This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

The New York Times and Sexism

How will this latest New York Times debacle affect its ability to grow?

Howard Wu, Neighbor

In a surprising move - to say the least - the New York Times fired Jill Abramson, its executive editor after less than three years at her position. Now many are calling sexism as the key issue. After checking the facts from both sides, here's what I could come up with:

  1. While its been reported she was paid less than her predecessors initially, I'm not too sure how accurate this kind of information is. I'd personally want to see an entire record of her pay, not just starting salaries because...
  2. "Jill's pay package was comparable with Bill Keller's; in fact, by her last full year as executive editor, it was 10% higher than his." - NYT Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
  3. Jill had her salary raised twice at her insistence, but...
  4. She's been paid less than her predecessor at many of her previous positions in the Times
Ultimately, I can't really figure out if this is sexism at work. Abramson was hired during an Economic Recession, not exactly the most secure of times. Furthermore, the entire Newspaper industry is dying, so her insistence on being paid the same as her predecessor may have struck a nerve with the rest of the staff. Or the simplest reason of all: she was just bad at her job. Then again, it might be sexism. 

Either way things don't look look too good for the Times. Despite their increase in print revenue, when looked at from the perspective of the last decade, they've lost much of their subscriber base. In fact, most all large news organizations are suffering. The internet of everything is swallowing up many otherwise casual subscribers - including this guy writing this article. The only way I see further growth would be a clean escape into digital media. And by clean, I mean the day where a majority of circulation of the Times will be digital. On the bright side, most all Americans have smartphones and tablets, the perfect devices for consumption of digital news so the target market is already available. Furthermore, digitalizing everything will save a lot of money in terms of ink, paper, and delivery costs. However, the key to all this will be to capture the essence of what made the New York Times the New York Times. It must be able to trumpet the image of a news behemoth even through a LCD display. But if stories like this keep happening, millennials may cast it aside as part of the old guard. That would ruin the Times beyond repair 

A Silver Lining: While the first female executive editor in the New York times is gone, she's been replaced by the first African American executive editor, Dean Baquet

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Buffalo Grove