a woman (Jewish, it so happens, which is often thought of as aggressive), a black man, and a boss who got his position only through his family connections.
Baquet, back in the day, sprang “arnoldgate”, just before a CA governor’s election.
He’ll be great at the NYT.
Okay, thank you for clarifying that. My mistake.
Be interesting to see how long Baquet lasts. Jason Blair lasted a long time despite the fact that he was known to be an incompetent plagiarist. The management didn’t want to fire the black guy because that would be politically incorrect.
Ray, unless they have convincing evidence of malfeasance or misfeasance. Pinch will cover his backside much better next time.
In a way, the “un-equal pay for equal work” is bogus. At the job level in this case, the pay is what the two parties agree to, without any particular regard to what has gone before, and there are no “identical jobs” staffed.
Still, it’s delicious when a liberal icon hoists itself on its own petard, even if only sort of.
To me it’s a tale of an institution in crisis, pure and simple.
If the rag was not taking on water, then Jill would’ve been fine.
Instead, she’s being scape-goated for all that ails the paper.
One is (somewhat) reminded of the German Eastern Front ‘management’ fiascos. The maniac in charge kept blaming his generals for debacles that originated from his mouth. Ruin was already a ‘lock’ after Adolf declared war on America 12-11-41.
Likewise, the NY Times is in no way prepared to thrive in this digital, distributed era. The retreat from Moscow may be prolonged, but its destiny has to be Pinch’s bunker.
Lest we all forget, Pinch & Coy have been liquidating the crown jewels with vigor. A complete tally would read like encircled armies in the east.
The WaPo has been doing the exact same thing.
If I were Pinch, I’d have a stack of crying towels — not a moose.
REMEMBER: the NY Times had to PAY to give the Boston Globe away. (absorbed its retirement liabilities — huge bucks)
Jill’s big sin was to take on a Black American at the wrong time in history.
So now Pinch has a flaming token at the top of his heap.
He didn’t take well to having Jill provide him with some ‘grounding.’ How rude!
I enjoy seeing the Left caught up in their own ridiculous memes (war on women! equal pay! er, except when it’s this bitchy NYT editor….) and eat their own.
I recall seeing the very Lefty Abramson interviewed on CSPAN, and she has a face & voice made for print journalism. Seriously, check it out if you’ve never heard her speak (hint: vocal fry).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZBT22Noo70
Well I’m interested! I admit it. It has an air of court intrigue about it, plus sex (in the discrimination sense), money, power, etc.
Carr writes that he ultimately agrees with sulzberger’s decision, so I assume he had his boss’s blessing to write this piece, all the while purporting to give a frank, insiders perspective of course.
I liked Althouse’s take on Abrahamson’s remarks at the wake Forest commencement today. She mentioned “work that she reveres, journalism that holds powerful institutions and people accountable.”
Althouse infers that a tell-all book will be Abrahamson’s next project, and I think she is probably right about that.
But can’t help but note the irony. If only Abrahamson had directed more of her journalism toward holding accountable the powerful White House and its current occupants during her time at the NYT.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2014/05/at-wake-forest-university-this-morning.html
I’m interested in which tattoo nightmare cover up show Abramson will appear on to mask the gothic ‘T’ she had inked on her back. Talk about not thinking through a tattoo.
What goes around, comes around, I guess. Abramson herself did something similar to what Baquet did when she was the Times’ Washington bureau chief. She hated working under then executive editor Howell Raines (who was later forced to resign) and went to Sulzberger to complain and indicated she might leave to join the Washington Post:
Has anyone heard from Raines about her being fired?
“Althouse infers that a tell-all book will be Abrahamson’s next project, and I think she is probably right about that.”
And after that will be the tell-all book about Abramson. You can bet that one is on the way, too. She’s going to get the treatment she gave Clarence Thomas and have all her dirty laundry aired in public, whether real or imagined. Rrrrow!
I’m interested to the extent that it demonstrates that the tribalism of the left has fissures. The cohesion of the left is based upon keeping the various tribes aimed at the big prize of annihilating the spirit of America and ushering in the dictatorship. When the tribes start to fight amongst themselves it offers a wedge that those on the right can use to stir up inter-tribal warfare. Jewish princess vs entitled black male, black gangs vs hispanic gangs, etc. In their secret hearts they all wish to dominate the other tribes and emerge as the sole ruling class.
The Grey lady, like much of the MSM, is gradually going bankrupt. This current brouhaha doesn’t help the NYT’s bottom line. So yes, it is interesting.
My best find on this-
http://freebeacon.com/columns/the-bonfire-of-the-inanities/
Yes, there is a lot of emotion in real-life business organizations; far more, I suspect, than the typical B-school professor comprehends. Running an organization successfully–especially when the organization is well-stocked with prima donnas on at least some of whom it is to some degree dependent–requires a lot of emotional as well as conceptual skills. It seems unlikely that Sulzberger ever developed those skills. I note that, while he was worked for other newspapers before 1978, he has never held a management job anywhere but The Times. Maybe if he had had an opportunity to learn this skill at a well-managed organization, outside the control of his family, he would have developed into a better executive.
“Maybe if he had had an opportunity to learn this skill at a well-managed organization, outside the control of his family, he would have developed into a better executive.”
That is very kind of you, David, but no. I went to high school with Sulzberger – only for a year because he flunked out. I was very naé¯ve at the time and certainly no big man on campus myself but I remember thinking, “Sulzberger? From the New York Times? How did a high-powered family like that produce such a nonentity?” Believe me, his family ties are the only thing that kept him from driving a cab.
When I said I wasn’t interested in this story, I wondered if I should have been. Was there anything to learn?
I wasn’t interested in the superficial aspects; the same ones neo-neocon mentioned, like gender discrimination. Most people probably see this as the profound issue at stake.
I admit that I’m not inclined to be interested in the deeper things that n-n mentions, either. The clash of personalities is of fleeting importance since people come and go. This fascination with motivation is all too “female” for me.
I prefer longer-term systemic implications, though that may be “male” of me.
On that note, I agree with parker. The lesson here seems to be, “What happens to a coalition of grievance groups when the money starts running out?” What actions do they take?
Of more interest to neo-neocon may be, “How does the collapse of this institution and the coalitions that staff it affect the psychology/worldviews of those caught up in it?”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/05/19/Former-NY-Times-editor–Leading-newsroom-was-honor
Well, I just lost all interest in this story.
The tattoo is a mark of her branding.
Like livestock and cattle, they must be IDed as part of one person’s belongings.
The Left convinced women that belonging to a man, family, or household, and having that entity belong to them, was unequal, unfair, and of no particular worth or value.
Thus they replace the hole in their heart with their careers, or in this case the NYTimes. Like some Jim Jones cult.
Since we’re talking about Pinch the Gormless, I can’t resist throwing this hilarious article into the mix: Talk to the moose!
http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/05/17/of-moose-and-timesmen/
Oh, and I heard that Bill Keller was actually making $100,000 more than Abramson as E-in-C.
OUCH.