The not-grey lady

All the news that’s fit to….speechify on South Lawn?

Barnard has just announced that the The New York Times’ executive editor Jill Abramson will be this year’s commencement speaker. She’ll receive a Barnard Medal of Distinction and address the Class of 2012’s 600 graduates on May 14.

DSpar has (surprise!) kind words: “We have so many reasons to value Ms. Abramson’s place in history as the first woman to appear at the top of The New York Times masthead,” she says in the press release, posted in full after the jump, “From her early days as a reporter to her current post as the paper’s executive editor, she has been unfailing in her convictions and a true inspiration.”

Abramson took over as the Times’ first female executive editor in September 2011. She’s best known for her book on Clarence Thomas and–rather pertinently for a graduation speaker–her distinctive drawling voice. She graduated from Harvard in 1976.