In his speech during an "all hands" meeting for the Times' digital staff on October 15 or 16, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times (NYT), reflexively made a mention of Apple's forthcoming tablet!

Addressing the employees at TheTimesCenter in New York, Keller was talking about the Times' strategy for mobile devices when he made insentience reference to the tablet, even leaking out its name: Apple Slate!

Though the meeting was supposedly "off-the-record," a video of Keller's speech was made available to the Nieman Journalism Lab and posted on its Vimeo site on October 19, essentially to highlight the Times' opinion about the newspaper industry's future prospects.

Keller's remarks went thus: "We need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices. I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that."

Keller's accidental suggestion of the Apple device was initially missed by Nieman, and it was only by late Sunday that the technology experts discovered the tablet reference, after it was revealed by Gawker.

According to Gizmodo, Keller would probably be in-the-know about the Apple tablet, more so since Apple reportedly has been interacting with prestigious media companies, endeavoring to get its content ready for the new device.