New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson will answer “selected readers’ questions in an online forum“ today and tomorrow. So start thinking. What do you really want to know about The New York Times?
While it may be tempting to ask about paywalls or union negotiations or the future of journalism, you want your question to stand Read More
The New York Times announced today that they are banning the practice known as “quote approval.” The newspaper of record is now officially against giving sources the power to approve quotes and alter language after an interview has taken place in exchange for access to the sources.
“So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit,” said the memo (full text below). Read More
Fox News chief Roger Ailes is trying to get that paper. Elsewhere in News Corp, two locals go all Benedict Arnold on a certain tablet newspaper and a certain tabloid newspaper. What’s it like to get an employee evaluation at Reuters? How’s that whole Media-and-Race thing going? All that and more in your Thursday Evening Media Briefs. Read More
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson announced Monday that Margaret M. Sullivan, editor and vice president of The Buffalo News, will replace Arthur Brisbane as the paper’s public editor.
Speaking on the phone from Buffalo Monday afternoon, Ms. Sullivan told Off The Record that she had lusted after the gig for years.
“Now that there’s going to be much more of a digital job,” she said, “it’s a very good fit for me.”
She described the Times search as broad and the vetting process as lengthy and thorough.
“It was not a slam dunk,” she admitted. Read More
Margaret Sullivan, editor and vice president of The Buffalo News, will be the fifth New York Times public editor, the New York Times Company announced Monday. It was previously reported that her predecessor, Art Brisbane, will step down in September. Ms. Sullivan will be the first woman to serve as public editor, a post Read More
A media odd couple was formed on Monday, when BuzzFeed and The New York Times announced that they will join forces to cover the Democratic and Republican national conventions in live-streaming video “TimesCasts” on NYTimes.com.
The collaboration, which serves to lend the Times’ growing video department a jolt of buzzy, young talent while cementing BuzzFeed’s nascent journalistic credentials, was born from the Twitter-based mutual admiration of New York Times assistant managing editor Jim Roberts and BuzzFeed editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. The two met IRL when they sat on a panel together during Social Media Week in February. Read More
Last Friday, New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson addressed the newsroom troops in a town hall meeting. The semi-annual event, known as “Throw Stuff at Bill” under her predecessor Bill Keller, had been rebranded: “Grill Jill.”
“The past few months have been a time of tremendous creative energy in our newsroom, sadness and some tension,” her remarks began.
No kidding.
Times reporters have been without a contract for more than a year and some of them say morale is an historic low. The Newspaper Guild that represents them is engaged in a protracted and contentious battle over the company’s pension plan—a crucial retention incentive and a staggering legacy cost—that has dialed up the normal grumblings of know-it-all newsmen to an impassioned fever pitch.
Reporters signed open letters criticizing chairman, publisher, Ochs heir and acting CEO Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and were filmed protesting the sacrosanct Page One meeting. Pulitzer Prize-winners Amy Harmon, Dan Barry and Kevin Sack appeared in a video put out by the Guild that publicly reminded management that Bloomberg, Reuters and the Huffington Post pay competitively and—having already lured an unprecedented number of Times reporters to their digital shores—win fancy prizes now too.
Before that, a long-simmering e-mail chain among a couple hundred senior reporters bubbled over into Gawker’s pages. The site published one especially vivid installment in which science reporter Don McNeil accused Mr. Sulzberger of dilettantish leadership, citing his Himalayan excursion with leadership guru Michael Useem. Read More
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson spoke at SXSW in Austin, Tex. yesterday, further proof of her tolerance for meta-media spectacles previously hinted at by appearances at the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Iowa caucuses.
Ms. Abramson, well within her area of expertise, appeared in a conversation about “The Future of the New York Times” with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith.
Less than a year after her predecessor, Bill Keller, wondered aloud in the Times magazine if Twitter was making us stupid, Ms. Abramson said that the real question was whether or not to break news on Twitter without a story to link to. Some of her political reporters wanted to “issue an edict” against it, but she’s not ideological about it. She’d seen on the campaign trail that Twitter was a “revolution” for news gathering. Read More
Over the weekend Barnard College bumped New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson from her spot as 2012 commencement speaker for a better offer—the trump card in the commencement bookings game, some might say: President Barack Obama.
It’s surprised no one that President Obama had zeroed in on the Manhattan women’s college for a spring speech. Facing a slate of pro-life GOP rivals and a Congress thrown into old school culture wars over his contraception-mandating health care bill, the President has publicly allied himself with women’s interests groups. Read More
Along with quite a few other people, New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson has now been successfully trolled by Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane, having dignified the paper’s ombudsman tonight with a response after he incited a brouhaha of populist outrage with a poorly-worded column published earlier today. Read More
