SALON

Thursday, Jun 2, 2011 6:01 PM UTC

Bill Keller stepping down as New York Times editor

Jill Abramson will become the first woman to hold the newspaper's top editorial post

By

Topics: Media Criticism,

Bill Keller stepping down as New York Times editorNew York Times executive editor Bill Keller.

The executive editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller, will step down this summer after eight years on the job and will be replaced by managing editor Jill Abramson, who will become the first woman to hold the newspaper’s top editing post.

Keller, 62, who presided over the newsroom during a time of enormous change within the industry, will stay on as a full-time writer for The New York Times Magazine and the newspaper’s Sunday opinion and news section, the Times announced Thursday.

“Bill came to me several weeks ago and told me that he felt the time had come for him to step down from the role of executive editor,” Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said in a statement. “I accepted his decision with mixed emotions.”

Abramson, 57, joined the Times in 1997 after working for nearly a decade at The Wall Street Journal. She was the Times’ Washington editor and bureau chief before Keller picked her to become the managing editor in 2003.

She said in a statement that she was grateful for the opportunity to lead the paper, calling it “a dream job.”

Dean Baquet, now an assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief at the paper, will succeed Abramson as managing editor.

The Times said the changes are effective Sept. 6.

Keller, who won a Pulitzer Prize as a Times reporter for his coverage of the collapse of the Soviet Union, took over as the top editor in 2003 in the wake of a plagiarism scandal involving reporter Jayson Blair. His initial tasks included healing the damage from that episode and dealing with the industry’s painful transition as the finances of print newspapers eroded and readers increasingly got their information online.

During Keller’s tenure, the Times continued its tradition of prize-winning coverage and engaged in confrontations with two presidential administrations over state secrets. During the presidency of George W. Bush, the Times revealed efforts by the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls without warrants — though only after holding the piece for a year. During Barack Obama’s tenure, it published secret U.S. diplomatic cables and military communications obtained by WikiLeaks.

Under Keller, the paper also undertook some belated soul searching about the accuracy of its previous coverage during the run-up to the Iraq war, during which it published stories by reporter Judith Miller about the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction that were later discredited. Later, the paper defended Miller in court after she was jailed for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the identity of a government official who revealed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

With Abramson’s assistance, Keller also guided the paper’s editorial staff through a period where the Times struggled to avoid the staffing cutbacks that have whittled the size other news organizations. Revenue at The New York Times Media Group has plunged by 24 percent since the end of 2005, prompting staff cuts of 1,700 people since 2006.

One of the several Pulitzer Prizes won by the Times on Keller’s watch came as a result of publishing investigative reporting by the nonprofit group ProPublica — an outside collaboration that would have been unheard of in the past.

Keller said in a statement that it had been a “privilege to work alongside the world’s finest journalists during these exhilarating years of tumult and transformation.”

“I wanted to move on when the newsroom felt strong in its journalism and secure in its future,” he said.

——

AP Business Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

More David B. Caruso.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations