New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. has just suffered a miserable week nursing a PR black eye after his May 14 firing of executive editor Jill Abramson.

He hardly began the current week looking much better, evading media reporters at a gala dinner Monday night for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Things seemed to deteriorate as the week unfolded, culminating in what several communications professionals and crisis managers said was Sulzbergerâs ill-advised decision to sit down on Sunday with Vanity Fair for his first press interview since Abramsonâs sacking.
The story, posted Tuesday morning, effectively undid every bit of good will Sulzberger had tried to generate the night before during a brief speech in which he heaped undiluted praise on his fired editor, calling Abramson âa powerful and outspoken advocate for a free pressâ and expressing gratitude âfor her many contributions to Times journalism.â
Sulzbergerâs VF interviewâsurprising in that he gave the exclusive not to his own paper (which has been aggressively covering the corporate melodrama) but to a rival news outletâwas very off-message. In an effort at do-it-yourself damage control, he elaborated on Abramsonâs alleged flaws as a manager, blamed her for the unseemly public manner of her defenestration, defended himself against charges of sexism regarding Abramsonâs compensation, expressed implied regret that back in 2011, he had chosen Abramson over Dean Baquet (who has the job now), and resisted taking responsibility for his own errors in judgment.
âThe question is, am I doing a bad job of picking leaders for The New York Times? I donât think so,â he argued, notwithstanding that this is Sulzbergerâs second executive-editor pick in the past decade to flame outâthe first being Howell Raines, who in 2003 self-immolated over the Jayson Blair scandal. âEveryone who pretends they have a 100 percent success rate isnât trying hard enough.â He added: âAm I happy weâre in this place? No. Did we lead us there? No.â
Abramson, reached by The Daily Beast, declined to comment. Aside from a combative photo of herself sporting boxing glovesâreleased on Instagram by her daughter, medical doctor Cornelia Griggs, and inevitably ending up on the cover of Fridayâs New York Postâshe has displayed the sort of restraint that has so far eluded Sulzberger.
On the other hand, Abramsonâs loyalists and confidants have been actively leaking information about the alleged salary disparities between Abramson and her male peersâprincipally to The New Yorkerâs media correspondent, Ken Auletta. Aulettaâs stories have provoked Sulzberger, who initially vowed not to discuss Abramsonâs dismissal further, to write several stunning staff memos concerning her compensation and alleged managerial failings.
His VF interview âwas a disaster,â said a prominent public relations executive who, not wishing to alienate the publisher/chairman of The New York Times Co., spoke on condition of anonymity. âI canât understand what possessed him to sit down with herââa reference to the magazineâs ace media correspondent, Sarah Ellison. âMy sympathy for him arises from the fact that her contempt for him was so palpableâŠI suspect most readers will take the piece at face value and come away persuaded that Abramson was unfairly ditched by a sexist, privileged dilettante who doesnât know what heâs doing.â
Los Angeles PR maven Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com, agreed, saying, âDoes he read Vanity Fair? Did he think it could have been good for him?â He added: âYou donât have to participate in your own hanging. You donât have to build the gallowsâŠOne is better served to follow my motto that silence is golden and duct tape is silverââduct tape appended to a mouth, that is. âBut thatâs the hardest thing to do for intelligent, articulate people who have a public profile.â
Ellison told The Daily Beast: âIâll let the piece speak for itself.â Eileen Murphy, the Times Co.âs vice president of corporate communications, likewise declined to address the interview or the kibitzing of various PR practitioners who spoke to The Daily Beast about the Timesâs alleged mishandling of the Abramson affair. âI can understand the impulse to go through this exercise because it is interesting,â Murphy said, âbut itâs ultimately meaningless in the absence of the full facts surrounding a very complex situation.â
The irony of Sulzbergerâs behavior at Mondayâs dinner, where he was on hand to accept a First Amendment Award on behalf of the the Times, was either delicious or acrid, depending on oneâs point of view. On the very day that Abramson delivered a rousing commencement address on the theme of âresilienceâ at Wake Forest University, bringing thousands of cheering graduates to their feet, Sulzberger spent the cocktail hour at the Hotel Pierre dodging journalists who wanted to ask about the Timesâs high-level personnel snafu.
At one point, confronted by annoying media reporters, the 62-year-old Sulzbergerâscion of the family that has controlled the Times since 1896âput his index finger to his lips in the universal sign of âstifle yourself.â
Sulzbergerâwho graduated from Tufts University in 1974 and later studied management at Harvard Business Schoolâtoiled as a reporter at the Raleigh, N.C., Times, and then as a London correspondent for the Associated Press, before joining the family business in 1978 as a Washington correspondent. Taking over from his father Arthur âPunchâ Sulzbergerâwho died in 2012ââPinchâ (a nickname he detests) was named publisher in 1992 and chairman of the Times Co. in 1997, the same year Abramson became the Timesâs Washington bureau chief after a stellar career at The Wall Street Journal.
âKnown for years as âYoung Arthur,â â Ellison wrote in Tuesdayâs story, âhe fought to be taken seriously. In contrast to his late father, who held the publisher position before him, he is the opposite of reserved. He can be casual and goofy in unexpected circumstances, and though he does it less than he used to, he has had a tendency to make jokes that few others find funny.â
Bragman, for one, expressed sympathy for Sulzbergerâs PR predicament, saying, âBecause itâs a personnel issue, itâs very difficult to talk about, because you set yourself up for a lawsuit.â He expressed surprise that the publisher and his top personnel executive, Sulzberger cousin Michael Golden, couldnât have orchestrated a dignified departure for Abramson âwith a seven-figure severance payout and a good confidentiality agreement⊠I have to believe thereâs a number that would have gotten her attention.â Even a multimillion-dollar payoff would have been a bargain compared to the reputational damage the Times has suffered, Bragman suggested.
Another factor is that itâs nearly impossible to impose message-discipline on any news organization, especially the Times, which is a roiling cauldron of gossip and leaks. While the Timesâs Murphy is known as a savvy communications executive, she isnât in the driverâs seat; her boss has a mind of his own and the storyline is uncontrollable. âJournalists should not run damage-control operations,â Bragman said.
A third PR executiveâwho spoke under the same anonymity conditions as the first, for similar reasonsâsaid Team Abramson has deftly handled an impossibly complicated situation with clutter-cutting simplicity. âI am so confused by what actually happened,â this executive said. âWas there a pay disparity? Whoâs shading the truth? Sheâs been very smart, basically saying nothing, while her daughter Instagrams out a clever photo. That was not done by a daughter just having fun. That was a calculated move to feed the beastâŠSo far Jill Abramson has been winning the PR war by a lot.â
Itâs unclear how long Abramsonâs PR advantage will last. In recent days, The New Yorkerâs Auletta, Politicoâs Dylan Byers, and New York Magazineâs Jonathan Chait have been focused on a fresh narrative favorable to Sulzbergerâthat Abramson was allegedly caught âlyingâ to Sulzberger, as Auletta put it, about whether she had kept then-managing editor Baquet in the loop about her plans to hire Janine Gibson, U.S. editor in chief of Britainâs The Guardian, as Baquetâs co-equal managing editor for digital journalism. Baquetâs bitter complaint to Sulzberger that he was blindsided, and his threat to leave the Times, apparently sealed Abramsonâs fate.
Whether any of this really matters is also a valid question. âThe industry is obsessed with itself,â said digital media investor Kenneth Lerer, a former PR executive who helped build the Huffington Post into a major force and, as a partner in Lerer Ventures, has Buzzfeed in his portfolio. âBut there is nothing like journalists writing about other journalists. Itâs a sport unto itself.â