Sexism at the Times?

To Times publisher Arthur (“Pinch”) Sulzberger Jr., who made the decision, the problem was Abramson’s pushy and abrasive management style.

“During her tenure,” Sulzberger said in a public statement, “I heard repeatedly from her newsroom colleagues, women and men, about a series of issues, including arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues.”

Sulzberger acknowledged that Abramson’s hard-nosed approach had produced a very good version of the Times — no small achievement at a paper that, under her predecessor, had suffered through the Jayson Blair scandal (in which a young reporter fabricated comments and scenes out of whole cloth, claiming to be in Texas and Maryland when he was home in New York) and the Judith Miller scandal (in which a veteran reporter produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein’s capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, almost all of which turned out to be stunningly inaccurate). Still, Sulzberger concluded, Abramson “had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back.”

‘Creative tension’ in Washington

As a distant observer, I’m reluctant to second-guess Sulzberger, who after all owns the Times and is therefore entitled to do with it as he likes. Of course, you are entitled to burn down your house, but why would you want to? Any daily newspaper is a minor miracle; how fallible humans manage to produce one every day — especially at the high level of the Times — never ceases to amaze me. Still, one must wonder which Sulzberger would prefer, if forced to choose — a quality product or a happy staff?

In the past, at least, it was generally assumed that a newspaper’s chief editor had to be something of a tyrant — pushy and abrasive, if you will. The Washington Post newsroom, in its Watergate glory days of the 1970s, seethed with “creative tension,” a management style that deliberately pitted reporters against each other, producing some very unhappy journalists and some very good journalism — among other things, doggedly exposing the abuses that forced Richard Nixon from the White House. Walter Burns, the fictitious but prototypical managing editor of the 1928 Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur newspaper comedy, The Front Page, was above all a dishonest manipulator of his reporters and his news subjects alike.

‘Cogs in the machine’

Actually, Walter Burns was a pale imitation of the ultimate newsroom tyrant, Charles E. Chapin, city editor of the New York Evening World from 1898 to 1918. “He was an iron-handed dictator, a relentless despot, a whip-cracking slave driver,” wrote Allen Churchill in Park Row. “Chapin would fire a man for being two minutes late, for staying home to minister to a sick family, or for getting knocked unconscious in pursuit of a story.”

What’s more, Chapin seemed to glory in the hatred of his staff. “In 20 years,” he boasted in his memoirs, “I never saw or spoke to a member of the staff outside the office or talked to them in the office about anything except the business of the moment. I gave no confidences, I invited none. I was myself a machine, and the men I worked with were cogs. The human element never entered into the scheme of getting out the paper. It was my way of doing things.”

One day Chapin discovered something he didn’t like in a piece of copy. He called its author to his desk, and they exchanged words. The reporter departed, and Chapin turned to address the entire city room. “That is the 108th man I’ve fired," he announced with vast satisfaction.

On a rare day when Chapin phoned in sick, his star reporter Irvin Cobb remarked, “Let us hope it’s nothing trivial.”

Nevertheless, Chapin was admired by his reporters for his craftsmanship, his devotion to straight news (as opposed to comic strips, puzzles, contests, and other circulation-building gimmicks then in fashion), his work ethic (typically 12-hour days, beginning at 7 a.m.), and the freedom he granted reporters with their prose. Stanley Walker, in his 1934 book City Editor, called Chapin “quite possibly…the ablest city editor who ever lived.”

Rosenthal the terror

But that was another era, you say, and perhaps you’re right. The relevant comparative example for Jill Abramson is much closer to home — specifically, Abe Rosenthal, executive editor of the Times from 1977 to 1986.

By virtually all accounts, Rosenthal was an exceedingly difficult man — moody, curt, arbitrary, intimidating, self-centered, and possessed a volcanic temper. “Abe displayed his angers and affections in ways that often terrorized subordinates and left him constantly wondering why he was not better loved,” wrote his successor, Max Frankel. “His innermost judgments of people depended not just on their value to the Times but on their regard for him and his ideas. His closest fiends were his closest associates.” When Frankel took over, he asked the publisher, Punch Sulzberger (father of Pinch), for his mandate. Punch replied promptly: “Three things. Make a great paper even greater. Help to break in my son Arthur as the next publisher. Make the newsroom a happy place again.”

Yet as Frankel himself acknowledged, Rosenthal for all his bullying possessed brilliant news instincts and sound values, such that “many of his tactics were therefore forgivable.” During Rosenthal’s 42 years at the Times, serious newspapers evolved from reliance on government sources to independent investigative reporting, venturing beyond government to probe society’s mores and morals. “Just-the-facts” reporting gave way to in-depth, interpretive “soft” news. Rosenthal was a key player in all these developments, and we are all better off for it.

To be sure, there may be better ways to get good work out of journalists than by tyrannizing them. That was supposed to be one of the benefits of putting more women (the "nurturing sex") in charge of newsrooms. On the other hand, given their abrasive personalities, how long do you suppose brilliant editors like Abe Rosenthal or Charles Chapin or Walter Burns would have lasted in their jobs had they been women? Just asking.