Ask me anything. (Photo credit: The New York Times).

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 out from the crowd. An enterprising reader could always take a page from the Andrew Goldman magazine of question-asking. But nobody wants to get on Jennifer Weiner's bad side. Like family dinners, it's probably best to stick to safe, neutral subjects. So try asking Ms. Abramson about the weather or good lunch places near the Times building or whether to switch from AT&T to Verizon. Or ask Ms. Abramson about a dog named Scout. Actually, definitely do that. Dog people really love talking about their dogs.

Questions can be submitted here or via Twitter by using the descriptive hashtag #TalktoNYT. Ms. Abramson will start posting her answers at 3 this afternoon. And ... go!

“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).

Giving sources the final say, after the fact, “puts so much control over the content of journalism in the wrong place,” executive editor Jill Abramson told Times public editor Margaret Sullivan. “We need a tighter policy.”

Ms. Sullivan and David Carr both wrote a column this week condemning the practice.

Quote approval–which has become increasingly common in recent years, especially with politicians–has been under increased scrutiny of late because of an article Jeremy Peters wrote about the practice July and Vanity Fair scribe Michael Lewis' admission he allowed the White House to approve quotes for a lengthy profile of President Barack Obama in the magazine's October issue.

“It is a double-edged sword for journalists, who are getting the on-the-record quotes they have long asked for, but losing much of the spontaneity and authenticity in their interviews,” Mr. Peters wrote, in his article.

Full Memo:

Despite our reporters’ best efforts, we fear that demands for after-the-fact “quote approval” by sources and their press aides have gone too far. The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources. In its most extreme forms, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview.

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.

We understand that talking to sources on background — not for attribution — is often valuable to reporting, and unavoidable. Negotiation over the terms of using quotations, whenever feasible, should be done as part of the same interview — with an “on the record” coda, or with an agreement at the end of the conversation to put some parts on the record. In some cases, a reporter or editor may decide later, after a background interview has taken place, that we want to push for additional on-the-record quotes. In that situation, where the initiative is ours, this is acceptable. Again, quotes should not be submitted to press aides for approval or edited after the fact.

We realize that at times this approach will make our push for on-the-record quotes even more of a challenge. But in the long run, we think resetting the bar, and making clear that we will not agree to put after-the-fact quote-approval in the hands of press aides, will help in that effort.

We know our reporters face ever-growing obstacles in Washington, on Wall Street and elsewhere. We want to strengthen their hand in pushing back against the quote-approval process, which all of us dislike. Being able to cite a clear Times policy should aid their efforts and insulate them from some of the pressure they face.

Any potential exceptions to this approach should be discussed with a department head or a masthead editor.

Good to know the paper of record is no longer letting other people write the record.

I, Roger.

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.

Roger, Dodger: Fox News chief Roger Ailes is renegotiating his contract according to Fox News' least-favorite journalist, New York contributor Gabriel Sherman (who's working on a book about the network). Some things you probably didn't know:

1. Ailes' personal lawyer appears as a Fox News contributor. Synergy, now!
2. If he were to leave Fox News, Ailes possibly wants to buy the Cleveland Indians, thus fulfilling his destiny as the real-life basis for the villainous owner in the next Major League movie.

And onto the numbers we go (emphasis ours):

One source familiar with the talks speculated that, given Fox's record profits, Ailes could ask for a mega deal, worth more than $30 million per year. But another source close to Ailes explained that, for Ailes, signing a new deal is not only about the money. Ailes has to figure out what he wants to do next. But money is surely a consideration: Ailes is a guy who likes to keep score. And at News Corp., he's the third-highest-paid executive, behind Rupert Murdoch and COO Chase Carey. This week, it was announced Ailes made $21.1 million last year. With Fox News on track to earn $1 billion in profit, it's certain Ailes would want the biggest contract of his life.

Sherman makes an excellent point that—in light of News Corp's restructuring in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal—Fox News is a more crucial piece of the Fox pie now more than ever. Know this: Whatever Ailes' deal ends up being, it's likely going to say far more about how Rupert Murdoch intends leaving this planet than what Roger Ailes has done on it. Sherman's wonderfully juicy report is worth clicking over for the read. Do it. [Daily Intel]

The Murdoch-to-Mort Refugee Trail: Capital New York reports that the thoroughfare of employment between News Corp and the New York Daily News remains trafficked, as always. This week, it's the copy chief at The Daily—Jon Blackwell —who's off to the Daily News as a deputy managing editor for production. Apparently, he was with News Corp for over ten years, much of which was spent on the copy desk at the New York Post. Meanwhile, Don Kaplan—on the Metro desk at the Post, and previously their TV writer—is also off to the Daily News as their new TV writer. [Capital New York]

Media Employment and Race: The More Things Change, Pt. XXVIII. The Atlantic's Ta -Nehisi Coates pens a wonderful thinker on the diversity problem in the media business, which yes, absolutely still exists (to wit: look around you). As he put it:

Magazines have long had a diversity problem, and that diversity problem is inscribed in their DNA. You can add on to this the fact that the traditional way of breaking into magazines involve ways utterly inaccessible to most black people. The unpaid internship was long seen as a right of passage. Very few Americans can afford such a luxury, and fewer still African-Americans can afford it.

What's It Like To Be Probed/Evaluated For Your Worth at Reuters? Just let this marinate for a moment:

One correspondent was told that he doesn’t use enough pronouns in his writing when they couldn’t find anything else wrong with him.

The only thing less dignified than being taken out back and Old Yeller-ed because you're old is having someone come up with soft euphemisms, and past that, boldfaced lies about why they're doing it. [Jim Romenesko]  

The Boys, On The Wrong Bus. Today, in amusing corrections:

An earlier version of this story suggested an earlier report had mentioned a bus tour, which it did not.

[Buzzfeed]

The Boys On The Bender: Resident MSNBC delicate flower Chris Hayes needs sleep. At midnight. [@chrislhayes]

License to Jill: New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson —the first woman in the paper's history to have the job—made some Vanity Fair power list, which is great, except somehow she dropped a ranking and is less important than Jay-Z and Beyonce (who the Times uses in their ads). This reporter remains mystified at the fact that Graydon Carter once had something to do with Spy and also wide-eyed at his reverence towards celebrities, which—we've been here long enough, we shouldn't be surprised—we're slightly ashamed of. [Vanity Fair]

WaPo Wha-Wha? If you can explain what's happening in this Washington Post filing—or at the Washington Post, period—in three sentences or less, The Observer will send you a pastry* of your choosing. [Washington Post]

[*Pastry subject to avaliblity.]

- - -

That's it for tonight. Give us your shady, your sketchy, your salacious media gossip. Or tips on making a paper crane army with very little effort. We're still after that one.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Photo by Derek Gee / Buffalo News, via twitter.com/Sulliview

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.

A post created in the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal in 2003, The Times’s public editor serves as a liaison between readers and newsroom. He or, for the first time since the position's creation, she, answers reader questions and critiques newsroom decisions in a biweekly Sunday column.

In an internal memo announcing Ms. Sullivan’s appointment, Ms. Abramson said the position will expand “to keep pace with The Times’ multi-platform presence.” The public editor will now engage with readers “in a more timely way,” she wrote, by way of a social media presence, a blog and a web page, in addition to the print column.

After praising Ms. Sullivan’s reporting credentials (she created The Buffalo News’s first investigative team), Ms. Abramson lauded her digital bona fides.

“She’s a regular blogger and is comfortable with social media,” she wrote.

Ms. Sullivan told Off The Record that she began her Buffalo News blog, called SulliView, as an experiment late last year, when she was itching to do more writing and “immerse herself in the tools journalists had.”

“Whatever the digital platform may be, you can’t understand it until you do it,” she explained.

She has used SulliView as a platform to explain why a tough Romney article landed during his Buffalo fundraising weekend (total coincidence), engage in a live chat about an impending digital subscription plan and simply riff on the late Nora Ephron, Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi, and Pitchfork-beloved lo-fi group Youth Lagoon.

She sees the new public editor blog as “a digital village square where the conversation can be outside in real time.”

To outsiders, the rise of social media and reader feedback has only made the job of public editor more difficult. Her predecessor, Mr. Brisbane, received a social media lashing for one controversial article, “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?”—including a parody Twitter.

In May, The Washington Post reported that he would step down after two years in the job and not pursue his third year contract option. (“I am grateful to him for his unwavering integrity and commitment to our readers,” Ms. Abramson wrote in her memo.)

But if the public editor has become something of a punching bag for media watchers, Ms. Sullivan isn’t concerned.

“I’ve learned in my job as top editor that you have to roll with the punches, have some equanimity and know that whatever the crisis du jour is, there will be another one soon,” she said.

In taking the job, Ms. Sullivan leaves her hometown paper, where she started as an intern 32 years ago and has served as top editor for twelve. The paper will conduct a national search for her replacement.

Prior to being named the first-ever Times ombudswoman, Ms. Sullivan was the first woman to hold the top job at The Buffalo News.

“It seems to be my fate,” Ms. Sullivan said of her repeat glass ceiling breakings. “I’ve read the analyses that there are relatively few women opinion columnists, maybe I’m making a step in the right direction on that one.”

Ms. Sullivan, who has a son in law school in Boston and a daughter at New York University, said she is looking forward to relocating to New York City for the position. She also offered a word of hope for the small newspapers currently being snapped up by mogul and philanthropist Warren Buffett, owner of the The Buffalo News, since 1977.

“There are very few better places to be in journalism than in a paper owned by Warren Buffett,” she said.

The paper of record being one of them, it seems.

Colleagues,

Come September, Art Brisbane’s term as public editor will come to an end.  I am grateful to him for his unwavering integrity and commitment to our readers.

The public editor is someone uniquely positioned to hold us to our own standards and to serve as our readers’ advocate. The role will change to keep pace with our multi-platform presence. The new Public Editor will engage with our readers in a more timely way by creating a presence in social media, a blog and Web page as well as a print column.

A comprehensive search for our fifth public editor has led us to Margaret Sullivan, editor and vice president of The Buffalo News. Margaret has deep experience as a reporter and editor. She created the first investigative team at The Buffalo News. She’s a regular blogger and is comfortable with social media. Margaret impressed us all with her fair-mindedness, openness and understanding of our values.

She’ll be around in late summer and debut on multiple platforms sometime in September. Please join me in giving Margaret a warm welcome.

-- Jill

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. 

The TimesCast team was then gearing up to go all-out on its live broadcast of Super Tuesday, which incorporated dispatches from almost twenty reporters and columnists.

“Once we got that done we started immediately thinking about what we’d do for the convention,” Mr. Roberts told Off the Record. “I put the convention and Ben together and reached out to him.”

Mr. Smith visited Times headquarters, met with executive editor Jill Abramson and some video editors, and media old and new formed a partnership.

Scratch that. Times legal would prefer we don’t call it a “partnership.”

“We’re teaming up,” Mr. Roberts clarified. “We’re collaborating. It’s nothing that formal. It’s an alliance. It’s a chance to take advantage of some of the signature strengths of two interesting news organizations.”

Mr. Smith and his crew of social media-savvy journalists (which just poached Roll Call’s John Stanton as their D.C. bureau chief and Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner as a reporter) will contribute to TimesCast segments in the months leading up to the convention, but the Times has not yet decided whether it will syndicate the videos back to BuzzFeed, Jonah Peretti’s hub of LOLs and WTFs.

Asked what he thought l’esprit de BuzzFeed would bring to the paper of record, Mr. Roberts said he was looking for some creative input.

“There are a lot of things to conquer, the technical aspects, the distribution aspects,” he said, “but the actual creation aspect is something we need to master. And I would love for a little of their social media mojo to rub off on us.”

But according to Mr. Smith, a Politico alum hired to oversee the social aggregator’s move into original reporting, BuzzFeed’s “mojo” is rooted in Times news values.

“My broader view is that great journalism is what will wind up winning the social space,” Mr. Smith wrote Off The Record in an e-mail message, “there’s no trick.”

The upstart also brings an awareness of a political dialogue occurring on social networks.

“Twitter is going to contain a kind of giant parallel conversation to the conventions,” Mr. Smith wrote, “one that will weave nicely around the livestream.”

(Speaking with Talking Points Memo last week, New Yorker White House correspondent Ryan Lizza said the Twitter club’s eagerness to meme-ify every gaffe had created a “crisis” for political journalism, but that’s yet another conversation.)

Mr. Roberts stressed that the Times was still in an exploratory mode when it came to video content.

“I’ll be the first to admit the process of creating video is sobering to me,” he said. “It’s expensive. It’s hard. I have the utmost respect for the people to do it.”

Which, he pointed out, is just about everyone these days. “We’ve got competitors big and small in the space.”

Over the past year, previously text-based news operations have rapidly turned to video content—where embedded commercials are more valuable than banner ads—to help stanch the loss of print advertising revenue. Spending on video advertising is expected to increase 43 percent in 2012 and will be a $7 B. industry by 2015, according to the most recent Pew study of digital advertising. As a result, most robust print and digital news organizations are racing to stretch their journalistic DNA to a new medium.

The Wall Street Journal launched “DC Bureau,” a weekly politics show hosted by DC bureau chief Jerry Seib, on Friday.  The latest addition to the now nearly five hours of daily WSJ Live programming, its debut featured interviews with David Axelrod and Kevin Madden.

The Huffington Post is staffing up for the July launch of Huffington Post Live, a "nonstop" news talk show streaming twelve hours a day, five days a week. And after CSPAN broadcast Politico’s live streaming coverage of Super Tuesday in March, editor-in-chief Jim Vandehei promised more Politico TV was on the way.

Off the Record wondered how print journalists—historically afforded a margin of schlubbiness—were adjusting to their imminent close-ups. According to Mr. Roberts, Times reporters needn’t rush off to get their teeth bleached a blinding Fox News white.

“We don’t want to mimic broadcast or cable television,” he said. “We’re looking for our a voice, a style that comports with us as journalists and as a newsgathering organizations. While I don’t think anyone wants to do video of people slouching at their desks and eating potato chips, I don’t think that we want to be glossy either. There’s a middle ground for us.”

Sulzberger. (Getty)

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.

“We put out a great newspaper every day,” the kicker went. “But outside the newsroom, at the corporate level, we’re sailing on a ghost ship.”

To some, the slow pace and hostile tenor of the company's contract negotiations reflect discordance and disorganization on its executive level. A spokesperson for the Times declined to comment (except to say that they look forward to reaching a full and fair agreement with the guild), but Ms. Abramson addressed the concerns head-on to the newsroom.

“Worries about the current state of The Times and our industry are natural,” Ms. Abramson said, according to a transcript of her remarks shared internally. “But you need to know that Arthur and the company have a vision and strategy to return us to a path of growth.”

Mr. Sulzberger did not hold his own “State of the Times” meeting this year (it might have gotten a little too “Lynch Pinch,” perhaps), nor was he in the newsroom for the Pulitzer celebration. But Mr. Abramson articulated his vision and strategy.

The plan, according to her remarks, is to “expand from our core.” That is, to harvest profits organically from the quality work they’re already doing. Some staffers have been put in working groups to find ways to expand and monetize key areas like mobile, engagement, social media, video and international. The Times will also branch into international native-language editions with special news of regional importance, independent of the International Herald Tribune.

“It’s an exhilarating vision,” she said, “and I’m excited.”

The Times has been without captain since December, when CEO Janet Robinson (a schoolteacher turned advertising exec who was once a favorite of Mr. Sulzberger’s) was pushed out, amid rumors she had clashed with Times Co. vice chairman Michael Golden (a Sulzberger-Ochs cousin) over the sale of the company’s Regional Media Group, then in Mr. Golden’s portfolio. Mr. Sulzberger became interim CEO as headhunting firm Spencer Stuart were brought in to conduct the search for Ms. Robinson’s successor.

Since then, Times Co. stock, already battered by the recession, slipped below $7 per share and has not recovered, despite promising news about the performance of the company’s one-year-old digital subscription model, the sale of its assets and the early repayment of its debt to Carlos Slim.

Douglas Arthur, an analyst at Evercore Partners, attributed the slump to the the so-called leadership vacuum.

“The market has spoken,” he told The Observer.  “The stock has tanked and other stocks with similar issues have not gone down.”

In the early spring, rumors circulated that Mr. Sulzberger would become CEO permanently. Anyone brought in, after all, would just answer directly to Mr. Sulzberger. He’s known to be a hands-on defender of the newsroom, the high operating costs of which are hard to justify to investors amid contracting advertising revenue. And he’s under pressure from family members on the Times Co. board of directors, who stand to cash in if the Times reinstates its stock dividends, which have not been paid since 2008.

Oh, and the new CEO’s first order of business would be to take care of that volatile and emotional labor battle going on downstairs.

Is Times CEO a job only an Ochs heir could love?

According to Capital NY, Mr. Sulzberger dodged the question when posed to him by an analyst on an earnings call.

“I have no doubt that we will find the right candidate, and I’m looking forward to that,” he reportedly said.

Shareholders are looking forward to it too.

“The market is very eager to see a new CEO,” Mr. Arthur said. “An outsider who can bring in a digital perspective, who’s got some knowledge of the newspaper business.

“It’s important to have some independence from the family,” he went on. “It is still a decent size company and its got this huge build-up in cash.”

Earlier this month, the company sold its remaining stake in the Boston Red Sox for $63 million, having already sold a third of its shares for $30 million in February. In December, the sale of the Times Co.’s Regional Media Group yielded $143 million.

“It’s burning a hole in their pocket,” Mr. Arthur said. “Who’s going to make a decision about it? If you’re going to be a growth company, you need a growth CEO.”

To others, the cash influx, akin to a dowager selling her pearls, was less reassuring.

In Ms. Abramson’s remarks, she offered the “sobering” fact that The New York Times Media Group revenues had dropped by $500 million since 2006. The operating profits of individual media companies within the group—whose members have changed since 2006—are not reported.

One thing is certain, though: the company made money available to pay Ms. Robinson a generous exit package, galvanizing newsroom dissent.

A widely passed-around Columbia Journalism Review infographic showed what Ms. Robinson’s $21 million “Golden parachute” could buy the paper of record: 230 starting reporters' salaries, 14 years of Baghdad bureau operations, or Tom Friedman’s fantasy travel budget. (Bloomberg News later reported that her severance package was closer to $23.7 million.)

Ms. Abramson reminded staff that while the bullpen is about as big as it was ten years ago, the business side continues to take haircuts, most recently with 50 layoffs across finance, human resources and legal.

“I think all of you know that Arthur has fought like a tiger to protect newsroom jobs,” she said.

Indeed, one side effect of the increasingly lopsided company is that for the first time in institutional memory, the Guild is not dominated by advertising staffers, and the typically single-minded newsroom is heavily engaged in the contract negotiations. Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse drew up a flyer explaining that management's "draconian" proposal amounted to a fifteen percent cut in compensation after inflation. It was distributed by Guild members protesting the annual shareholder's meeting on April 25.

“I’ve heard numerous colleagues say that as a result of management’s hardline negotiating stance, the newsroom seems angrier, the gap between the newsroom and upper management greater, than at any time in decades,” Mr. Greenhouse’s flyer said.

For those keeping score, that would mean things are worse than during the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller scandals (2003 and 2005, respectively). This at a time when the paper of record has many reasons to feel encouraged.

The paywall erected last year brought the paper 500,000 paid digital subscribers. It didn’t make up for declining ad revenue but it proved consumers will pay for quality online journalism. And, against financial odds and institutional inertia, the Times had become a 21st century news organization.

In her address last week, Ms. Abramson said the newsroom’s coverage of President Obama’s support of gay marriage stood out to her as an example of “how deeply we have grown as a newsroom and how much more all of you are doing, as we create new and richer layers of journalism.”

At least five reporters contributed across various desks, updating earlier and faster than anyone outside ABC, the network where the president made the announcement. They pulled reader comments and tweets to provide interactive elements and Jim Roberts created one of the Times' first ever live video broadcasts, hosted by Megan Liberman. The site broke a commenting record.

That kind of 24-7 commitment helps set the Times apart, but it also fuels a sense of betrayal over demands by labor and operations vice president Terry Hayes and Times counsel Bernard Plum.

In their March proposal, for example, they offered to concede to an earlier demand to move from a 35- to 40-hour work week. To the reporters who were already working 50- and 60-hour weeks without filing for overtime, the move smacked of disingenuousness.

A pension subcommittee has been meeting with outside actuaries to explore plans that would spread the risk of their proposed 401(k)-only plan between the Times and employers. Some Times reporters involved in negotiations favor a profit-sharing formula that would keep costs down while giving employees a chance to reap what they’ve sown.

“In our view it’s kind of amazing that our members are willing to explore that,” Guild president Bill O’Meara told The Observer.

But really, the lion’s share of the angst surrounding the contract negotiations seems to stem from their tone, which doesn’t jibe with some reporters’ sense that they belong to a family committed to defending journalism, united by a greater cause than turning a profit.

Mr. Greenhouse wrote that he, for one, was sorry to see so much of the anger and resentment directed at Mr. Sulzberger and his family, but that Mr. Sulzberger was “ill-served” by Mr. Hayes and other negotiators.

“The message to The New York Times is let’s end the familial strife,” Mr. Barry said in his Guild video. “Remember who we are, as this kind of extended family doing the best journalism in the world, and let’s settle this and move on.”

Guild members have called for Mr. Sulzberger to step in, but with the family’s patriarch keeping quiet, they are left to assume Mr. Hayes does his bidding and, on Friday, Ms. Abramson did his talking.

She provided some relief by frankly addressing the tension, saying she was “disturbed” by the reports from the labor talks.

“Whatever the tone has been,” her remarks said, “please know that at every level of this company, there is admiration of and recognition for all that you do.”

This talk was covered six ways to Sunday. (http://www.imagethink.net)

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.

(Not that you have to tell us. The Observer curated—or is it aggregated?—all the information in this post from the safety of New York, using SXSW-goers manic Tweets and Poynter editor Steve Myers's liveblog. Is there a symbol for that?)

Pressed on that front—the difference between her and Mr. Keller—she said, “He reads poetry on the subway, I’m reading my horoscope in the Post on the subway.” (Ms. Abramson is a Pisces.)

The functional difference, of course, is the 6-month digital sabbatical Ms. Abramson took before taking his post, which she described to Mr. Smith. A “scary and hopeful” time, she learned she had a lot to learn but was comforted by the fact that new media tools advance old school work like investigative reporting. Longform investigations are among the Times most popular online articles, she said.

The rest of Austin was gossiping about CNN’s rumored acquisition of Mashable, but Ms. Abramson praised the Times’s internal development team, including Andrew DeVigal and Aron Pilhofer.

Not that they get it totally right all the time.

For example, Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones, asked why the Times has the irksome habit of never linking out.

Ms. Abramson said there’s no policy against it, and there will be more of it in the future.

While Times tech and media reporters Jenna Wortham and Brian Stelter Instagrammed on the newspaper’s official SXSW Tumblr (Ms. Wortham packed a glittery vest! Mr. Stelter flew in to Dallas to save money!), Mr. Smith asked Ms. Abramson if the Times, once upon a time, wouldn’t have frowned upon strong individual reporter brands, “the David Carr-ification of the New York Times.”

Ms. Abramson said the relationship was symbiotic: Mr. Carr benefits from the institutional clout as much as the Times benefits from the Page One star’s wattage.

“No one is going to convince me otherwise,” she said.

Although Ms. Abramson’s appearance was undeniably good diplomacy toward the powerful tech leaders to which media companies now find themselves beholden, keeping pace with SXSW’s rapid-fire self-documentation is easier said than done.

Ms. Abramson herself hasn’t tweeted since December.

“I don’t pretend that I know everything but it’s been exciting and very  eye-opening and great listening time for me here,” Ms. Abramson told Forbes's Jeff Berovici before the panel.

In the video below, Ms. Abramson dressed in a leather blazer, told him she was spending her first SXSW trip meeting individually with people from Twitter and Apple, going to some sessions, and, hopefully, seeing some music. Mr. Bercovici asked which acts she was hoping to catch.

“One of the concerts that I’m hoping to go to tonight may get packed so I have to keep mum about it,” she demurred.

“You’re going to Jay-Z," he said. “Say ‘Hi’ to him for me.”

“I’ll send him your love,” she replied.

Later that night, Jay-Z sent his love to Ms. Abramson and The New York Times, as well as The New Yorker, New York magazine, and The New York Post, whose logos flashed when he performed “Empire State of Mind” in miniature tribute to his hometown media, according to the Times' Lexi Mainland.

The Observer wasn't there to take take it personally.

(image via Flickr user sodapop81)

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.

On Friday, he went so far as to personally call and thank Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student Rush Limbaugh called a “slut” and a “prostitute,” following her congressional testimony. (Eight advertisers, including AOL, have since fled Mr. Limbaugh’s show, and even “nappy-headed ho” spotter Don Imus risked hypocrisy to wag a finger.)

But the announcement came off as a particular slight to the co-eds across the street at Columbia College, with whom Barnard College shares professors, facilities, and the Columbia University umbrella. The Columbia commencement speaking gig is traditionally restricted to alumni, which President Obama actually happens to be.

“I find it both interesting and ironic that Obama, a so-called champion of ‘female empowerment’ has actively pushed aside Jill Abramson–one of the country’s most powerful women, and the FIRST woman to hold such an esteemed position–so that he can further his own political aims,” one Columbia student wrote on campus news blog Bwog. “No Barnard women take any issue with this? You’re all a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Get off my campus.”

Another powerful figure in journalism—Harper’s president John “Rick” MacArthur—is currently scheduled to deliver Columbia’s address. At least one senior was eager to get his or her fellow Lions behind him.

"We don’t want OUR once in a lifetime class day to be full of Obama’s election year campaign rhetoric! We want an AUTHENTIC and GENUINE class day speech from someone who actually has CC PRIDE!!!,” they wrote. “John MacArthur seems to be a cool dude with a long career in journalism. In a sense, MacArthur the writer can capture the essence of our COLUMBIA COLLEGE experience more than what Obama the politician can offer!"

Barnard president Debora L. Spar told The New York Times the apparent outburst of sibling rivalry was mostly just “19-year-olds writing at 4:30 in the morning.”

As for Ms. Abramson, when she was originally booked in early February, Ms. Spar said, “From her early days as a reporter to her current post as the paper’s executive editor, she has been unfailing in her convictions and a true inspiration.” Following Saturday’s White House announcement Ms. Spar added in statement that Ms. Abramson “would be happy to speak at Barnard in the future.”

Until then, disappointed students can catch Ms. Abramson at Tina Brown’s Women in the World Summit, hosted by Newsweek and The Daily Beast this week. On Friday, she’ll be providing her personal take on “the future of feminism” in a panel along side Ms. founder Gloria Steinem and Washington Post deputy politics editor Ann Kornblut, moderated by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who addressed the Barnard class of 2011.

The Public Editor column in question sought to ask whether or not the Times should work to aggressively counter the press lines given to them, by writing those counters within the context of a story. This is a poor way to bring up the ongoing debate about where a journalist providing "news context" crosses over into a journalist providing "opinions." Especially when you title your column "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" Which sounds less like a public editor column, and more like a particularly unfunny Stephen Colbert segment.

The answer to whether or not the Times should be relentless in its pursuit of truth is "Yes," unless you are the target of that pursuit. Which is why a bunch of Times reporters publicly facepalmed when they read his column. Everyone on Twitter was like "YES!" Some people wrote some legitimately funny takes on it.

Finally, not too long ago, Times' executive editor Jill Abramson filed a response tonight. So eager was the Times to get this response into the open that even the company's head flack made a point of Tweeting it out.

It begins:

Art,

In your blog, you ask “whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.” Of course we should and we do. The kind of rigorous fact-checking and truth-testing you describe is a fundamental part of our job as journalists.

Which is basically what everyone else said. Why even dignify this? So outrageous isn't the question itself so much as (A) Mr. Brisbane's inability to ask what he ostensibly meant to say and (B) the awesome, pageview-bating headline he put on it to incite the rage of the masses.

Mr. Brisbane is asking whether or not it's a journalist's place to look at something that is clearly and patently untrue—and either question it or note it as untrue—without empirical evidence. The closest he came to clarifying this question wasn't in the first or even the second post on the matter he wrote, but in an interview with Jim Romenesko:

What I was trying to ask was whether reporters should always rebut dubious facts in the body of the stories they are writing.

This depends on whether or not you're the kind of person who sees something that is plainly full of lies and cannot control the urge to publicly identify it as "total bullshit," or if you're the kind of person who says "well, hold on a second, maybe this person in a position of great power with very powerful interests to protect is actually telling us the truth." Most journalists—especially at the New York Times—are the first kind.

Unfortunately, the proliferation of news sources like Fox News and people like James O'Keefe—who employ euphemisms for "objectivity" to a pornographic degree—have made these lines blur a little more over the last decade. Blogs and bloggers also make fundamentalists like Mr. Brisbane—who, as Jack Shafer pointed out, is no slouch as far as journalism goes—get very squirmy about what "objectivity" means. This is the stripe of mindset that thinks that a journalist shouldn't have an opinion about anything, and that this opinon-less zombified state of human living is what constitutes "objectivity." Hence, his question: Does relentless pursuit of the truth constitute something other than journalist's place, like an agenda (of calling 'bullshit' what it is)?

For the most part, however, most practitioners of journalism would agree that erring on the side of skepticism publicly is probably a good idea. The alternative is the kind of lifeless journalism and commitment to archaic and never-quite-ever-actually-realized ideals of objectivity that hasn't helped anyone, let alone the craft or business of journalism.

Some folks, however, continue to thrive on the journalism of a juicy headline—sometimes quite ginned up—intended to make people ragey. Ask Matt Drudge! He's done okay for himself. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear even that was Mr. Brisbane's intent. It may be worth paying less attention to next time.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek