Oh brother, yet another panel on the future of newspapers. Must they? Many of the usual suspects were on hand at the NY W (midtown branch) to hear about those floundering Tribune boys and how morale at the LAT has reached subterranean levels and how newspaper companies shouldn't be concerned about quarterly earnings (yeah, easy for them to say). And of course, Grazergate came up. Baquet, staying comfortably above the fray as Washington bureau chief of the NYT, takes a crack at the controversy. "I understand what they were trying to do," he said, but "I wouldn’t have done it because it invites conflict."

For as many questions as Baquet fielded about the Los Angeles Times during the panel, he tried to distance himself from his former employer. “[I’m trying] as much as possible to cut myself off from my old job. Overall morale is in the tank. I like the new editor, he’s a friend,” he said adding that given what he had to face, it’s likely editor James O’Shea will have to reduce staff as well. “It’s a hell of a paper.”