IMG: via Twitter
The idea that women journalists bring a different taste in stories or sensibility isn’t true.
After 162 years in the newspaper business, the New York Times announced their first female executive editor, Jill Abramson, in 2011. In April 2013, the Times was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization for the last year. Abramson is committed to keeping the paper at the top of journalistic credibility, being quoted as saying “The New York Times is always the prettiest girl at the party.”
Abramson has worked for the Times since 1997 and became Washington Bureau Chief three years later. Before coming to the New York Times, she worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and an editor for Legal Times. Now ranked as one of Forbes’ Top Power Women two years running, Jill Abramson is in charge of the editorial direction for the most cited and one of the most read media outlets on the market. She values investigative reporting over the traditional approach to news, which is likely why the company was able to achieve such recognition recently.
Her journey to the top of the journalism world has not been without trials. Earlier this year stories were written about Abramson as an unpopular editor who was seen as mean or difficult to work with, although the chairman of the New York Times and her predecessor Bill Keller immediately rushed to her defense, saying that the job comes with a certain amount of backlash. In 2007, Abramson was nearly killed when a truck in New York City hit her. After her recovery, however, she continued as a managing editor and went on to serve an integral role in the Times’ transition to digital content in 2010.
When asked about being the first female editor of one of the world’s most important newspapers, Jill Abramson says “It’s only worth being the first woman anything, if at the point you stop being executive editor there are other women, hopefully lots of them, who are plausible candidates to be the second.”
