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This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka. That's me. I'm here with Margaret Sullivan, formerly at the New York Times, now with the Washington Post.

We're just talking this morning, professional bloviator, you said?

Yes, exactly.

You're on an 8 a.m. talking.

And now you're here with me talking.

I write about it, and then I go talk about it.

I should tell people what you did at the Times and what you're doing at the Post in case they don't know. At the Times, you were the public editor. Yes. Now you are the media columnist for the post. That's right. Similar jobs, but different. They're not really all that similar, honestly. It seems to me from very far away, thank you for joining us, that they are sort of the same. You're sort of critiquing the job of the media. In the case of the Times, you're

critiquing really specifically the Times. And at the Post, obviously, it's pretty broadly. But it seems

like you're trafficking in the same stuff. Yeah, I don't see myself at the Post as a media

critic. And I do think there's a little bit of a distinction there. I do criticize the media from

time to time. But at the New York Times, I was in the role of the, you know, you can look at it different ways.

Reader representative is one way to look at it.

Internal media cop is another way to look at it.

And in this role, I'm trying to take a broader view and look at things in a kind of a bigger picture way.

I will tell you that when I pitched Marty Barron on this, I, the editor of the Post.

Yes, the editor of the Washington Post.

I told him that I, you know, thought that David Carr at the New York Times had done a great job.

He, of course, agreed as every sentient being does, and said that I would try to, you know, I don't think I can be David Carr, but I would sort of model what I was doing on that, which means taking a kind of a getting up and looking at it from a little bit higher, broader perspective. So I want to talk to you about both those jobs. I want to talk to you about Donald Trump. I want to talk to you briefly about that. Are we allowed to bring up the person who has your old job now, Liz Spade? Is there a public editor, a code of Omerita where you're not allowed to speak about each other? Well, I'll tell you this, that when I was public editor, I considered it a great gift that none of my four predecessors ever found it necessary to critique my work

publicly. So I considered that very helpful, and I certainly don't want to critique her work. I

know her. She's, I consider her a friend. I know she's gotten beaten up in the past few weeks

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