American and journalist Jill Abramson is best known for her work as the executive editor of the New York Times, the position she held from September 2011 to May 2014, when she was fired. A New York Times employee since 1997, Jill worked as the Washington bureau chief and managing editor before becoming the first female executive editor in the newspaper’s 160-year history. Ranked number five on Forbes list of most powerful women in 2012, Abramson was also named one of the 500 most powerful people in the world by Foreign Policy.
Jill also worked as a senior reporter for the Wall Street Journal, eventually rising to deputy bureau chief. In March 2016 she was hired as a political columnist of the Guardian US, where she spoke openly about one of that year’s presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton, describing her as a trustworthy person. But what made big news was the announcement about her dismissal from the New York Times, that set off debate on a gender equality, prompted by a report suggesting that she had been fired for seeking equal pay with her male predecessor.
In several interviews following her dismissal, which took the media world by surprise, the journalist said she prefered to talk openly about what had happened to not leave people wondering. Even though she thinks it to be true that, according to numerous studies, as women gain power, get promoted and become more powerful, their likeability quotient decreases, Abramson believes that her being fired from the newspaper was caused by a number of other factors. Therefore, she says she regrets not having listened enough to her team, and states that now she is always trying to make sure she listens more than talks in her new job.
“I’ve tried to learn about myself from that experience and test my own resilience. I’m now very much back doing other things, and I don’t dwell on it.” Jill sees her dismissal as liberating, and emphasizes, “That was, in relative terms, a long time ago, and I am very much sort of over it.”
Now Abramson is working on a book about the future of media, teaching journalism at Harvard University, and writing occasional columns for the Guardian, serving as an inspiration and example for many women who dream of pursuing a career in journalism.
Recent Comments