That wasn't the executive editor of the NYT, that was Clay Shirky, the news-should-be-free guru. (Referenced here: http://www.sundance.org/festival/article/qa-page-one-a-year-...)

He wasn't speaking on behalf of the Times, he was speaking as an observer who is pretty firmly against pay walls. If you asked someone at the Times what their pay wall is, they'd say its the good old retail news model: Asking customers to pay money for your product.