Both Emily Bell: theguardian/commentisfree/2014/may/16/jill-abramson-firing-women-more-than-good (my director) & Kara Swisher: recode.net/2014/05/18/dear-jill-from-one-pushy-media-dame-to-another/ (one of my heroes in the media) are must-reads on Jill Abramson & The New York Times. Swisher: …part of what attracted me to create my own media organization with +Walt Mossberg (a model man, as far as I am concerned), [was] so that other women and also men could see another strong-minded, outspoken woman in a position of power who was, as they say, kicking ass and taking names. I actually learned that skill when I was a really young reporter at the Washington Post, when the legendary Ben Bradlee still held sway over the newsroom. He was every single fantastic thing people think of him as: Tough, smart, profane, funny, difficult and, yes, often very pushy. He hardly knew who I was, of course, but one time when I was working in the business section covering the rapidly declining retail landscape in the Washington area, the lifeblood of the Post’s business, he did me a solid I have never forgotten. A major mogul who paid for a lot of the bills for the newspaper was haranguing me — via phone and via peckish lawyers — for being too hard on him in my coverage of the spectacular meltdown of his family business. It was a mess through and through, and I had not backed off so far, but I had to admit I was scared when the heat from the mogul got a little stifling. Bradlee — who loved my stories of this retail version of “Dallas” and now and then came over and asked, “Whatcha got today, kid?” (he actually said “kid”) — was there when such a call came through and could see I was distressed. After I explained the situation, he took only one second to give me a piece of advice that I have been following since: “If your reporting is right, tell them to f#*k off.” Exactly, a maxim that actually works better than one might imagine it would.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 14:39:50 +0000
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