Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller discusses the paper’s recent buyouts:
I hated to see Jon Landman leave the paper and I hated to see Joe Sexton leave the paper. … Landman and Sexton were the kind of people who could do just about anything. You feel that sense that your bench has lost a certain nimbleness, and I think [current Executive Editor] Jill [Abramson] would agree with that.
On the other hand, I think it made her job in some ways harder that she decided to focus it on non-Guild — more of the higher-end editors. But it was a shrewd thing to do, A. because we’d just been through a rough time with the Guild and it was a way of saying, “You’re not the only ones who are bearing the burden around here, and B. frankly because people who are higher up in the pyramid make more money. So you lose fewer people to hit your dollar target.
