New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt will end his three-year run in the post with a final column Sunday. He says the experience has been positive, although sometimes making him feel like “a shock absorber.”

“I was expecting it to be sort of a shock absorber job between the newsroom and individuals who were commenting about things - that is the way it has turned out to be,” Hoyt told me.

Hoyt, who has been in the public editor job for three years, has a contract that technically expires June 16.

He was first hired in 2007 as the third public editor, for a two-year stint, but the Times extended it a year in 2009.

He said he will expand on his views in his final column, but added, “I don't have any regrets about it. It has been fascinating and endlessly interesting.”

The Times created the public editor position in 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, in which the former reporter was found to have fabricated stories and lied about being at events. Daniel Okrent was the first public editor, followed by former Wall Street Journal veteran Byran Calame.

Hoyt, the longest-serving of the public editors, said he did not encounter anything on the job that was too overwhelming. “I am not sure I have felt surprised, I have been grateful for the experience,” he said. “People at the Times have been unfailingly professional. It is never easy to be criticized, but people took it well.”

Among those Hoyt knocked heads with is Executive Editor Bill Keller. The disputes included the assignment of reporter Ethan Bronner to cover Israeli military events. Hoyt wrote in February that Bronner should be reassigned because his son is in the Israeli military.

But Keller disregarded the advice, keeping him on the beat, even for the most recent Israel raid on a Turkish flotilla.

Hoyt declined to comment on specific disputes. He said he plans to do some consulting after this job is over, adding “I have some ideas I am working on but I am not ready to say at this point.”

As for the Times, officials there remain mum on who will replace Hoyt. But Keller has said in the recent past that a new public editor will come in. Who and when remains up in the air.