Jill Abramson Replaced with Dean Baquet at The New York Times

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson is departing the paper, effective immediately. She has been replaced by former managing editor Dean Baquet. The news broke on Wednesday, exploding across Twitter and yielding a Times article that itself expressed confusion at the development.

As photos from within the stunned newsroom spread online, it became clear that Times publisher and chairman of The New York Times Company Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was behind the switch. “Arthur made the decision because he believed that new leadership would improve some aspects of the management of the newsroom,” a company spokesperson told AdAge.

“There is nothing more at issue here,” Sulzberger told the newsroom, according to CNN host and former Times journalist Brian Stelter

In a statement, Abramson said, “I’ve loved my run at the Times. I got to work with the best journalists in the world doing so much stand-up journalism.”

“There is no journalist in our newsroom or elsewhere better qualified to take on the responsibilities of executive editor at this time than Dean Baquet,” Sulzberger said in a statement. “He is an exceptional reporter and editor with impeccable news judgment who enjoys the confidence and support of his colleagues around the world and across the organization.”

Abramson was the first woman to hold the position at the Times, and Baquet is paper’s first black executive editor.

In 2009, Vanity Fair contributing editor Mark Bowden wrote about the problems plaguing the Times under Sulzberger's stewardship. Of the dozens of staffers he interviewed, Bowden wrote, “Nearly every one of them hopes that Arthur will succeed. Few expect that he can.”

Update (6:30 P.M.): The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta has dropped a bombshell potential insight into why Abramson’s relationship with Sulzberger soured. According to Auletta’s sources, Abramson had recently discovered that she was being paid not only less than former executive editor Bill Keller, but was also paid less than a male deputy managing editor when she held that position. Though the pay gap was reportedly closed before Abramson’s Wednesday firing, Auletta writes that “both sides were left unhappy.” In an e-mail to Business Insider, however, a Times spokesperson said Abramson’s compensation “was not meaningfully less” than Keller's.

Update (11:45 P.M.): Reports in Politico and The Guardian point to an additional wrinkle that may have had a part in Abramson's dismissal. Abramson had reportedly been trying to hire Janine Gibson, who was the editor-in-chief of The Guardian's United States edition and is now the editor-in-chief of the company's global Web site. Gibson—who confirmed to her own paper that she was approached, but turned down the opportunity—would have been a co-managing editor. Abramson's plan reportedly angered Baquet, who was not consulted, and set off Sulzberger, who had been clashing with Abramson for months. An updated article on The New York Times Web site recounts a similar chain of events.