In Politico yesterday, media reporter Dylan Baquet published a long story alleging that Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times, is losing the confidence and support of her reporters and editors.

Just a year and a half into her tenure as executive editor, Abramson is already on the verge of losing the support of the newsroom. Staffers commend her skills and her experience but question whether she has the temperament to lead the paper. At times, they say, her attitude toward editors and reporters leaves everyone feeling demoralized; on other occasions, she can seem disengaged or uncaring.

One of the criticisms of Abramson—all voiced anonymously—is that she’s often out of the newsroom on speaking engagements.

Abramson is “sometimes required to travel to represent the newsroom in important business decisions and also as an ambassador of The Times to industry gatherings, much like previous editors before her.” Abramson’s “unique status as the first female editor of The Times means she gets even more of these opportunities,” Murphy wrote.

Allow me a small, digressive point: This argument struck me as very much similar to things that Drew Faust’s communications armada says about her, and it occurs to me that perhaps the first female heads of large organizations should spend less time talking about being the first female heads of large organizations and more time running them.

In any event: Baquet’s story struck me as fair, on the whole, giving ample room to people who responded that such allegations merely reflected sexist attitudes towards female leaders. Does the Times managing editor really need to be “caring,” for example? Would you say that about a male head of an organization?

I think in the case of the Times, with its particular culture and the painful transitions it’s going through, the answer is yes. (Howell Raines also got caught up in being uncaring.) But you could certainly argue it either way.

Almost instantly, though, pundits, mostly women, began crying sexism. (Leaning-in, you might say.) In Slate, Hanna Rosin wrote that

…the evidence the Politico story presents to support its thesis that there’s “widespread frustration and anxiety within the Times newsroom” is pretty thin. To me, these sound like the complaints of some disgruntled staffers. She yelled at a photo editor. She pissed off Baquet. She was “jetting off” to Sundance during the buyouts. (Whenever I read “jetting off,” I think “disgruntled underling.”)

Despite my job and, basically, my life, I consider myself something of a populist, and “disgruntled underling” is a phrase that makes me want to punch a wall. It’s been used against me in the past, and it’s just a nasty smear—suggesting anonymous, whiny, complaining drones who haven’t earned the right to criticize their betters. What is a disgruntled underling but a snob’s term for a whistleblower? Rosin is decrying sexism while indulging in classism.

In any case, it seems reasonable to be PO’d at a boss who’s hanging out at Sundance even as people are losing their jobs back in New York.

In the Daily Beast, Howie Kurtz echoes the sexism charge:

….hard-driving women are too often portrayed as harridans.

Also in the Daily Beast, Tricia Romano writes that…

….the article reads like a sexist fairy tale….

Here article is titled “Leave Jill Abramson Alone, You Sexists.”

Oh, cry me a river. She’s the executive editor of the New York Times, which is not a job for the thin-skinned. Presumably she can handle a little criticism.

Here is my general rule: Whenever there is such overwhelming consensus about a thing, it is wrong. As, I think, it is in this case.

Here’s why.

For one thing, media reporting almost always relies on anonymous sources and hard-to-prove rumors. It’s not fair, but reporters, being well-versed in the rules of the game, are (rather hypocritically, I think) genetically averse to going on the record. In this case, Baquet clearly tried hard to present both sides of the story, and I think he did a good job of that.

Second, media reporting should focus on the powerful—not, as Rosin might suggest, the “underlings.” There’s been precious little of that in recent years, as the Observer has lost its nerve and Gawker has become less insider-y. I’m delighted to see a reporter accept the challenge of writing about the new editor of the New York Times—even though it’s eminently predictable that any criticism of the paper’s first female editor will automatically be dubbed sexist.

And finally, it’s not as if every new editor of the New York Times doesn’t get some tough coverage, if only because the last few of them haven’t been very good.

As (yay!) Melinda Hennenberg writes for the Washington Post,

The general response to Politico’s hot poop has been to wonder if a man in her position would have been so roundly trashed. And that, too, kind of cracks me up, because so many men in that position have been trashed…

As more women assume positions of power—and good on ’em for it—it is a fait accomplit that any and all criticism of them will be labeled sexist. Some of it may well be. But not all of it. And this constant crying of (she-) wolf will soon trivialize even those legitimate charges of sexism, the way that the constant application of the term “politically correct” eventually rendered it meaningless.

A final point: Abramson defenders have been quick to point out that the Times won four Pulitzers this year, but it’s a fact that doesn’t prove much; very likely it says more about how the Times, with its comparatively strong economic situation, is able to commission reporting that other newspapers no longer can afford. It’s like winning the Kentucky Derby when all the other horses have broken legs….