New York Times Could Name a CEO by September

Somewhere in the middle of a New York Times story about the Times Company's $88.1 million quarterly loss, a company source told reporter Amy Chozick that it would name a new CEO as soon as September. That means that at the earliest, The New York Times Company would have a new chief nine months after Janet Robinson left last December, her $24 million exit package easing the way. One funny side-note on the report by the company's flagship publication on the company's own circulation and finances: It had to issue a correction, revising up the number of paid digital subscribers, from  454,000, to 424,000.

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The latest speculation on Robinson's replacement points to BBC director general Mark Thompson as her likely successor, but The Guardian's report on that last month said he was still considering other jobs. The company actually has until this coming December to replace Robinson before her influence departs completely. When she left, she agreed to stay on for a year in a "post-retirement consulting arrangement," according to her departure agreement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But one has to wonder how warmly she's engaging in that roll: A lengthy feature by New York's Joe Hagen suggested in May that Robinson was pushed out by Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., possibly at the behest of his girlfriend, Claudia Gonzalez. Sulzberger has been acting CEO ever since.