She'd given her pledge of confidentiality. She was prepared to honor that. We were going to support her.

I felt strongly that, one, Judy deserved the support of the paper in this cause - and the editorial page is the right place for such support, not the news pages. And secondly, that this issue of a federal shield law is really important to the nation.

Maybe a deal was possible earlier. And maybe, in retrospect, looking back, you could say this was a moment you could have jumped on. If so, shame on us. I tend to think not.

We are trying to make a product, a news experience, that more fully engages our readers, that allows them to want to spend more time with us.

The decision to hold [the story] never even got to me. It was made for good journalistic reasons.

We are grateful to Judy for her significant personal sacrifice to defend an important journalistic principle. I respect her decision to retire from The Times and wish her well.