I also don't think all of the revenue will come from digital subscriptions. We have in the New York Times a mix of revenue sources and it will continue to be a mix for quite a while. What makes me more nervous is that we built this newsroom on a really high profit margin that has eroded significantly over the last years. I'm nervous that we won't continue to have the profit margins that allow us to have a big, robust newsroom.

You're always going to have more traffic if you're a free website. But we've always admitted that the New York Times was behind other news organizations in making our stories available to people on the web. BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post are much better than we are at that, and I envy them for this. But I think the trick for the New York Times is to stick to what we are. That doesn't mean: Don't change. But I don't want to be BuzzFeed. If we tried to be what they are, we would lose.

The Washington Post is and has been the greatest historic competitor of the New York Times. Half of me, though, the unselfish part of me that is just a journalist, is thrilled. I want newspapers to succeed. Let's take the Guardian, which is a new competitor in the digital age. Does it make me nervous that they compete with us and in fact beat us on the Snowden story? Yes. The part of me that's a competitive journalist and wants to fight and play says: bring them on! It's more fun that way.

I also don't think all of the revenue will come from digital subscriptions. We have in the New York Times a mix of revenue sources and it will continue to be a mix for quite a while. What makes me more nervous is that we built this newsroom on a really high profit margin that has eroded significantly over the last years. I'm nervous that we won't continue to have the profit margins that allow us to have a big, robust newsroom.

I grew up in the traditional American newspaper world with a morning paper and an afternoon paper competing with each other beat by beat by beat. It was the most fun I've ever had. And it was great for journalism.

We, in the New York Times, have not yet figured out how to grow our international readership. We started a website in China, which the Chinese government has blocked, but it has a pretty healthy readership. The Guardian, for instance, has gotten tremendous growth through its website in the US. We have to figure out how to go after readership in different parts of the world.

The mainstream press was not aggressive enough after 9/11, was not aggressive enough in asking questions about a decision to go to war in Iraq, was not aggresive enough in asking the hard questions about the War on Terror. I accept that for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.