It's hard to get to the bottom of stuff, because everyone is always skimming what they can, off the top.
With her feminist ass hanging out of her dress this morning, Mika Brezezinksi interviewed four women CEOs this morning about the Jill Abramson firing, because some reports suggest Abramson got the ax when she agitated about the fairness of her pay.
Meanwhile, a friend who has had an unhappy experience at the Times tells me, "It's about time. [Abramson] was a snob with the management style of a 13-year-old."
Journalist/pundit Tom Foremski emphasizes Abramson's heroic resistance of "native advertising"—a hobbyhorse of his—as a reason for her firing.
And Howard Kurtz, who covers the media for the Washington Post, wrote on Facebook yesterday afternoon, "Jill Abramson abruptly leaving as executive editor of the New York Times, to be replaced by managing editor Dean Baquet, who will be the first African-American in that job. Times calls departure 'unexpected'; wonder what the back story is." (To which I, Kurtz's Facebook friend, replied, "You 'wonder' what the back story is, Howard? Isn't that our job, until, as a media journalist, you get to the bottom of it?")
With Howie Kurtz doing his reporting by trolling his Facebook friends for leads—and The New York Times stonewalling like every organization it has ever covered—we're left to make the story into their own morality tale.
Which we're perfectly willing to do.
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