Hi, it's Diane. On my mind, a veteran journalist on the media is rolling in today's fragile democracy.

We need to make sure that we're willing to do things differently to make sure people understand the consequences because they're pretty big.

Margaret Sullivan started her career at the Buffalo News. She eventually took over his top editor and ran it for more than a decade.

In 2012, she became the public editor at The New York Times, turning a critical eye on the paper's coverage and seeking accountability for journalistic missteps.

In 2016, Sullivan joined the Washington Post as media columnist, where she traced the rise of Donald Trump and misinformation.

Earlier this year, she left the post and has written a new book titled Newsroom Confidential. I reached her by phone Thursday morning.

Margaret, your early experience was with the Buffalo News back in 1980 as a summer intern.

And then you became the paper's first female editor in 1999. Tell me how many other women were on that newspaper at the time.

Diane, there were actually a number of women on the newspaper staff. What there weren't though is many women at the top of newsrooms around the country.

When I became the first woman editor of the Buffalo News, we looked at the top 100 papers just to see where I sit in.

The Buffalo News was about the 50th largest of about 1400 papers in the country.

And of those top 100, there were 13 of us women who were top editors at newspapers.

So it was still relatively rare and it was a first in Buffalo.

And kind of a surprise in some ways because the other candidates were men and I was told several times, look, we're probably, I don't think this is going to happen.

But I had been at the paper, as you said, for 19 years and I had done many reporting jobs and many editing jobs.

And I was the number two editor. I was the managing editor. So, you know, it really, I think I had paid my dues, Diane.

And Ed, let's talk about your job as what they called public editor of the New York Times first explain what that meant.

The public editor, sort of a peculiar job that is relatively rare these days.

It's a job of reader representative within the paper, but with a big dose of independence.

So the public editor does not report up through the top editor of the paper, but rather is independent, even though employed by the paper.

And the idea is that you're kind of an internal critic.

You are the repository of complaint from the public.

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