PROVIDENCE -- The editor of The New York Times yesterday told a group of New England reporters, editors and newspaper executives that they spend too much time worrying about the economic future of the news business and too little time turning out top-flight journalism.

"I am optimistic about the business we are in," Bill Keller, Times executive editor, told about 75 editors and reporters at the annual fall meeting of the New England Associated Press News Executives Association at The Westin Providence hotel.

"There is a dispiriting preoccupation with money" in journalism nowadays, Keller said. The flight of readers from traditional newspapers to the Internet is a trend to be concerned about, he said, but not at the expense of sacrificing the traditional aims of American newspapers, such as giving citizens the news they need to make reasonable judgments in a democratic society.

"Who would want to live in a country" without a vigorous news media, Keller said. "What would they whine about if it were not for us."

"Yes, we're in for a turbulent time," Keller said. "But I don't think people should be so preoccuiped with the future of the business that we forget why we are here."

Keller sprinkled his talk and a brief interview after with humor as he spoke about some of the controversies The Times has been involved with of late and said the increased scrutiny from the blogosphere and talk radio has changed the nature of being The Times' top editor.

These days, Keller said, the executive editor of The Times is the "favorite chew-toy of both right and left."

Conservatives sometimes have a better sense of humor than liberals, he said. When The Times recently announced its decision to cut the size of the paper's news hole by about 5 percent, narrowing the daily paper by 1.5 inches, a conservative blogger wrote: "1.5 inches down, 12.5 inches to go."

Keller said both the political left and right have contorted the mission of The Times, which is to deliver news in a fair and forthright manner. It is inevitable, Keller said, that aggressive coverage is going to upset whichever party happens to be in power.

"We are not driven by partisan animus," Keller said. "The adversarial news process does not begin or end with the Bush administration."

It has been troubling, Keller said, for the newspaper and its reporters and editors to be targets of President Bush and his top administrators.

Mr. Bush met with Keller last year in an attempt to get The Times to refrain from publishing a story that the Bush administration had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on foreign telephone calls into the United States without obtaining court-approved warrants.

In an Oval Office meeting, Keller recalled that Mr. Bush told him that Keller would have "blood on his hands" if The Times published the story and there was another terror attack.

The Times held the story until it could make further verification, Keller said, but eventually published the article by James Risen and Eric Litchblau.

Liberals excoriated the newspaper for holding the story until after the 2004 presidential election. And conservatives were frosted that the story ever found its way into print.

Keller was a distinguished foreign correspondent for The Times before becoming foreign editor and managing editor.

A graduate of Pomona College in California, Keller went to work for The Times in 1984. Two years later, he was assigned to the newspaper's Moscow bureau, where he covered the fall of the Soviet Union, winning a Pulitzer Prize. Later, Keller covered the fall of apartheid in South Africa.

Keller has also served as a Times op-ed columnist and as a senior writer for The Sunday Times Magazine.

Liberals should understand that The Times has consistently "brought you a great deal of information that the White House never wanted you to know," Keller said.

As for conservatives, Keller said, they should realize that The Times struggles to be fair and accurate in its news columns and clearly labels its opinion pages and columns as opinion. Keller says he has no control over opinion sections of the Times.

Keller said he does not "conspire with Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd to bring down America."

smackay@projo.com / (401) 277-7321