Jill Abramson, the former New York Times executive editor who was ousted in 2014, blasted the Gray Lady Thursday for what she said was its cluelessness in tracking the upset victory that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off over 10-term incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley.
But her pique quickly escalated beyond the initial tweet when she claimed in a subsequent email to a reporter that the Times was being “narcissistic” for allowing TV cameras inside and needed a “course correction” in part for its coverage of its own young reporter Ali Watkins. Watkins is at the center of a leak investigation for receiving classified government material from her then-boyfriend, and she was the subject of a lengthy story in the Times last week
Via Twitter, Abramson zinged: “Kind of pisses me off that @nytimes is still asking Who Is Ocasio-Cortez? when it should have covered her campaign. Missing her rise akin to not seeing Trump’s win coming in 2016.”
In a subsequent email to the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, Abramson vented: “I’m feeling about the NYT now like I did when my son cheated on a test in 10th grade,” she wrote. “I loved him to death, believed he was a thoroughly wonderful young man, but he needed a course correction … So does the NYT … it’s making horrible mistakes left and right,” she said.
Among her objections: “Not covering the ‘stunning’ upset of Joe Crowley. It’s the NYT that was undeservedly stunned, letting down its readers,” she said.
“That horrible 3,000-word exposé on Ali Watkins … that aired her sex life and conflicts while not probing why she was hired, responsibility of editors, or, most crucially, the value of her journalism (her Carter Page scoop in BuzzFeed actually helped lead to appointment of Mueller).
“That story hung a 26-year-old young woman out to dry. It was unimaginable to me what the pain must be like for her.”
A Times spokeswoman said, “We have enormous respect for Jill and deeply appreciate her passion. Criticism and feedback helps us do better work and we’re always open to it. On these specifics though, we just disagree with Jill.”
A few hours after Abramson’s tweet, the original NYT headline that drew her ire — “Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” — was changed online to “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A 28-Year-Old Democratic Giant Slayer.”