NYT Eliminates Public Editor Position, To Be Replaced By Reader Feedback

The publisher of the New York Times announced Wednesday that the paper was eliminating its public editor position, a role currently held by Liz Spayd.

“The responsibility of the public editor – to serve as the reader’s representative – has outgrown that one office,” Arthur Sulzberger Jr. wrote in a memo to colleagues, which was obtained by TPM. “Our business requires that we must all seek to hold ourselves accountable to our readers. When our audience has questions or concerns, whether about current events or our coverage decisions, we must answer them ourselves.”

Many papers over the years have phased out public editors, ombudsman and other positions meant to hold publications accountable on readers’ behalf.

Sulzberger outlined a mélange of new and existing measures to fill the void, including “dramatically expanding our commenting platform” to more articles (only 10 percent of articles are currently open to commenting, the memo said); engaging with readers on social media; publishing “behind-the-scenes dispatches describing the reporting process;” and the creation of a “Reader Center,” which Sulzberger described as “the central hub from which we engage readers about our journalism” in which “the work will be shared by all of us.”

Spayd has faced harsh criticism during her short stint in the role, including from the Times’ own executive editor, Dean Baquet.

Margaret Sullivan, who held the position before Spayd, wrote on Twitter Wednesday that she wasn’t surprised at the Sulzberger’s decision.

1. I can't say I'm surprised to see NYT ending public editor position, especially in a time of newsroom cost-cutting and position-trimming.

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 31, 2017

2. A lot of news organizations have eliminated the ombudsman position, including my current employer, @washingtonpost, a few years ago.

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 31, 2017

3. The one thing an ombud or public editor can almost always do is hold feet to the fire, and get a real answer out of management.

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 31, 2017

4. The role, by definition, is a burr under the saddle for the powers that be.

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 31, 2017

5. I did feel, while doing it for almost four years, that I served an important purpose for the readership — and for The Times itself. -30-

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 31, 2017

Read Sulzberger’s full memo announcing the change below:

Dear Colleagues,

Every one of us at The Times wakes up every day determined to help our audience better understand the world. In return, our subscribers provide much of the funding we need to support our deeply reported, on-the-ground journalism.

There is nothing more important to our mission, or our business, than strengthening our connection with our readers. A relationship that fundamental cannot be outsourced to a single intermediary.

The responsibility of the public editor – to serve as the reader’s representative – has outgrown that one office. Our business requires that we must all seek to hold ourselves accountable to our readers. When our audience has questions or concerns, whether about current events or our coverage decisions, we must answer them ourselves.

To that end, we have decided to eliminate the position of the public editor, while introducing several new reader-focused efforts. We are grateful to Liz Spayd, who has served in the role since last summer, for her tough, passionate work and for raising issues of critical importance to our newsroom. Liz will leave The Times on Friday as our last public editor.

The public editor position, created in the aftermath of a grave journalistic scandal, played a crucial part in rebuilding our readers’ trusts by acting as our in-house watchdog. We welcomed that criticism, even when it stung. But today, our followers on social media and our readers across the internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog, more vigilant and forceful than one person could ever be. Our responsibility is to empower all of those watchdogs, and to listen to them, rather than to channel their voice through a single office.

We are dramatically expanding our commenting platform. Currently, we open only 10 percent of our articles to reader comments. Soon, we will open up most of our articles to reader comments. This expansion, made possible by a collaboration with Google, marks a sea change in our ability to serve our readers, to hear from them, and to respond to them.

We will work hard to curate and respond to the thousands of daily comments, but comments will form just one bridge between The Times and our audience. We also, of course, engage with readers around the globe on social media, where we have tens of millions of followers. We publish behind-the-scenes dispatches describing the reporting process and demystifying why we made certain journalistic decisions. We hold our journalism to the highest standards, and we have dedicated significant resources to ensure that remains the case.

Phil Corbett, a masthead editor, is responsible for making sure that our report lives up to our standards of fairness, accuracy and journalistic excellence. His team listens and responds to reader concerns and investigates requests for corrections. Phil anchors a reader-focused operation intent on providing accountability that is already larger than any of our peers. And we are expanding this investment still further.

As the newsroom announced yesterday, we have created a Reader Center led by Hanna Ingber, a senior editor, who will work with Phil and many others to make our report ever more transparent and our journalists more responsive. The Reader Center is the central hub from which we engage readers about our journalism, but the work will be shared by all of us.

It’s also worth noting that we welcome thoughtful criticism from our peers at other news outlets. Fortunately, there is no shortage of those independent critiques.

We are profoundly grateful to our six public editors — Daniel Okrent, Byron Calame, Clark Hoyt, Arthur Brisbane, Margaret Sullivan and Liz Spayd. These remarkable advocates tirelessly fielded questions from readers all over the world and have held The Times to the highest standards of journalism.

Changes like these offer the strongest paths towards meaningfully engaging with our growing audience of loyal readers, which rightfully demands more of us than ever before. We are up to the challenge.

Arthur