Jill rose as a woman in a patriarchal business and a male-dominated organization by being tough, by displaying superlative journalistic instincts and by never backing up for anyone.

Some might suggest that these traits are all in the historical job description of a man editing The New York Times, but Arthur concluded “she had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back.” I like Jill and the version of The Times she made. But my reporting, including interviews with senior people in the newsroom, some of them women, backs up his conclusion.

When he announced Jill and Dean Baquet’s appointment in 2011, Mr. Sulzberger was rightfully proud of his dream team, two talented journalists to lead the paper who were not white men. But while there may have been a dream, there was never a real team.

Jill did a six-month tour of The Times’s digital endeavors before assuming the editorship, and was publicly supportive of a recent groundbreaking report on innovation at The New York Times. But the report plainly stated that the paper was lagging in that area, and according to several executives in the newsroom she took some of its findings personally.

Perhaps that is part of the reason she tried to bring in Janine Gibson, a senior editor at The Guardian, as a co-managing editor for digital. That was a big tactical mistake, at least in terms of office management. Dean was not aware that Jill had made an offer to Ms. Gibson, and he was furious and worried about how it would affect not only him but the rest of the news operation as well. (All the talk about pay inequity and her lawyering up to get her due was a sideshow in my estimation.)

When Dean let Arthur know that he would leave the paper because he found the situation untenable, it was clear that an important insurance policy for the newspaper’s future was going to leave the building.

You can’t blame Dean for advocating on his own behalf — after all, life is short. And almost anybody at The Times will tell you that Dean will make a great leader. He is courageous and smart, and he makes newspapering seem like a grand endeavor.