Jill Abramson is already on the verge of losing the support of the newsroom. Turbulence at The Times

One Monday morning in April, Jill Abramson called Dean Baquet into her office to complain. The executive editor of The New York Times was upset about the paper’s recent news coverage — she felt it wasn’t “buzzy” enough, a source there said — and placed blame on Baquet, her managing editor. A debate ensued, which gave way to an argument.

Minutes later, Baquet burst out of Abramson’s office, slammed his hand against a wall and stormed out of the newsroom. He would be gone for the rest of the day, absent from the editors’ daily 4 p.m. meeting, at which he is a fixture.


“I feel bad about that,” Baquet told POLITICO in a recent interview. “The newsroom doesn’t need to see one of its leaders have a tantrum.”

The episode electrified the newsroom, and details of what staffers described as “the altercation” — Baquet called it “a disagreement” — spread to other Times bureaus. But once the story had made the rounds, it wasn’t Baquet the staffers were griping about. It was Abramson.

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In recent months, Abramson has become a source of widespread frustration and anxiety within the Times newsroom. More than a dozen current and former members of the editorial staff, all of whom spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity, described her as stubborn and condescending, saying they found her difficult to work with. If Baquet had burst out of the office in a huff, many said, it was likely because Abramson had been unreasonable.

“Every editor has a story about how she’s blown up in a meeting,” one reporter said. “Jill can be impossible,” said another staffer.

Just a year and a half into her tenure as executive editor, Abramson is already on the verge of losing the support of the newsroom. Staffers commend her skills and her experience but question whether she has the temperament to lead the paper. At times, they say, her attitude toward editors and reporters leaves everyone feeling demoralized; on other occasions, she can seem disengaged or uncaring.

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Baquet, who spoke positively of Abramson and of their relationship, acknowledged these frustrations but didn’t lend them much credence.

“I think there’s a really easy caricature that some people have bought into, of the bitchy woman character and the guy who is sort of calmer,” he said. “That, I think, is a little bit of an unfair caricature.”

Caricature or portrait, such feelings are starting to drain morale in a newsroom that is already anxious about the changing nature of the media industry and scarred by the recent round of buyouts, which saw the departure or reassignment of many high-level editors. To add insult to injury, Abramson has been notably absent — or “AWOL,” as several staffers put it — at key periods when the Times required leadership.

“The Times is leaderless right now,” one staffer said. “Jill is very, very unpopular.”

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Abramson declined to talk to POLITICO for this article. In an email, Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said Abramson was “deeply engaged as executive editor” and described her as “the voice of the newsroom in continued conversations regarding the Times’s global and digital evolution.”

Murphy also explained that, in addition to visiting Times bureaus, Abramson is “sometimes required to travel to represent the newsroom in important business decisions and also as an ambassador of The Times to industry gatherings, much like previous editors before her.” Abramson’s “unique status as the first female editor of The Times means she gets even more of these opportunities,” Murphy wrote.

“I don’t buy the notion that she’s not here enough,” Baquet said. “She’s the executive editor of one of the most important news organizations in the country — and the first woman. She’s an important spokeswoman for the industry, which is part of the gig. I’m not quite sure people give her as much credit as she deserves.”

Abramson deserves credit: Two weeks after her argument with Baquet, The New York Times won four Pulitzer prizes — for Investigative Reporting, Explanatory Reporting, International Reporting, and Feature Writing — the third biggest Pulitzer take-home in the paper’s history. (“We are exceptionally proud of the four Pulitzer Prizes just awarded to Times journalists for stories conceived and executed under her direction,” Murphy said.) In the hours and days that followed, The Times would provide some of the best and most reliable reporting on the Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent investigation.

Day after day, from foreign policy to state politics to special sections, The Times publishes some of the most impressive and informative journalism offered on the American newsstand. At the same time, it has embraced innovative digital strategies; “Snow Fall,” an interactive, multimedia article published in December, is one of several Times projects that has been heralded as showing the way forward for online journalism.

All of which is to say that The New York Times continues to be a great paper. And despite the frustrations in the newsroom, Abramson is still respected there, while few doubt her wisdom or her experience.

“She’s an incredible talent. There’s no question she deserves to be where she is,” one staffer said.

Indeed, sources who complain about her leadership tend to want more access to her, not less.

“It’s frustrating because she is such a smart person. When Jill is on her game, she is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” one staffer said. “But she’s not a naturally charismatic person — she’s not approachable.”

Yet inside The Times, the scene staffers describe is quite dour.

The frustrations with Abramson predate her tenure as executive editor — she has been at the paper since 1997, following a decade with The Wall Street Journal — but they seemed insignificant in the months after her promotion. At that time, Abramson, the first female editor in the paper’s 160-year history, seemed to be ushering in a new era of much-needed change. Her popularity was enhanced in the trade press by her tough-as-nails reputation — she had been hit by a truck near the Times offices in Manhattan; she had a tattoo — and by her apparent interest in digital journalism (her presence at South by Southwest, the annual tech, music and film festival, was portrayed as a sign of the times).

Then, the glow faded. Months into the job, reporters and editors once again took notice of what they described as Abramson’s brusque approach, which had become only more pronounced now that Abramson was running the show. Every New York Times executive editor has demonstrated the ability to cut someone off at the knees, sources acknowledge, but Abramson did it with a frequency that was demoralizing to almost everyone involved.

In one meeting, Abramson was upset with a photograph that was on the homepage. Rather than asking for a change to be made after the meeting, she turned to the relevant editor and, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, said bluntly, “I don’t know why you’re still here. If I were you, I would leave now and change the photo.”

In another meeting, an editor asked about The Times Company’s recent decision to rename the International Herald Tribune as “The International New York Times.” Abramson reportedly snapped: That issue has been settled, she said. Why would we even bother getting into that?

“It’s beginning to reach Howell Raines-like proportions,” one staffer said, referring to the former executive editor who, from 2001 to 2003, is reported to have ruled the paper through humiliation and fear before being forced to resign after the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal.

Others cautioned against such a drastic comparison. Indeed, some think Abramson’s dismissive tone may even be inadvertent. “I don’t know if she realizes how condescending she can be,” one staff member said.

Abramson speaks in a slow drawl — “the equivalent of a nasal car honk,” according to Ken Auletta, who profiled her for The New Yorker. It gives her the impression of being distant, almost bored. But the condescension is often noted by others present at meetings. On at least one occasion, sources said, an editor has privately approached Abramson to recommend she apologize to the offended party.

On other days, Abramson seems disengaged from the newsroom. “When Jill is engaged, no one was better. She’s an incredible journalist,” one former staffer said. “But as often as not, she can be totally absent. There are days when she acts like she just doesn’t care.”

Abramson’s decision to leave town when the paper was undergoing its most recent round of buyouts, in January, only reinforced the belief that she is uncaring. In the days leading up to the buyout deadline, Abramson was at the Sundance Film Festival. After the deadline, while the newsroom was bidding adieu to some of the editors who took those buyouts — including culture editor Jonathan Landman, sports editor Joseph Sexton, and assistant managing editor Jim Roberts — she was in Cuba, reportedly trying to obtain accreditation for the paper.

“These were critical times in the buyout stage,” said a former staffer. “It seemed like a very awkward time for her to be jetting off to Sundance.”

If Abramson is disengaged, Baquet is just the opposite: He cares about newsroom morale and he cares about being liked, staffers say. That’s not to say he doesn’t have his own issues. As Washington bureau chief, he got so upset when a story didn’t make the front page that he drove his fist through the wall. (“I never lose my temper at a person,” he said. “I lose my temper at walls.”) But even this anecdote is recalled fondly.

Increasingly, it is Baquet, not Abramson, to whom staffers turn when they’re seeking a litmus test of the Times’ future. Where Abramson’s approach has caused anxiety, Baquet’s ability to march forward has provided reassurance.

“The whole point of leadership is to make people feel good about going the extra mile for the reader,” one staff member said. “Dean makes people feel good — which, under the circumstances, is something.”

“Newsrooms are on edge right now,” Baquet said. “People look for signs when there’s a little bit of uncertainty, which is why I feel bad that it got out that I had a temper tantrum.”

“It’s not a managing editor thing to do,” he added. “I don’t want to put the newsroom on edge.”