The New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger has denied the sacking of top editor Jill Abramson was due to gender bias, and listed ways in which she was a bad manager.  Sulzberger issued a statement that identified a pattern of behaviour including "arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues" as reasons for the firing.  Abramson, the first female executive editor of the Times, was abruptly ousted on Wednesday in a decision that sparked a firestorm of commentary on female managers in the workplace. There was media speculation that her firing was linked to gender issues, including her reported complaint that she was not as well compensated as her male predecessor.  Sulzberger denounced these as "persistent but incorrect reports".  He said "the saddest outcome" of his decision to remove Abramson was that it "has been cast by many as an example of the unequal treatment of women in the workplace". Instead, he said, it was "a situation involving a specific individual who, as we all do, has strengths and weaknesses".  The New Yorker reported earlier this week that Abramson had confronted Times executives after she discovered her pay and pension benefits were less than those of Bill Keller, whom she succeeded, citing an unidentified close associate of Abramson.  "This is untrue," Sulzberger said, adding that Abramson's package was more than 10% higher than Keller's in her last year as editor.  Sulzberger said Abramson "had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back", according to the Times.  He said he had spoken to the Times news staff and they understood the decision and why he had made it.  The managing editor Dean Baquet, 57, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and former editor of the Los Angeles Times, became the paper's first African-American editor.  The shakeup is the latest sign of turmoil at the New York Times, which is controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family. It has been selling assets, cutting staff and looking for new revenue sources as print advertising revenue declines.
Publisher says the executive editor was fired because of her poor management skills, not as a result of gender bias