New York Times’ Abramson episode sounds a sour note

The women’s room . . .

Sometimes things are really quite simple.

The abrupt firing of New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson this week prompted news reports Abramson may be winning the publicity war.

She finally shattered the Fourth Estate’s glass ceiling and her firing was a blow to all women in journalism, her advocates claimed.

She reportedly demanded equal pay as her predecessors, which didn’t set well with her, um, male newspaper publisher, according to one report.

She was a superb journalist, but was a terrible staff manager and had hired a consultant to help her with her management style, which had caused major tension in the newsroom, according to a New York Times source.

She stepped on the toes of a popular African-American managing editor, Dean Baquet, who has great people skills — and she lost. (Hmmm. Sound a little like Hillary and Barack?)

My world is Chicago, not New York.

I’ve been a reporter stumping the Chicago beat for nearly 50 years and started working when the smell of bras burned by feminists was still wafting in the air.

There is no doubt women in the press have not had a fair shake financially and are handed ladders tilted toward male ascendancy. Things don’t seem to have changed much in the nation’s newsrooms.

I do not know Abramson, but her elevation to the lofty editor’s perch at the New York Times drew my attention and pride that a woman had finally done it.

But I gotta say, listening to Abramson for the past two years being interviewed on television was maddening!

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