Why Was Jill Abramson Fired?

~ Laura

Jill Abramson was canned from the New York Times yesterday. There is much, much gossip swirling around the why’s. Did she “lean in” too far?  According to Ken Auletta in the New Yorker,

Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. ‘She confronted the top brass,’ one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was ‘pushy,’ a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect. Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some of its generous pay and pension benefits; Abramson had also been at the Times for far fewer years than Keller, having spent much of her career at the Wall Street Journal, accounting for some of the pension disparity. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor ‘was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s’—though it was not actually the same.

Published by Laura

18 thoughts on “Why Was Jill Abramson Fired?”

  1. Let’s begin by noting that Jill Abramson is an insufferable human being. She spoke at my daughter’s commencement. Typically, these addresses follow one of two themes: (i) congratulating the graduates and detailing their accomplishments, or (ii) explaining how the speaker changed or learned or grew, and urging the graduates to do likewise. Jill Abramson’s speech was pretty much entirely dedicated to the wonderfulness of Jill Abramson (a rather conventional liberal Jewish New Yorker and member of the chattering classes). From her speech, the listener learned that Jill Abramson has not changed or learned or grown, ever, because she has always been perfect.

    Now, listening to boring speeches from repellent people is a normal and very minor irritation in life. But having someone that narcissistic as a boss is probably very unpleasant.

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    1. I find it hard to believe that being insufferable and narcissistic is anything in the way of a distinguishing feature for somebody running a large corporation, especially in anything related to media.

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  2. eh, my vote would be for the problems facing “the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper”. There’s a clip of her at South by Southwest tech conferencing acting humble about her knowledge of tech. I think all newspapers are in a really tough spot right now, and are scrambling to figure out a way to remain sustainable.

    My guess is in the end, not-for-profit/foundation supported/rich folks toys is going to be their future.

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  3. I think we would need more details on “considerably less” vs. “directly comparable.” If it actually is less, is this a reflection of a general downsizing and cost cutting, which could be directly proved? How do her qualifications rank to Kellers? How long was Keller there and what sorts of raises did he get over time? Does her starting salary match or is comparable his starting salary? Is her salary inline with other starting salaries of similar positions in similar organizations that are occupied by men? I think these are questions we’d need answers to to get a sense if this is mostly sexism at work.

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  4. In the absence of overt admissions, for example, “I’m sure we can pay her less because she’s a woman,” I think sexism in pay can only be shown statistically. Unfortunately, in general, statistical evidence doesn’t seem to do much for proving bias/sexism/racism in individual cases, because, of course, in any individual case, lots of other factors could have come into play.

    There’s a wealth of evidence that statistically, bias plays significant roles in opportunity and evaluation, that it’s pervasive and only mildly mitigated by the class of the individual making the judgement. The most recent study is the Wharton study on racial/gender biases in faculty mentoring: report: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/22/305814367/evidence-of-racial-gender-biases-found-in-faculty-mentoring and research paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2063742.

    So, in spite of my comment above that Abramson was fired because the Times is scrambling to do what it can to survive, I also think sexism played a role. A big enough role that it was the deciding factor? Probably less so than those cases in which decisions on made on much less evidence (email inquiries to meet with professors) than with hiring a CEO or editor.

    How do we fight this kind of pervasive bias, the “weight of a ton of feathers”? I really don’t know.

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  5. For example, would a high profile gender discrimination case against the NY Times help? It’s a tough call, ’cause I think bringing attention to the issues can help. But such cases certainly cause disruption for every individual involved, personally.

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  6. I recently got a promotion, and am now supervising a new group of people. In January I received a spreadsheet with all these new direct reports’ salaries, for evaluation for annual bonus.

    It was very striking to see the salary differentials for anyone who changed jobs during the Great Recession. If you had to move companies between 2008-2011, your pay is depressed because you had to take a lower starting salary. Interestingly there were many situations where you could directly compare demographics. This included two white guys in their early 60s, with a 20% pay difference, as well as two working moms in their mid 40s with a 10% differential.

    I also found, to my horror, that some of these direct reports make more money than me. I spent a lot of time talking to friends and mentors away from my workplace about how to handle the situation, which is totally sticky. Suffice to say I did not land on the Jill Abramson approach.

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  7. ” If you had to move companies between 2008-2011, your pay is depressed because you had to take a lower starting salary.”

    fascinating to see this up close, with anecdote as well as data. Your brief numbers suggest that there could be an age effect, too (though that could also be a wage effect, i.e. older workers paid more of a hit for moving, and were paid more to begin with).

    And, a lot of people changed jobs during the recession, so this suppression in wages is a widespread effect. I wonder if the booming of incomes at the .1% level is mostly capital related? It’d be interesting to see salary effects for people making in the 1M+ range, and see if a similar recession penalty applies to them, and how quickly they recover from it.

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  8. There’s plenty of pressure on management to explain all kinds of floundering: my memory is that the Ochsulzberger descendants are about 300, and the NYT company was worth about $8 billion when Pinch took over, and the profits were split among the 300. Pinch has ridden it down to $1 billion, while paying himself a very nice salary. NYT profits in recent years have been in the tens of millions, not in the hundreds. So he’s had the fun and salary of running a giant paper, and his cousins have seen their inheritance swooshing towards the drain. I’m going to bet on, ‘trying to show my grouchy cousins that I’m doing my best’, rather than sexism.

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  9. Isn’t there getting to be a tradition of hiring a sacrificial female CEO when a company is distressed? (See yahoo, for instance.)

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  10. Well yes … but you’d better be pinching pennies equitably. One of the things I immediately checked when I got that merit spreadsheet was to make sure my company was not singling out any one demographic group for lower salary, as that’s a direct ticket to litigation.

    I’ve re-read this coverage in the last hour and am realizing that Abramson appears to have tried to reach agreement internally, but contacted a lawyer when she got nowhere. Given her age/rank/salary, honestly where is she going to go? It makes a certain amount of sense to place your bets on the litigation and essentially retire early.

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  12. From Ace of Spades’ Twitter feed:

    “In fairness, if you call a company “my religion,” and get their logo tattooed on your body, that company might think they can pay you less.”

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  13. As a subscriber, do I care? I care more about the paper itself, than personnel decisions. If the paper improves, they made the right decision. If not, then not.

    By the way, the new “green diamond” tags for important stories are laughable. “Today’s biggest news?” I think not.

    Let’s see. Green diamond tags, which are not today’s biggest news:

    A Decision That Helped Shape Michelle Obama (No, this is not the Onion.)
    Ex NFL Star is Accused of Being a Rapist
    Sterling Tells NBA He Will Not Pay Fine (Both sports stories are of interest to sports fans.)
    Middle East Peace Effort Pauses to Let Failure Sink In (In the Middle East, success is news. Failure is status quo)
    What You Need To Know in New York for Friday (I like to know the weather. This is a low bar. If this all is news, everything should get a green diamond. It’s the equivalent of tv “news you can use.”)
    New York Today: Stalking the Urban Wildflower (a doubly important feature, apparently, as it is also part of the headline above)
    Two (!) movie reviews
    A book review. Cultural reports are not today’s biggest news. Movie and book reviews are marketing.
    Cuomo’s Camp Rushes to Define His Republican Rival
    Who Gets to Graduate? (was published yesterday)
    After Prison, No After-Hours
    Steak that Sizzles on the Stovetop (I kid you not. Evidently NYC is discovering food today.)
    Any opinion piece. Period. It’s opinion, not news. I know the NYT has trouble digesting that fact.
    Times Seeks to Reassure Staff After Editor’s Ouster (Not news. Why Ouster, not Firing?)

    Stories which should have received a tag:

    Officials Say Prosecutors are Looking at V.A. Lists
    Error at I.B.M. Lab Finds New Family of Materials (That laboratory error has led to the discovery of a new family of materials that are unusually strong and light, exhibit “self-healing” properties and can be easily reformed to make products recyclable. That’s news. That’s big.)

    Green diamonds might be fine. Describe them as, “we asked each department to determine which writers we like the most. We didn’t want to leave anyone out.”

    DON’T describe them as “today’s biggest news.” They aren’t.

    If you really want to keep the system, assign it to an opinionated curmudgeon who hasn’t voted in 30 years, hates both parties, but has edited hard news at other papers during that time. And limit the number to 10 or less.

    I turn to the WSJ, and the first screen on the laptop has about 5 main stories: India, Turkey, Economy, Iran, Markets. Scrolling down a little more, very interesting, did you know Texas governor Perry faces a criminal probe? I think I’ll read that article. I’d give it a green diamond, were it in the NYT. Which it isn’t.

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