Jill Abramson: NY Times Buyouts 'Horrible' But Needed

New York Times editor Jill Abramson said in an interview on Wednesday that the recent buyouts and layoffs that hit her paper were "painful" but necessary.

The Times shed about 30 staffers in its latest round of job cuts, including several very senior editors who had been with the paper for decades. Reports at the time indicated that Abramson was trying to push through a major reform of the Times' masthead. Speaking to Capital New York's Joe Pompeo, Abramson essentially confirmed this narrative, saying that there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen.

"Some of the top jobs in the newsroom we sort of could no longer afford," she said. "They're great people, they're incredibly talented, they're Times people to the core, they do have amazing institutional memory, but in some ways, they were editors of editors. We just had a lot of layers ... that's just an extra layer that we can't afford."

She added it was "horrible" to see her colleagues go, but that it was the right decision.

Read the full interview at Capital New York.