Bring back the public editor! (No, I don't want the job.)
Plus: Readers come through with examples of bad headlines; and a bit of welcome inspiration.
I started thinking about public editors last week when I wrote a column for the Guardian about the misbegotten plan for a “bias monitor” at CBS News.
That position, though it’s officially called an “ombudsman,” is not the kind of ombudsman I was at the New York Times until 2016, which is a fully independent journalist working for the readers to maintain high standards.
If you want to read about why I think the plan at CBS is a bad one, here’s the column.
But in thinking back on my days as the reader representative and internal watchdog for New York Times journalism, I realized that those positions need to be given a comeback.
Why? Trust, that’s why. We know that trust in the mainstream media is in the gutter. And I strongly believe that a good public editor can attack that problem head on. In listening to, and addressing, and investigating, complaints from readers, public editors can provide crucial transparency.
Before I go further, I want to say two things:
One, I definitely don’t want to be a public editor again. It was a great experience and one I’m grateful for, but I’m very happy to be writing here on American Crisis and in the Guardian US. I don’t need the inevitable headaches of that job, and wouldn’t accept it if it were offered.
Two, contrary to what a lot of people believe, I wasn’t fired from the Times. Quite the contrary. Then-publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. (the father of the current publisher) even tried to get me to stay longer than my actual term. But after more than three years in that tough position, I was ready to do something else, and I had a job prospect at the Washington Post to be their media columnist. Even so, as it turned out, I would be the longest serving public editor at the Times.
It was the following year — in 2017 — that the Times decided to end the role, which had been established about 15 years earlier after a couple of crises that harmed the paper’s credibility. My successor, Liz Spayd, was doing the job at that time; Liz is an impressive journalist who had been the first woman managing editor at the Washington Post and later the top editor at the Columbia Journalism Review.
Regardless of my own history, I know that the position is a worthwhile one. And I’m disappointed that the Post and the Times, and many other news organizations, have decided to deep-six it. One of the reasons given — including at the Times — was that social media would do the job because it gives voice to many critics. In short, Twitter is the new public editor.
But that’s hogwash. As I wrote in my Guardian piece, a diligent public editor can do essential things that social media can’t. Receive reader complaints, take them seriously, ask pointed questions of the powers-that-be, get answers every time, and publish the investigation/analysis/conclusions in the same place that the original journalism was published.
I think re-establishing the position at every network and large newspaper company would improve trust, which is in short supply. But I acknowledge that it isn’t going to happen. So please value the public editors (whatever they may be called) at the Guardian, NPR and a few other places.
In my last post, I pointed out the problems with soft-focus, normalizing headlines, and asked you for contributions to my collection. There were many nominees in the comments section, including headlines from the Sacramento Bee to the Boston Globe.
Several mentioned the misguided framing of “A Texas Tussle” — which has to do with the Lone Star State Republican efforts to steal the midterm elections through gerrymandering. Beyond the headline, the piece in the New York Times newsletter, The Morning, actually points the finger at Democrats: “It’s an old trick: If you can’t win a vote, make sure it doesn’t happen. That’s what Texas Democrats had in mind when they fled Austin on Sunday…” etc.
One reader alerted me to something (darkly) entertaining that I hadn’t seen before, a McSweeney’s piece by Carlos Greaves: New York Times Style Guide for Substitutions for “The President Violated the Constitution.” For example, and please note that this is satire, despite the uncanny resemblance to reality: “As a tailor might stitch together a suit from pieces of textile, so too did the president fashion himself a bespoke garment from the supple threads of the nation’s legal fabric.”
Also in the comments, reader (and author) Celia Wexler pointed out a terrifying story that got little attention from major news outlets. This one, from the AP, has a perfectly good headline: “Trump executive order gives politicians control over all federal grants, alarming researchers.” The fact that this got such little attention speaks volumes about what the news media is focused on these days.
Separately, I was delighted by reader Libby Maeder’s “fixed it for you” suggestion for that eye-roller of a Wall Street Journal article about Buffalo, which in real life (print edition) was annoyingly titled “Loving Buffalo is Hard. Staying Away is Harder.” Libby fixed it: “Loving Buffalo is Easy. Staying Away is Hard.” Another reader tempered my Buffalo-expat rant by noting that it ran in the Mansions section, and was, after all, about real estate. And another wondered about my description of a stream of naked bicyclists I saw on Buffalo’s Elmwood Avenue. Sorry, Alan Stamm (recovering journalist, formerly of the AP). I don’t know what their cause was; I only know what their apparel wasn’t.
Readers, thank you very much for your interest, support and participation. Because many of us are trying to keep the right attitude through this unending national nightmare, I refer you to a piece by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, this one with a perfect headline: “Working for the Good.” If you need inspiration, you can’t do better than to read this.
Reich quotes the late Czech writer and statesman Vaclav Havel about hope. It’s not a prediction but “an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”
Carry on, everyone. And have hope. Please tell me in the comments what’s keeping hope alive for you at this moment. (And, of course, please keep submitting examples of journalism that isn’t meeting the moment — whether because of the headline or something else.
Here’s why one American Crisis reader decided to become a paid subscriber, and then some information for newcomers, whom I heartily welcome:
My background: I am a Lackawanna, NY native who started my career as a summer intern at the Buffalo News, my hometown daily. After years as a reporter and editor, I was named the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999, and ran the 200-person newsroom for almost 13 years. Starting in 2012, I served as the first woman “public editor” of the New York Times — an internal media critic and reader representative — and later was the media columnist for the Washington Post. These days, I write here on Substack, as well as for the Guardian US, and teach an ethics course at Columbia Journalism School. I’ve also written two books and won a few awards, including three for defending First Amendment principles.
The purpose of ‘American Crisis’: My aim is to use this newsletter (it started as a podcast in 2023) to push for the kind of journalism we need for our democracy to function — journalism that is accurate, fair, mission-driven and public-spirited. That means that I point out the media’s flaws and failures when necessary.
What I ask of you: Last fall, I removed the paywall so that everyone could read and comment. I thought it was important in this dire moment and might be helpful. If you are able to subscribe at $50 a year or $8 a month, or upgrade your unpaid subscription, that will help to support this venture — and keep it going for all. Thank you!
Those in charge at the Times, if not at the rapidly sinking Post, must know the truth of what you are saying about the desirability of re-establishing a Public Editor. They must also know that their explanation for terminating that position was, as you also say, hogwash. (That fact was obvious soon after your departure, when then-editorial page editor James Bennet derisively dismissed the extensive negative reader response to Bret Stephens's first column, with its snide language on climate change.) Times leadership is thus in bad faith on this issue, and that fact doesn't seem to trouble them. That state of affairs is powerful evidence of haughty, short-sighted, and defensive management -- not what the country or the paper needs.
As always, your column--and coffee-was necessary to get my brain functioning on a Monday morning. It contained numerous insights worth of comment, but your mention of Havel sent my mind into a something of a tangent. George Soros is from Hungary, but your reference to the Czech hero pointed me in the direction of the overthrow of Communism in Central Europe. As far as I can tell, the mainstream media has pretty much accepted the Right's demonization of Soros as a shadowy left-wing Richelieu undermining the country with behind the scenes manipulation. The media does point out that the Right's mentioning of Soros could have anti-semitic overtones, but they never point out that Soros is a rare billionaire who has dedicated his later years to spreading democracy all over the world, particularly in his native land. Apart from the anti-semitic insinuation, the press is content to let the GOP smear Soros as a left-wing balance to the Koch brothers and hundreds of other right-wing plutocrats who are dedicated to ridding the nation of the remnants of democracy.