{"id":25779,"date":"2014-05-14T21:05:50","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T01:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=25779"},"modified":"2014-05-15T16:29:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T20:29:47","slug":"jill-abramson-out-at-new-york-times-cue-my-side-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/jill-abramson-out-at-new-york-times-cue-my-side-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Jill Abramson Out at New York Times; Cue My Side-Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been on Twitter today, you already know it: This afternoon, the New York Times <\/a>reported that Jill Abramson, its executive editor, “is unexpectedly leaving the position and will be replaced by Dean Baquet, the managing editor.” Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. made the announcement in the Times newsroom<\/a> at 2:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Abramson, 60, was appointed to the top job on the news side in 2011; she was the first woman in that role. Baquet, 57, will be the first African-American in the job.<\/p>\n

I know Jill slightly through MrB. She worked for him at the Wall Street Journal<\/a> for about five years and is now on the editorial advisory board for ProPublica, the\u00a0independent, non-profit newsroom of which MrB was the founding editor-in-chief and is now executive chairman<\/a>. MrB knows Dean too, though not very well — their contact was just enough to encourage me <\/a>to invite Dean to speak at the Columbia Daily Spectator<\/a>‘s annual dinner in 2009. Both MrB and I know Arthur; we went to his 60th birthday party in 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite all that, I have no inside information on what led to the abrupt end to Jill’s tenure. In his comments to the newsroom, which I read on the Washington Post’s website<\/a>, Arthur made several points about what did NOT cause the ouster. He said:<\/p>\n