This month's Elle has a profile of New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson. It's pretty competent, instead of being all "OMG lady news executive!," and, as today's WWD notes, it's fairly thorough.

There's her professional prowess ("Abramson has, with one notable exception, impressed every boss she's worked for with what [The New Yorker's Jane] Mayer characterizes as her habit of almost never making mistakes"), her voice ("adenoidal to the point of honk"), discussions of her involvement as Washington bureau chief in the Judith Miller and Jayson Blair affairs—and the question of who will succeed current executive editor Bill Keller.

Right now, we're going with: Not her. To be fair, there's plenty of time for her to gain some better ratings on her chances of succession, but the fallout from her D.C. bureau time isn't helping those who are trying to have fun with a Clinton-Obama scenario between her and new D.C. bureau chief Dean Baquet. (We've heard from both sides on Jill; and to be even fairer, isn't every woman executive considered "polarizing"? Hey, just like Hillary! Chicks. Whattaya gonna do?)

But, more importantly, there's the pictures of Abramson, above, taken in a photo-booth in 1999 with columnist-pal Maureen Dowd. We're not sure which MoDo we like best: Sultry? Smiling? Pouty? We're just happy we got to collect them all.

OH, THOSE AMBITIOUS MEDIA TYPES [WWD]