[Wamvan] Jill Abramson to become New York Times Executive Editor

[Joanna Chiu]

This sounds like good news to me. What do you think?


"Abramson to Replace Keller as The Times’s Executive Editor"
By JEREMY W. PETERS

Jill Abramson, a former investigative reporter and Washington bureau chief
for The New York Times, will become the paper’s executive editor, succeeding
Bill Keller, who is stepping down to become a full-time writer for the
paper.

As managing editor since 2003, Ms. Abramson has been one of Mr. Keller's two
top deputies overseeing the entire newsroom.  Her appointment was announced
on Thursday by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the paper’s publisher and the chairman
of The New York Times Company.

 Ms. Abramson said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered
being named editor of The Times to be like "ascending to Valhalla."

"In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If
The Times said it, it was the absolute truth."

 The move was accompanied by another prominent management shift at The
Times. Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, will become the new
managing editor, marking the first time in eight years that the paper’s top
newsroom positions have turned over. He was previously the editor of The Los
Angeles Times.

The appointments are effective Sept. 6. John M. Geddes will continue in his
role as managing editor for news operations.

Mr. Keller, who ran the newsroom during eight years of great journalistic
distinction but also declining revenue and cutbacks throughout the industry,
said that with a formidable combination in place to succeed him, he felt it
was a good time to step aside.

“Jill and Dean together is a powerful team,” he said. “Jill’s been my
partner in keeping The Times strong through years of tumult. At her right
hand she will have someone who ran a great American newspaper, and ran it
through tough times. That’s a valuable skill to have.”

Mr. Sulzberger said he accepted Mr. Keller’s resignation “with mixed
emotions.”

“He’s been my partner for the last eight years,” Mr. Sulzberger said in an
interview, adding that the decision to leave was entirely Mr. Keller’s.
“He’s been an excellent partner. And we’ve grown together. If that’s where
his heart is and his head is, then you have to embrace that.”

Ms. Abramson will be the first woman to be editor in the paper’s 160-year
history. "It’s meaningful to me," she said of that distinction, adding, "You
stand on the shoulders of those who came before you, and I couldn’t be
prouder to be standing on Bill’s shoulders."

 Her selection is something of a departure for The Times, an institution
that has historically chosen executive editors who have ascended the ranks
through postings in overseas bureaus and managing desks like Foreign or
Metropolitan.

 Ms. Abramson came to The Times in 1997 from The Wall Street Journal, where
she was  a deputy bureau chief and an investigative reporter for nine years.
She rose quickly at The Times, becoming Washington editor in 1999 and then
bureau chief in 2000.

 “Without question, Jill is the best person to succeed Bill in the role of
executive editor,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “An accomplished reporter and
editor, Jill is the perfect choice to lead the next phase of The Times’s
evolution into a multiplatform news organization deeply committed to
journalistic excellence. She’s already proven her great instincts with her
choice of Dean Baquet to serve as managing editor.”

 Mr. Keller asked her to be his managing editor in 2003 as he assembled a
team he hoped would restore confidence in the paper after the Jayson Blair
plagiarism scandal. Ms. Abramson had been part of a group of editors who
clashed with Howell Raines, the executive editor who was forced out after
Mr. Blair’s fraud was revealed.

Ms. Abramson stepped aside temporarily from her day-to-day duties as
managing editor last year to help run The Times’s online operations, a move
she asked to make so she could develop fuller, firsthand experience with the
integration of the digital and print staffs.

Mr. Baquet’s career has included reporting and editing jobs at some of the
country’s largest newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune and The
Times-Picayune in New Orleans. He was national editor for The New York Times
before leaving to become managing editor of The Los Angeles Times in 2000.
He became that paper’s editor in 2005 but left in 2006 after his efforts to
resist further cuts to the newsroom strained relations with the paper’s
owners.

Soon after he left Los Angeles, The New York Times named him Washington
bureau chief. In his new role, he said, he will work closely with the
paper’s editors.

“The way I see the job is being chairman of the board for department heads,
and working with them to shape the news,” Mr. Baquet said. “I plan to spend
a lot of time on the newsroom floor.”

Mr. Baquet, who was often perceived as Ms. Abramson’s top rival for the
executive editor’s job, said he had a collaborative relationship with the
new editor, not a competitive one.

“Jill played a big role in bringing me back to the paper after I
unceremoniously left the L.A. Times,” he said. “I always thought the
competitive thing was too overblown. It was too easy a story line. For the
last four years, she’s been my boss. And she’s my friend. Of course we can
work together.”

As for Mr. Keller’s plans, he said he was still working out the details of a
column he will write for the paper’s new Sunday opinion section, which will
be introduced later this month. He did rule one project out. “I won’t be
writing a book about The New York Times,” he said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/business/media/03paper.html?_r=1
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