Everyone Needs a ‘Watchful’ Eye

My first newspaper hit the streets on Monday and Thursday afternoons, and people would often grab papers literally hot off the press and march into the newsroom with their real-time reactions.

I started reporting at age 14 in my South Carolina hometown of about 6,000 residents, and I couldn’t go into the barber shop without getting critiqued. I vividly remember the mayor steaming into the office one day to give me a piece of her mind.

Once I was downtown on assignment when a car door opened and someone popped out to comment on my latest masterpiece. It was my preacher.

Because of all that, I’ve always felt ambivalent about news ombudsmen. I worry that they sometimes stand between readers and journalists, creating a buffer zone that actually can reduce candid connections.

But that doesn’t lessen my dismay that the Washington Post has decided to drop its independent ombudsman and that ESPN, which has been without one since late last year, is dragging its feet.

I do believe that all journalists should be responsive and available. Ombudsmen shouldn’t take the place of personal accountability or take the heat individual newspeople should feel.

Still, I also appreciate the entrée that independent ombudsmen provide, especially at larger organizations. Regular citizens can’t wander into most newsrooms or networks, and journalists are notorious for screening calls and neglecting messages.

So ombudsmen serve the public interest. They aren’t permanent employees, yet they have access themselves and offer it to the rest of us.

But my disappointment in their decline is only partly because of the lost contact. Tenacious citizens can still get through, bloggers increasingly hold journalists accountable, and social media allow degrees of contact unheard of in the past.

What disturbs me more is the message readers and viewers absorb.

ESPN is a powerful company with all sorts of potential conflicts and ethical dilemmas. Neglecting to name an ombudsman comes across as arrogant and dismissive. ESPN may be a mighty player now, but as newspapers have painfully learned today’s audiences must not be taken for granted.

The Post has appointed Doug Feaver, a veteran respected journalist there,  as its reader representative. But he will likely have less independence and visibility than on-contract ombudsmen have traditionally enjoyed.

If so, the decision looks defeatist. It looks like a nervous organization curling up into isolation.

It’s no secret that mainstream media need to economize as circulation and ad revenues plummet. But whatever hope newspapers have doesn’t lie in retreat and remoteness. It lies in engaging their audiences with amazing work and staying vital and in touch.

The mayor came after me because she believed the paper mattered. That’s why people contact the ombudsman too. For their followers, the Post, ESPN and other news organizations still – at least for now – matter passionately.

Distancing themselves from the public can only cool those passions. With so much at stake, that doesn’t seem smart.