While I'm critical to the Bush presidency, it's been enormously beneficial for Salon because we're seen as kind of an aggressive watchdog on the Bush White House. Particularly since Florida, our readership hit a whole new level, and we held onto those readers.

People sort of take it for granted, but the more you see of the media world the more you appreciate a paper like the Times where its family continues to invest in editorial quality and I think it's the truly is the best paper in the world.

Do I regret taking the company public? Yes and no. Yes, because it put us under enormous pressure for a young company to go public at that point in its history, something you never could have done in the old days.

I think there is a difference between Slate and Salon. I think we both serve important functions on the Internet. As more and more Websites disappear, I'm thankful Slate is still around because it makes things less lonely.

A lot of my idealism was frustrated by the end of the '60s because of the way things went with the assassinations and the sense that the political establishment was so fixed in its ways you couldn't change anything.

After Watergate, which happened when I was in college, I became increasingly inspired by journalism as a way to change the world. It sounds corny, but to wake the public up, to serve a higher cause.

My favorite thing is still journalism. I'm almost 50. This has been my life ever since I was in college.