Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times, said the paper has lost its way and needs a “course correction.”
Abramson, now a lecturer at Harvard, said in an interview published Thursday that her former employer is failing its readers in some of its politics coverage, pointing specifically to the upset Democratic primary election in New York this week, and a recent story on one of its own reporters, Ali Watkins, who the paper revealed was in a romantic relationship with an indicted Senate aide.
“I’ve resisted critiquing the place publicly, but this shit is bad,” Abramson, who left the Times in 2014 after four years as its top editor, told the Daily Beast.
“They need a course correction,” she said. “Am I wrong?”
Abramson targeted the paper the day before in a tweet that called out the Times for its scant coverage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Democrat who defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., in a primary race he was widely expected to win, given his incumbency of nearly two decades.
Abramson said the journalists at the paper are putting too much focus on themselves. “More narcissism: It’s always about us,” she said. “Yikes. Distance is part of journalism’s discipline.”
