New York Post: Jill Abramson is ‘not ashamed’ of NYT firing

Ousted New York Times editor Jill Abramson said she feels no shame following being fired – and doesn’t even really miss the prestigious gig, a new interview revealed Tuesday.

“Is it hard to say I was fired? No. I’ve said it about 20 times, and it’s not. I was in fact insistent that that be publicly clear because I was not ashamed of that,” Abramson, 60, said.

“And I don’t think young women — it’s hard, I know — they should not feel stigmatized if they are fired. Especially in this economy people are fired right and left for arbitrary reasons, and there are sometimes forces beyond your control.” […]

- Bob Fredericks for The New York Post, READ MORE

Politico: Jill Abramson Keeps Cordial on Radio Leg of Media Blitz

In one of her first interviews since abruptly being fired as executive editor of The New York Times in May, Jill Abramson said that she had "few regrets and only good feelings" about the nearly two decades she spent working for the paper of record.

"I look back on it with a lot of pride because I had a wonderful career at The New York Times, and I loved being a reporter and editor there," Abramson told hosts Pat Kiernan and Rita Cosby during their afternoon radio show on 77 WABC.

She woudln't discuss recent articles, however, claiming that part of the reason for her termination had to do with pay disparity concerns she reportedly raised with Times publisher and chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

"I'm past the point of wanting to rehash those issues," she said, quickly reasserting herself when pressed by Cosby: "I'm not gonna talk about that."

Abramson's departure from the Times, where she led the paper to eight Pulitzer Prizes while grappling with the ongoing digital transformation of the news industry, played out in iterative reports each floating a new piece of the puzzle about what may or may not have led to her firing by Sulzberger, and her replacement by Dean Baquet, who had been Abramson's no. 2.

Abramson had been keeping her head down ever since. But now she's on a bit of media tour, showing a willingness to publicly address certain aspects of the drama.

Shortly before her WABC spot, which appears to be her first broadcast interview since being fired, Cosmopolitan published a wide-ranging interview with Abramson that will appear in its September issue. Earlier in the day, interviews with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News Channel and Katie Couric of Yahoo were announced for Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Last week, Abramsom gave a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York that was followed up with a brief Huffington Post interview; tonight, she's set to give a talk about political journalism at The Common Good, a non-profit headquartered in Manhattan[…]

- Joe Pompeo for Politico, READ MORE

New York Times: Weiner Wants City to Test Single-Payer Health Care

Vowing to “make New York City the single-payer laboratory in the country” if he is elected mayor, Anthony D. Weiner on Thursday presented an ambitious plan to create a Medicare-like system for the coverage of municipal workers, retirees and uninsured immigrant residents left out of the Affordable Care Act. […] His talk, at a public lecture series sponsored by The Common Good, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, at a City University of New York branch on West 67th Street, stirred enthusiasm and interest. In the hour before he spoke, word of Mr. Weiner’s proposal galvanized other Democratic candidates for mayor to issue hurried news releases on health care[…]

- Nina Bernstein for The New York Times, READ MORE

Page Six: Mark Kelly Talks Gun Control Following Gabby Giffords Testimony

Members of the nonprofit group The Common Good were given an off-the-record preview Tuesday by Mark Kelly, the astronaut hero husband of former congresswoman and gun assault survivor Gabby Giffords, of the testimony he would give before the Senate Judicary Committee on proposed gun-control legislation. He said, “Both my parents were cops. They owned guns, I’ve owned guns, Gabby’s owned guns. We are not anti-gun, but we need sensible laws to protect our families from senseless tragedies.” The crowd included Beth Rudin DeWoody, Sharon Handler Loeb, Michelle Paige Paterson, entrepreneur Peter Thomas Roth, Patricia Duff, Star Jones, lawyer Robert Pietrzak and Steve Buffone.

- New York Post Page Six Staff, READ MORE