This post has been updated.
The sudden firing of New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson ignited a media firestorm, but Ira Glass was apparently unfazed.
After the Peabody Awards on Monday, New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog asked Glass, the host and producer of the radio show “This American Life,” about Abramson’s dismissal from the Times, which was the first he had heard of the news.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Glass said when reporter Katie Van Syckle told him Abramson was fired.
“Okay. And she was who?” Glass asked when Syckle told him again.
Glass then explained that he doesn’t pay attention to media news or who edits newspapers, despite the fact that he loves the New York Times.
“I read the newspaper, but I live in my own little bubble,” he said. “I hate reading media news so I actively sort of — I’m not interested in someone getting fired. No disrespect to people that are, but I literally had no idea who she was, or that she got fired until this moment.”
When Syckle expressed surprise, Glass told her that he’d been busy working on multiple shows.
“Am I, like, the only person in New York who hasn’t heard this?” he asked.
And finally, he said he just doesn’t care.
“Honestly, like, I’m a superfan of the New York Times, but I know nothing about how they put it together and I really don’t care,” Glass said.
I feel the same way: Too much inside baseball of interest only to those in the media.
Couldn’t agree with Glass more. In fact, I’d like to know what her redundancy package was–then maybe people would stop feeling sorry for her or whatever it is we’re “supposed” to feel.
Are they now taking a poll of people who don’t care about this issue? Count me in.
I’m with Ira. This is inside, inside baseball.
Good for Ira. I’m sick to death of the story.
Jill seems to have gotten off “whole” in a legal, equity and economic, sense, and that’s not bad.