NYT’s Jill Abramson: Social media was biggest difference between Boston and 9/11

When bombs in Boston went off last month, Jill Abramson went in minutes from being a “joyous executive editor” at a ceremony celebrating the New York Times‘ recent Pulitzer Prize wins to overseeing a major story.

Abramson is familiar with working on major news events, including 9/11, but said her primary concerns were different this time. “In Boston, what was first and foremost was making sure our standards were understood,” Abramson said at the Wired Business conference in New York City. Abramson said that, for major stories in the past, the only focus was the next day’s paper. This time around, she was preoccupied with ensuring that no one at the paper seized on one of the many thinly sourced rumors flying around on social media.