Jill Abramson: First Woman to Lead NY Times

The Washington Post reports:

Among the bookcases and posters in Jill Abramson’s office at the New York Times is a blown-up black-and-white photo of the newsroom, circa 1895, in which a group of men huddle around a desk occupied by a woman named Mary Taft.

“She looks like the boss,” said Abramson. Not quite — Taft was the paper’s second female reporter — but now Abramson is. On Thursday, the 57-year-old was named the first woman to head the Times’ newsroom in its 160-year history.

Abramson’s appointment was part of a sweeping and symbolic series of changes at the newspaper, which is both a journalistic leader and one that reflects its industry’s deepening financial crisis.

She takes over a newspaper that has doubled down on its journalism in tough economic times, resisting the cuts to staff and budgets that other papers have chosen as advertisers and readers migrate to other, mostly digital sources of news.

Abramson, who had been managing editor, the No. 2 position, will replace Bill Keller, who is stepping down as executive editor after eight years in a move that caught many inside and outside the Times newsroom off guard. In turn, Abramson named Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet to replace her as managing editor.

A widely respected investigative reporter who also formerly ran the Times Washington bureau, Abramson is frequently described by friends and colleagues as “tough.”