. >> keller: post jason blair, right.ommittee headed by al segal, who was an assistant managing editor, prescribed a for the times to have a public editor. the times, a lot of ooher papers have ombudsmen. the times had already said, the readers' representative. we shouldn't have to hire an ouusider to dd that, but under the other extreme assault on our credibility, it just seemed like a reasonable measure. you know, there's -- all you have to do is say the words, utter the phrase, public editor in the newsroom and people will gather around and, and you'll, it'll be like gathered around a pit bull fight or somethingg it's still a ontroversial and unpleasant thing. and particularly now that the internet has given us an endless supply of critics, the idea that we would pay somebody ggod money and give them space to do it in our own paper and sometimes call. >> smith: and have them essentially unanswerable and unaccountable right? they operate as totally independent actor within the paper. >> keller: that's correct. >> smith:

what did the jason blair story due to the times? how did it change the way you operate?>> guest: it was a scalding experience for the times, and we absolutely put in some new safeguards to, you know, actually really aimed at making sure all of our journalists know the times' standards backwards and forwards it have the right kind of training and supervision. and we now have a public editor, which we did not have an ombudsman or anyone from the outside scrutinizing our journalism. and after the jason blair episode, we did decide it was prudent to have one and we've had, you know, several at this point. but, you know, it cost the two top editors of the newspaper their jobs. it was a very wrenching time. c-span: as you sit here and there has exceeded that of her, you can't possibly know what every editor at that paper is doing. >> guest: it's true, but i still, you know, it may seem given jason villere and some other self-inflicted wounds at the time, like hard to, you know, appreciate the truth of what i was saying back in 1998, but i still believe that. you know, most eve