NYTimes Managing Editor, Jill Abramson: FIRED !
WHY? Who really knows?
Thank you Jill, I thought you were a great journalist and leader of NYTimes.
I know very well that for most of you the fact that Jill Abramson was suddenly and mysteriously fired from the prestigious NYTimes is completely irrelevant and not even news worthy. However, for this one reader and blogger, I have appreciated her tenure at the helm of the NYTimes. I don’t know her. I have never met her yet I do admire her guts and ‘forceful journalism’.
For those of you who don’t read the NYTimes, you probably don’t care about the paper or its stewardship. I don’t blame you. As someone who has relied on the stories and subtle cues that Jill Abramson revealed to a discerning reader like myself, who even dares to still read the moribund NYTimes Book Section, I found her form of journalism to be quite ballsy and elegant. I don’t really want to go into a specific articles or subjects, but suffice it to say that most of my readers have been inundated by my copious quotes that I have often proffered from any given subject in that paper.
Honestly, as much as I have been in the publishing world [as a ‘paperback writer’], I must admit that I really don’t know how a newspaper really works. In particular, I don’t have the vaguest idea what the job of a Managing Editor is in such a behemoth enterprise as the NYTimes.
Whether Jill was fired for demanding ‘quantum meruit’—as much as deserved, equal pay for equal work —or ‘mismanagement’, whatever that is, I still will continue to respect the journalism that was produced under tenure. The weirdest fact that I remembered about Jill was the last Op Ed piece she wrote about her having been in an untoward car accident; where she, along with her fellow NYTimes Journalists, were ‘run down’ by NYC cars while she was crossing the street….hmmm.
Of course, in this facile world of ‘conspiracy theories’, I, along with some others, could posit that someone had purposefully tried to assassinate her and four of her fellow journalists. I don’t think that she was the object of any car ‘accident’. The reason is simple. Since she wrote that Op Ed piece , I had learned that two personal friends had, within a week’s period, been run down by cars in NYC, at different times and locations.
Ergo Cogito Sum: It’s dangerous to cross the busy streets of NYC.
However, Jill’s exit also brings to my mind the great appreciation that I have for many of the news outlets and reporters who have provided me, unwittingly, with more than enough information to write my various blogs. In particular, I want to reiterate my thanks to Murdoch and his news outlets like—Fox [Roger Ailes] ; NY Post; Wall Street Journal. Next, I would like to congratulate the young reporters at the internet site—Huffpost. I find them extremely knowledgeable about domestic and world affairs. And I enjoy their bon vivant aspects to reporting the news. Last but not least, I want to thank my most important two TV news outlets—Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart. Without their incisive collective wits, I would find the daily news intolerable to digest if not, completely absurd. They have turned absurdity into a form of ‘sanity with a smile’.
Let me not forget CNBC and their endless coverage of the stock market and their collective reportage as to why I and millions of my American compatriots are losing a fortune in the stock market, albeit entertainingly.
At last, I do want to wish Ms. Jill Abramson the best of luck in her future endeavors and if she wants to start her own news outlet, please feel free to reach me at my website.
Adieu! Et, Bonne Chance !!!
Here Here! Not a lot to add save to say she is obviously very good at her job hence her dismissal! The NY times could contact Piers Morgan as I hear he's unemployed and expert in dragging journalism in the gutter! What was it Wilde said? " the difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is unread"
ReplyDeletewell said, del stead!
ReplyDeleteThe whistleblower was fired.
ReplyDeleteAren't they selling their building in Times Square because they need the money? A lot of papers are doing that. People live and work at their computers today, which is the world Bill Gates said he wanted to build. Newspapers were too late in publishing themselves online and comporting themselves to the internet market. We'll see if someone like Jeff Bezos [what a name] can "re-invent" the Washington Post and chart a way out of this otherwise certain graveyard for the papers. Whoever and whatever leads the way I hope they have the will to devote their revenues to investigative journalism and other needed things rather than taking the low road of the Rupert Murdock profitability model which he calls "competition." Murdock will be dead soon unless he's found a life-extension technology or can download his personality into a microchip like Alex Jones claims. When Sir Rupert croaks his children will determine what happens. Like it or not I think only Murdock's papers make money.
ReplyDeleteWhat's needed for papers is for them to publish their online version first, as their first priority. Then they need to have a simple button the user can use like a paypal account so that IF they want to read the content that day all they have to do is press a button and for a dollar they can own that day's content.
ReplyDeleteIt's that simple.
Then the NYT can work out something the Yahoo News or Google or whoever and can save these people from having to have news of their own.
If everyone who used their cloud email or frequent sites had the NYT or Post show up on their screen INSTEAD OF YAHOO NEWS ABOUT JAY-Z OR LADY GAGA....
And if the reader could purchase only that days content for a dollar...
Then they would be relevant again.
What if the NYT offerred it's own email to the public?
ReplyDeleteWhat if instead of gmail or hotmail or yahoo people could get an account with the NYT and everyday that's the site they log onto first?
Then when those people email someone else that person will get spam from the NYT offering to sell them content?
Why didn't they think of that?
They other thing they could do is have a cable news channel. Then when their reporters do a major investigative piece it can be converted into a televised production. They could have a channel on Netflix and sell these awesome programs on a pay per view basis to people over the wold fucking world who want to see them.
ReplyDeleteThey could also set up a weekly econmic and financial report for bankers and investors over the whole world and then sell it to people all over the fucking world over Netflix.
This would make a huge amount of income because such people would pay for that.
Papers like the Times are supposed to be full of intelligent people but they can't think their way out of a box, and even a schmuck like me can think of a million new ways of making content and revenue.
ReplyDeleteThey just need to put their thinking caps on.
Look at how much money Bloomberg has made with their financial content?
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't the NYT do that?
When I see the ads on television trying to sell PAPER subscriptions of their paper to YUPPIE families I just laugh!
LOL how lame is that?
Those families and their kids aren't gonna fucking buy a subscription so they can get a paper delivered to their home.
They would however in a heartbeat buy the online paper many days by pressing a button IF THEY HAVE THE TIME OR INCLINATION TO READ THE PAPER THAT DAY.
Nobody wants a subscription anymore, certainly not for a paperboy to throw a paper on your lawn.....and what about most people who don't even have a lawn !!
The internet is immediate.
ReplyDeleteGet that content up right away and don't wait for the whole paper to be assembled before publishing any "edition."
That's twenyith century technology of paperboys and ink and rolls of paper and such.
Today just update the site immediately as the content is finished and keep it going like a news channel.
The internet site should BE THE PAPER....
ReplyDeleteAnd then when the deadline comes for the paper version it can be assembled from the site content as an afterthought....
That's the way to do it.
Most people buy the paper because they want to see who's having sales on and they want the coupons.
ReplyDeleteThey used to want the classifieds too but now that's a thing of the past and the newspapers have let Craigslist and others take all that away from them.
Most people don't even read the news content of the papers they buy.
My grandparents bought the paper just to see what movies were playing.
The Village Voice owns something called "Backpage" which is where all the escorts in America pay to have their ads put up in every city of America.
ReplyDeleteThe Voice is making so much money off this racket that they're rolling in cash.
This one little innovation has made the Village Voice this cash rich operation while their stoggy cousins in Times Square are having to sell their building !!!!
Just signed up for electronic version of Financial Times just before reading this post. Case in point.
ReplyDeleteWas looking for a limited subscription, and found one for FT.
ReplyDeleteFor what it is worth Steve everyday I see what you are saying, the Daily Mail, Infowars, David Icke, Tarpley and the NYT on Sunday. You really make a difference because of your 'insider' knowledge of events. I wondered your current take on this Boko Haram, (Procul Harum?) stuff also why do you not bring out a book on Geo-Politics your own Grand Chessboard kind of thing.
ReplyDelete