PEOPLE : Amsterdam Reportedly Quits as Editor of N.Y. Post

Jane Amsterdam, editor of the ailing New York Post for less than a year, was reported Friday to have quit her $200,000-a-year job, but a spokesman for the tabloid said “she has neither resigned nor been fired.”

Amsterdam’s office was empty Friday and efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.

The Post, sold last year by media magnate Rupert Murdoch to real estate developer Peter S. Kalikow, has lost millions of dollars over the last decade and is currently believed to be suffering heavy losses from a recently introduced Sunday edition.

The Sunday edition failed to attract major advertisers, and the Post said last week that it would scale back its size and drop its price to 40 cents from $1.

Amsterdam, 37, who was heavily involved in creating the Sunday edition, would be the second top news executive to leave the Post recently. Publisher Peter Price, 48, left the newspaper last month to begin a national sports newspaper.

The Post’s spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, said a meeting between Amsterdam and Kalikow has been set for next week to “discuss the future. Until then, neither party will comment.”

Asked about reports in the Post’s three rival newspapers that Amsterdam had quit, Rubenstein said: “They were interpreting.”

“She’s still working for the paper,” he added. “There’s no question about that. She’s still the editor.” He would not comment on Amsterdam’s plans.

However, reporters at the Post said it was clear that she had resigned and that there was speculation as to who her successor would be.

Sources said they expected next week’s meeting to end in Amsterdam’s departure from the post she has held since last June.

She is under a three-year contract and is one of only six women in the country editing a paper with a circulation of more than 100,000.

The Post has a weekday circulation of 550,000.

Amsterdam previously was editor of Manhattan, inc. magazine and had worked for the Washington Post.