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    Hamilton NolanJ.K. Trotter
    5/21/14 9:51am

    The idea that the New York Times does not like gossip about the New York Times is hilarious. Like most places, they love to gossip about themselves. Like most places, the leaders like the gossip more if it does not reflect poorly on them.

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      J.K. TrotterHamilton Nolan
      5/21/14 9:53am

      Hamilton, PLEASE stop subsisting on fake New York Times controversies.

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      Hamilton NolanJ.K. Trotter
      5/21/14 10:01am

      (To be clear I am mocking the NYT here not you Keenan, good post.)

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    punxsutawneyphilJ.K. Trotter
    5/21/14 10:36am

    Whatever the issues with Dylan Byers' 2013 piece, I'm kinda curious how he ended up scooping everyone, the NY Times included, about Jill Abramson's firing. Is the assumption that whomever fed the story/stories to him is highly placed at the paper?

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      J.K. Trotterpunxsutawneyphil
      5/21/14 10:54am

      Is the assumption that whomever fed the story/stories to him is highly placed at the paper?

      Generally, yes. (This story also demonstrates that. He has good though obviously self-interested sources.)

      (Also, Peter Lattman, an editor at the Times, told me that the paper scooped Politico about Abramson’ firing. Byers told me that he scooped the Times. If I recall correctly—I think Google obfuscated this?—Politico beat the Times by a minute or so. The timestamps were very, very close, in any case.)

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    buffalo319J.K. Trotter
    5/21/14 1:56pm

    Honest to God I can't respect the opinion of any grown man who calls himself "Pinch".

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      J.K. Trotterbuffalo319
      5/21/14 1:58pm

      Apparently he doesn’t like that nickname.

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    J.K. TrotterJ.K. Trotter
    5/21/14 10:28am

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      TRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)J.K. Trotter
      5/21/14 9:42am

      Perhaps, if they continue their current course, they can become sufficiently obscure that no one will bother to gossip about them. Some problems solve themselves!

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        SuperWittySmittyTRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)
        5/22/14 1:19pm

        It sucks to read about all of this behind-the-scenes stuff, but I do enjoy reading the NYT, more than any other paper that I know of.

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      raincoasterJ.K. Trotter
      5/21/14 6:18pm

      Huh, arbitrary and public mistreatment of staff? Like an abrupt, public firing, followed up by multiple leaks to the press?

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        ErsoJ.K. Trotter
        5/21/14 10:57am

        Can those who understand the media better than I explain one aspect of this story that so many seem to have taken as a given but I find perplexing: why would Abramson have been expected to get the okay from Baquet about hiring another person who'd be his peer? I'm a director at a large organization. I have a deputy. Were I to hire another deputy to manage another substantial specialized portfolio of our business, it may occur to me to inform him of these plans, but not to get his buy-in.

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          KaiFromDogtownJ.K. Trotter
          5/21/14 9:55am

          Media people sure do love themselves some media trainwreck.

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            mike ghenuJ.K. Trotter
            5/21/14 9:56am

            Ravi Somayia all grown up and a legitimate writer for the Times now? Wow, I've been hanging around here for quite a while now.

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              ClaritinBowmike ghenu
              5/22/14 9:39am

              This early tweet confirmed that Somaiya was primarily carrying water for the Times, not reporting with an independent mind:

              —-

              Ravi Somaiya‏@ravisomaiya

              A lot of the reasons for today's NYT news flying around on Twitter are single-sourced, from one person (not naming) who left a while ago.

              —-

              It is a crass attempt to shame, even intimidate, someone who was spreading "gossip" that the Times didn't agree with. Tut, tut! And notice that no details damaging to Baquet—say, the fact that he met with Gibson and Abramson mere hours before the allegedly blindsiding lunch—ever appeared in Somaiya's reporting. It's baffling why he and Carr have been praised, given that their reports dinged the Times only for handling the firing less than elegantly, and blindly accepted the word of people who said that Abramson had flatly "lied" to Baquet about the managing-editor job. At the very least, Baquet was being pretty dim: if the Times is trying to lure away someone who just got offered the heir-apparent job at the Guardian, isn't the position going to have to be a very high-level one? Is it possible that there was miscommunication rather than "lying"? Oh, no! Because that's not what Sulzberger and Baquet are telling the staff, and therefore it's not at all possible that they're mainly covering their asses.

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            nakedtruthJ.K. Trotter
            5/21/14 10:52am

            Once upon a time at the San Francisco Examiner, the Managing Editor very publicly (on the newsroom floor) told the paper's CFO; "you know what you are? You're a bitch."

            The CFO dryly responded, "You say that like it's a bad thing".

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