Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson had some sharp words for the paper and her successor, Dean Baquet, saying in her new book, “Merchants of Truth,” that under his stewardship that the Times had become an “anti-Trump” paper.
“Though Baquet said publicly he didn’t want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,” Abramson said according to an excerpt obtained by Fox News. “Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis.”
In the book, Abramson also said that the paper’s subscription growth during the Trump era was largely a result of catering to readers who were looking for an opposition voice.
“Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for the Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative: they drove big traffic numbers and, despite the blip of cancellations after the election, inflated subscription orders to levels no one anticipated,” Abramson wrote.
Baquet replaced Abramson 2014 after an internal power struggle which ultimately resulted in her termination from the paper. In the book, she also warned about the growth of the newsroom’s younger “woke” contingent of staffers.
“The more ‘woke’ staff thought that urgent times called for urgent measures; the dangers of Trump’s presidency obviated the old standards,” Abramson said.
Neither Abramson nor the Times immediately responded to request for comment from TheWrap. Abramson remains the only woman to ever lead the Times newsroom.
Since leaving the Times and in addition to the book, Abramson has also taken a teaching job at Harvard University and continues to write freelance articles from time to time.