In case you didn't hear—and if you live outside of the media bubble, there's really no reason you should have—the New York Times fired its executive editor, Jill Abramson. For us in the bubble, this was amusing enough; many tattoo removal jokes were made yesterday, I can tell you. But the schadenfreude didn't reach full roar until the New Yorker's Ken Auletta uncovered this juicy little nugget:
Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. "She confronted the top brass," one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was "pushy," a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect. Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some of its generous pay and pension benefits; Abramson, who spent much of her career at the Wall Street Journal, had been at the Times for far fewer years than Keller, which accounted for some of the pension disparity. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor "was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s"—though it was not actually the same. I was also told by another friend of Abramson’s that the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained.
The New York Times—the flagship rag of the liberal media, the shining beacon on the hill for all other publications to emulate—was paying a woman less than a man to do the same job.
Of course, when the gender pay gap is a handy tool with which to bludgeon Republicans, the Times is all for equality! For instance, here's the paper of record hammering Scott Walker for repealing a handout to trial lawyers in the guise of a fair pay law and Mitt Romney for refusing to vociferously support idiocy like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
The Romney campaign sent out several statements on Wednesday from Republican women making the misleading claim that women had been disproportionately hurt by Mr. Obama’s economic policies. That concern lacks credibility, considering that several of those women voted against the Ledbetter act, including Representatives Mary Bono Mack and Cathy McMorris Rodgers. ... Mr. Romney’s disregard for the welfare and leading concerns of women is costing the presumptive Republican nominee support among women.
For shame, Republicans! Equal pay for equal work, the Times says. Here's the paper supporting the interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling that would allow women to sue for past pay discrimination:
If interpreted properly by the lower courts, the ruling could give a chance at relief to minority groups, women, the elderly the disabled and others claiming to be victims of a discriminatory employment practice long after the practice went into effect.
In 2009, the Times editorial board was extremely distraught by the (totally fraudulent) "statistic" that women earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to men:
Women still make, on average, 78 cents for every dollar earned by men performing substantially the same work. To foster greater fairness, stronger civil rights protections are required.
And here's the paper pushing Obama to press hard for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act:
After signing the corrective measure, Mr. Obama ought to press Congress to continue the fight for equal pay for equal work by passing a second bill — the Paycheck Fairness Act — that would further strengthen current laws against gender-based wage discrimination. Among other things, this bill, which Mr. Obama co-sponsored while in the Senate, would make stronger remedies available under the existing Equal Pay Act; ensure that courts require employers to show that wage disparities are job-related, not sex-based, and consistent with business needs; and protect employees who discuss salary information from retaliation.
I could go on and on like this. These are just some of the editorials; John Ekdahl did a handy job of highlighting the Times' hypocrisy with regard to the slant of its news stories on his Twitter feed last night. My point, though, is a simple one: The New York Times was for pay equality before it was against it. Perhaps its editorial board will keep that in mind the next time they try to ding the GOP for waging a "war on women."
After all, we know now that the Times itself is fighting a key front in this battle.