[NY TIMES] THE PUBLIC EDITOR - When the Readers Speak Out, Can Anyone Hear Them?

A FEW days after publication of my Jan. 23 column on innumeracy ("Numbed by the Numbers, When They Just Don't Add Up"), Tom Torok, The Times's chief database editor, expressed his strong objections to what he perceived to be a damaging portrayal of his work.

I had opened the column with a brief discussion of a story carrying the bylines of Torok and reporter Jacques Steinberg, and then leapt into a discussion of the misuse of numbers elsewhere in the paper. Torok believed, as he said in an e-mail message, that I used their piece "as the lead example of number fumbling," and that he and Steinberg had been "harmed" by it.

Being a newspaper journalist - for now, at least - I went immediately into a spasm of defensiveness. I don't think there was anything wrong with Torok's and Steinberg's numbers. I hadn't said there was. I had even called their piece "entirely accurate."

But there was the headline; there was the piece's larger context; and there was Torok's question, "Do you simply want to ignore the effects of such a column if they unfairly harm someone?" Which suggested a larger question encompassing the pleadings of hundreds of others who, like Torok, have come to my door bruised or angry: "What recourse do I have if I've been misrepresented, mischaracterized or maligned by The Times, especially if the editors disagree?" And the question even larger than that, at least in terms of the number of readers who have raised it: "Why can't I criticize The Times in the pages of The Times?"

The cheap answer would be, "Because that's my job." The pertinent answer - the one newspaper people have been using since Gutenberg - is, "Write a letter to the editor." But the unsung coda, in the overwhelming preponderance of cases, is familiar: "even though there's almost no chance it will be published."

The Times needs to find an alternative ending for this depressing tune. Certainly the numbers are impossible. The letters department receives 1,000 messages every day, and publishes 15. Beyond that, many of the paper's readers find certain practices and policies regarding letters either dumbfounding or objectionable. Chief among these is the paper's general hesitance to publish letters that make accusations against The Times, criticize writers or editors, or otherwise call into question the newspaper's fairness, news judgment or professional practices.

As letters editor Thomas Feyer points out, The Times does occasionally print correspondence of this sort. But he also notes his unwillingness to publish criticisms of individual writers, and a reluctance to publish letters that suggest bias. "Such letters," he says, "seem to impute motives to reporters or to The Times that the letter writers have no way to know."

Similar practices are in place in the various Sunday sections that publish their own letters. (The exception is the Book Review, where the letters page can sometimes resemble the Battle of the Marne.) Over the months, many readers have brought to my attention instances when they were asked to remove negative references to The Times if they wished to have their letters published.

Patricia Grossman of Brooklyn had a letter published last August, but only after she agreed to delete her accusation that a Times headline had maligned protesters at the Republican convention. (Feyer, who was on vacation at the time, told me that it's possible the deletion was made for space, but that he also believed Grossman "was imputing a political view to The Times that wasn't warranted.") Gary Sheffer of General Electric's public relations staff was told his letter would be published only if specific references to what he considered inadequate reporting were deleted. (Sunday Business editor Jim Impoco told me, "We prefer letters that address the issue, rather than just take shots at the reporter," and that certain factual references in Sheffer's letter were incorrect.) Last spring, Scott Segal, representing an electric power industry trade group unhappy with an article about federal environmental policy, was asked to delete from his letter the suggestion that I had endorsed one of his points (which I had, in a letter to him); editors told Segal he couldn't use it because he had quoted "selectively from a letter that largely defends the piece." (This was basically correct, but to the point at hand not especially relevant.)

A little defensive, hmm? I understand the policy that keeps out assaults aimed at specific writers; as Feyer says, "a news article is the product not only of the reporter whose name is on it, but The Times as a whole: the senior management and the desk editors, the copy editors and the headline writers." I also agree with assistant managing editor Allan M. Siegal's response when I asked why those responsible for errors are not identified in the corrections column: "Public humiliation is neither appropriate discipline nor a good teaching tool." (I'd make an exception for columnists, who pick their own fights.)

But allowing the subjects of stories and other readers - including, perhaps, self-examining Times writers - to criticize The Times as an institution for its reporting or its headlines, its news judgment or its preconceptions, its prose style or its public editor is something the paper is strong enough to withstand. What's difficult is figuring out how to do it given the limitations of space and staff, and the risk of degeneration into charge, countercharge, imprecation, untruth, calumny and libel.

Here's what you can do on the Web. You are not limited to three slender columns of the right side of the editorial page; nytimes.com stretches from here to the horizon. In the electronically archived version of articles - the ones that exist for the ages - you could move letters from their own ghetto and append them to the articles they address; that's the way that corrections are handled. In fact, even in the print edition, it makes sense to move letters about news coverage away from the editorial page, where they reside in inappropriate proximity to ideological arguments about editorials and columns, and to a space of their own, perhaps on Page A2. If the news pages and the opinion pages are truly separate, then truly separate them and give news editors, not opinion editors, responsibility for letters relating to news stories.

The better use of the Web site could also give readers the chance to see letters from The Times. One of the great frustrations of my job is seeing the thoughtful letters that go out from Times reporters to readers who have taken issue with something they've written. Why frustration? Because one reader gets the benefit of the thoughtfulness (and, sometimes, the writer's candid acknowledgment that he or she might have done something better), and a couple of million others who might appreciate it do not.

There are many at The Times who really dislike some of these ideas. Al Siegal understandably worries that the paper's authority, the staff's morale and the honest pursuit of truth could be severely undermined by deceitful or disingenuous attacks on specific articles by interested parties. And some reporters are very wary of posting for the millions their own letters to individual readers, fearing they would soon be forced (by editors, by competitive reporters, by me) into an endless public confessional.

The argument that all this would be too hard to monitor, that expanded Web forums would require too much staff attention to keep from degenerating into a free-fire zone of mud-slinging, rumor-spreading or character-bashing, is a strong one. Even now it's a problem, as some of the current forums at nytimes.com can be so unruly and digressive that they've lost their intended value. It will take some very serious editing resources to make certain that every Web-posted letter passes reasonable standards to prevent those excesses, not to mention transgressions against the libel laws.

But that's true of anything important in a newspaper. Is the airing of criticism and challenge important, and therefore worth finding the resources for it? To me, The Times's Op-Ed page is at its best when it publishes pieces at odds with the paper's own editorial positions - when it shows it's strong enough to take the blows of differing views and thereby deepen the public debate. Likewise with informed, civilized criticism of journalistic practices: the strong can withstand it, and show their strength by absorbing it. I'm going to invoke one of Al Siegal's standard dicta, which I've known him to deploy when recalcitrant editors are reluctant to agree to a correction, to seal my point: "Because we own the printing press, we're not entitled to the benefit of any real doubt."

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.

If I read this right, Okrent argues for the Times web site to be expanded or reorganized to allow comments to appear near news stories. It's not a bad idea, but FR has beaten them to it by several years.

The MSM is not the center of the universe anymore, and their websites cannot dominate or replace websites run by other folks that are far superior.

Interesting insight into the Good Ol' Boys club called the NYTimes.

This "Web Forum" idea of his--it's intriguing, but I agree with him: it'll never work. The unwashed masses are too undisciplined and....'unwashed' to make it happen. Best leave it to the professionals.

That's the impression I took from the piece also.

Of course none of that which Okrent addresses would be necessary if there wasn't an agenda (socialist) at the Times.
Just report the facts in News section and spew until your heart is content in the Opinion section.

Their refusal to take or even acknowledge criticism in the wake of their endless and boundless criticism of everyone in the world who does not agree with them (in their reportage as well as in their OP-ED pages) is perfectly consistent with their long love affair with Stalinism.

It is the New York Times as an institution that is foul and corrupt.

There is an easy solution, but it is so out-of-the-box for them that the mere mention of it will turn them into howling animals:

There motto needs to change to:

The paper of record for the Democratic Left.

There, I have said it.

They should either do it or shut up.

He should see the letters column in Stereophile.

The editors actually seem to enjoy publishing long letters from outraged readers explaining why the writers and editors of Stereophile are morons who know nothing about audio and music.

It's one of the most amusing parts of the magazine.

"Do you simply want to ignore the effects of such a column if they unfairly harm someone?" Which suggested a larger question encompassing the pleadings of hundreds of others who, like Torok, have come to my door bruised or angry: "What recourse do I have if I've been misrepresented, mischaracterized or maligned by The Times, especially if the editors disagree?" And the question even larger than that, at least in terms of the number of readers who have raised it: "Why can't I criticize The Times in the pages of The Times?"

Interesting how he is getting a lesson in Propaganda 101.

To your question about msm having forums to crtique their own articles. How clever of the pea brains. don't allow othe web site (FR) to post their articles so that they can be critiqued. but start a forum on their own site to have critique. Now this is to fold plan. first, you are assured of getting like minded posters so it should be a love fest. second. attempt to deffuse sites such as FR, by pulling posters to their site.

The Times needs to find an alternative ending for this depressing tune.

The Times shouldn't bother. Critics have already found an alternative ending, through the web, and the Times now realizes that they have lost control of the dialog.

Certainly the numbers are impossible. The letters department receives 1,000 messages every day, and publishes 15.

And gives columnists far more column inches than letter writes.

Beyond that, many of the paper's readers find certain practices and policies regarding letters either dumbfounding or objectionable. Chief among these is the paper's general hesitance to publish letters that make accusations against The Times, criticize writers or editors, or otherwise call into question the newspaper's fairness, news judgment or professional practices.

As critical as I am of the liberal agenda of the Philly Daily News, I will give them credit on this point - they have published my letters critical of their views, their columnists and their agenda. But the Times apparently doesn't want to admit their own fallocies.

To me, The Times's Op-Ed page is at its best when it publishes pieces at odds with the paper's own editorial positions

And it would be even better if that was the only place where the paper's editorial positions were incorporated, instead of throughout the news sections as well. That is a far larger problem than the lack of dissenting 150-word letters to the editor.

Interesting: the NYTs is infamous for using hyperbole and unflattering headlines and then noting somewhere in the body of the article that the headline doesn't actually pertain to the person/thing in question (i.e. Bush, Abu G, and a million other subjects).....

Yet the NYTs own reporters object to this practice when it is done to THEM....

Not necessarily abuse....just long diatribes from those who hold fundamentally opposing views. Many of them are quite well-reasoned.

But the editors at that mag are open to the possibility that they might be wrong.

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