What am I missing here about Jill Abramson’s firing as executive editor of the New York Times?

I keep coming back to the threshold question: Was she doing the job or wasn’t she?

The NYT’s brain trust said she wasn’t, so they let her go.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/jill-abramson-wake-forest-graduation-nytimes-new-york-times-firing-106824.html?hp=t1

I saw commentators over the weekend suggest that Abramson was being held to a different standard because she’s a woman. Really? I’ve always adhered to the policy that if you’re doing what your bosses want, then you’re in the clear. If not, then you get whacked. Pure and simple. I don’t understand the double standard argument. Someone will have to help me out.

One more quick point.

Salary reportedly has become an issue of public discussion. I have no idea what Abramson earned as executive editor, or whether it equaled what her immediate predecessor, Bill Keller, earned.

Back when I was working full time as a journalist, I always was instructed that my salary was privileged information, to be known only by myself, my immediate supervisors and the person in charge of cutting the checks every pay period. I followed that policy to the letter during my more than three decades in daily journalism. I never told anyone my salary, nor did I ever ask anyone what they earned.

There were times over the years when I more or less put two-and-two together to presume what someone was earning, but I never — not a single time — discussed it openly.

Abramson got canned. As the sanitized version of the saying goes: Stuff happens.