"If we don't do that, who will?"

I asked [Scott] Smith [president and publisher of the Chicago Tribune Company, which in 2004 had $5.7bn in revenues] how he responds to [newspaper] reporters who ask why a fifteen percent profit margin is not enough. He replied, "It's the equivalent of saying, 'I wrote a really good story yesterday, but that's the best I'll ever do'. Our premise is that we can improve". The question is: Improve the paper or the profits?

from Fault Line - Can the Los Angeles Times survive its owners? by Ken Auletta, The New Yorker, 10 October