The American Society of News Editors’ convention is always one of the year’s best journalism meetings. The one that concluded today in Washington had something for editors at newspapers large and small, and even a bit for broadcasters (note that the 90-year-old group is now for “News Editors,” not just “Newspaper Editors”).
The economic pressures on newspapers have prompted many to drop their readers’ representatives, or ombudsmen, a Scandinavian term adopted by The Courier-Journal of Louisville when it created the first one in 1967. An ASNE panel addressed the question: “Readers’ and Viewers’ Representatives: Who Needs Them?” Notably, two of the three panelists work for television networks; Michael Getler, former ombudsman at The Washington Post, now fills that role for PBS; and Robert Lipsyte, a retired New York Times sports writer, is ESPN’s first ombudsman. (The ASNE program incorrectly called the men "ombudspersons.")
Michael Adams, editor of the independently owned Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina, asked for suggestions about how a 50,000-daily like his could have a reader’s representative. Margaret Sullivan, the Times' public editor, suggested asking a journalism professor at a local college to handle the job, which probably wouldn't require as much time as hers. She noted that ESPN used the Poynter Institute faculty to perform the ombud function before hiring Lipsyte.
The suggestion was a good one, but wasn't much help to Adams, because there's no journalism school in his rural, 10-county coverage area, but he said afterward that he deals with reader inquiries ans complaints in his blog and occasionally in his Sunday column in the print edition. The most recent example involved the different play the paper gave the separate, accidental deaths of two recent graduates of the same high school, one black and one white. He said the black student's family, which also lost his brother, wouldn't talk to the newspaper, and the white student was a prominent athlete.
Sullivan said, "To the extent that editors can be very responsive to readers, particularly in real time, that's very important." Getler said having a readers' representative is "actually good business," because readers like it and it builds accountability and credibility for the paper.
UPDATE: Rem Reider writes in USA Today, "The number of U.S. news outlets employing ombudsmen has never been very large, and about 14 of the positions have been eliminated since the onset of the recession in 2008. As embattled newspapers have shrunk their staffs, the ombudsman has been a tempting target." (Read more)
More on the ASNE convention will appear later in The Rural Blog.
The economic pressures on newspapers have prompted many to drop their readers’ representatives, or ombudsmen, a Scandinavian term adopted by The Courier-Journal of Louisville when it created the first one in 1967. An ASNE panel addressed the question: “Readers’ and Viewers’ Representatives: Who Needs Them?” Notably, two of the three panelists work for television networks; Michael Getler, former ombudsman at The Washington Post, now fills that role for PBS; and Robert Lipsyte, a retired New York Times sports writer, is ESPN’s first ombudsman. (The ASNE program incorrectly called the men "ombudspersons.")
Michael Adams, editor of the independently owned Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina, asked for suggestions about how a 50,000-daily like his could have a reader’s representative. Margaret Sullivan, the Times' public editor, suggested asking a journalism professor at a local college to handle the job, which probably wouldn't require as much time as hers. She noted that ESPN used the Poynter Institute faculty to perform the ombud function before hiring Lipsyte.
The suggestion was a good one, but wasn't much help to Adams, because there's no journalism school in his rural, 10-county coverage area, but he said afterward that he deals with reader inquiries ans complaints in his blog and occasionally in his Sunday column in the print edition. The most recent example involved the different play the paper gave the separate, accidental deaths of two recent graduates of the same high school, one black and one white. He said the black student's family, which also lost his brother, wouldn't talk to the newspaper, and the white student was a prominent athlete.
Sullivan said, "To the extent that editors can be very responsive to readers, particularly in real time, that's very important." Getler said having a readers' representative is "actually good business," because readers like it and it builds accountability and credibility for the paper.
UPDATE: Rem Reider writes in USA Today, "The number of U.S. news outlets employing ombudsmen has never been very large, and about 14 of the positions have been eliminated since the onset of the recession in 2008. As embattled newspapers have shrunk their staffs, the ombudsman has been a tempting target." (Read more)
More on the ASNE convention will appear later in The Rural Blog.
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