THE PUBLIC EDITOR
Now It's Time for The Times to Talk About The Times
By DANIEL OKRENT
Two weeks ago, my column on The Times's arts listings brought gratitude from those who agreed with me and anger and derision, leavened with a few reasonable points of argument, from those who did not. I wouldn't expect it any other way. But among those who pounced on me here at the paper were some who were provoked by my use of "glib," "arrogance" and "condescending" to portray the attitude of the culture editors.
Those who took me to task included some Times editors and writers who agreed with my position on the listings changes, but found my choice of words indelicate. They may be right. If I were a better writer I would have followed the ancient dictum "show, don't tell" - let readers come to their own conclusions instead of leading them with my own loaded characterizations. (While I'm in garment-rending mode, I want to correct a mistaken impression I may have left: when I wrote that "at least two full Sunday pages are ready to be conscripted for the cause" of revised listings, that was and is my opinion, and not the position of the editors.)
Sometimes, though, telling can be better than showing, especially when the showing comes as a shock - for instance, when the editors make major changes in what they've been giving readers for decades, and explain neither what they're doing nor why. Instead, angry readers inspire a public editor to take their side, and he (according to the culture editors, at least) proceeds to misrepresent the paper's intentions.
Here's an idea: if the editors did the explaining themselves, maybe I wouldn't have to do it for them.
For decades, the Fraternal Order of Falsely Modest Newspaper People has marched under an indelible banner: "We're not the story," it says. "The story's the story."
While I was reporting the listings column, culture editor Jonathan Landman acknowledged that this might not be the most effective of attitudes. "We tend to shy away from self-promotion in these matters," he wrote in an e-mail message, "preferring to let the paper speak for itself. In the case of the changes in cultural coverage this may be O.K. in the long run, but it was clearly inadequate in the short."
I suppose the speak-for-itself trope made sense back when the image of the American newspaper was embodied in a freckled newsboy tossing a rolled paper onto a porch hung with geraniums. But in an age when the press is so widely regarded as a predatory and uncontrolled beast, the failure to allow readers a view inside the cage can only aggravate their worst suspicions.
This doesn't apply just to format changes, like the culture listings. Not a week goes by when mail from readers doesn't contain earnest queries about any number of practices and standards that a little explaining could make glowingly clear. Some newspapers do a very good job at this. James H. Smith, the executive editor of The Record-Journal in Meriden, Conn., often uses his biweekly column to explain his paper's practices: why, for example, it doesn't go out of its way to concentrate on "good news" or why it often includes unsavory details about someone's past in its obituaries.
Mike Pride of The Concord Monitor in New Hampshire has told readers why certain particularly raw photographs were published, and how his editorial board goes about the process of deciding on political endorsements ("Readers Didn't Like These Calls" and "Lynch's Entry: A Governor's Race Between Millionaires Is Not a Good Sign"). And it's not just small papers that do this: when The Washington Post issued a new set of policies regarding its journalistic practice last March, executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. explained them to readers on Page 1 of the Sunday opinion section. Several years ago, Downie published a step-by-step recounting of his paper's decision to publish a story on the sexual transgressions of Senator Bob Packwood.
At The Times, there have in fact been a few recent instances when information about what the paper is up to has made it into print. Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. and chief executive Russell T. Lewis wrote a piece for the Op-Ed page in October ("The Promise of the First Amendment") explaining why the paper supported reporter Judith Miller's refusal to reveal the names of sources to a federal grand jury. In an "Editorial Observer" column just last Sunday ("A Soldier's Story: The Curious Transformation of a Son of Dynasty"), editorial board member Lawrence Downes forthrightly acknowledged that no one on the board had a close relative on active duty in Iraq. Both Op-Ed editor David Shipley ("And Now a Word From Op-Ed") and letters editor Thomas Feyer ("The Letters Editor and the Reader: Our Compact, Updated" and "To the Reader") in the past year wrote useful articles explaining their policies and practices.
It's no coincidence that each of these examples appeared on the paper's two opinion pages, which by design accommodate personal expression, colloquy with readers and the unembarrassed use of those news-averse words "I" and "we." But at a time when news reporters appear regularly on television talk shows, and editors answer frequent inquiries from other news organizations, they are already acknowledging that some things do need further explaining.
And, sometimes, they admit that a paper that speaks for itself can speak in error. Times reporters and editors often respond to readers who make individual inquiries, frequently acknowledging that, yes, an article missed a nuance, or used phrasing that left an erroneous impression, or otherwise got something wrong - not a correctable fact, perhaps, but an implication or interpretation. The recipient of such a note ends up both grateful and edified, and that is swell for him or her, but doesn't provide any enlightenment for the several hundred thousands of others who may have read the initial story and been misled by it.
Radical notion: why not provide an arena on The Times's Web site where reporters could voluntarily provide this sort of corrective amplification? Some reporters I've raised this with have offered several reasons why this might not work: peer pressure (or, worse and much more likely, pressure from bosses) could make it voluntary in name only; reporters might use the forum to pin blame on editors (or vice versa); the failure of a critical number of staff members to make use of it could make the paper appear even more remote than it already does.
Maybe. But even without erecting this online confessional, The Times's editors could render an enormous service (and save themselves a world of grief) by finding ways to speak directly to the paper's entire readership. The horrifying picture on Page 1, the news story that may seem months old but suddenly appears in print just before a national election, the longstanding Sunday feature that overnight mutates into something else - their impact would be enhanced, not diminished, by candid explanation. Check out posting No. 37 on my Web journal for reporter Richard W. Stevenson's account of how and why The Times seemed to botch the story on Treasury Secretary John Snow's nonresignation last week, and you'll see what I mean.
I think executive editor Bill Keller sees it, too. He told a colleague after the debut of the new listings, "I wish we had taken a block of space in Arts & Leisure the day we moved the listings, and run a 60-point Apocalypse Bold headline: 'Where the hell are my listings!?' over an explanation of the relocation to Friday and the introduction of capsule reviews." I may not have the authority to order up Apocalypse heads, but I do own a block of space, and I use it only three weeks out of every four (two for columns, one for letters). If Keller doesn't call me arrogant, condescending or glib - actually, even if he does - I'm ready to let him rent that last slot.
The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
