Sunday, August 07, 2005
Readers' Mirror
While reading an Ombudsdude column in the Boston Globe, I was struck by the utter pointlessness of it and most ombudsdudes. When people have criticism or complaints about the way the paper is run, they write to the ombudsdude, who then writes a column with maybe a suggestion or two. Of course, the ombudsdude has no authority over the way the paper is run, so essentially all this does is give people a way to complain and a way for the paper to ignore it. It goes like this:
The paper does its news-reporting thing.
The readers read it.
The readers respond to the ombudsdude.
The ombudsdude reads the criticism.
The ombudsdude writes back to the readers.
Note that none of this criticism actually reaches the paper. The paper doesn't have to provide an answer like "Well, while that sounds like a good idea, we can't do it because of logistical reasons" or whatever. Instead, the ombudsdude says "Well, that sounds like a good idea," and then moves on, effecting no change whatsoever.
This model is different from The Chron's, and I'll quote myself:
One thing I might note about The Chron's readers reps is that their job seems to be berating readers for having a critical opinion of The Chron, and then pointing out that one dude who agreed with The Chron as the smartest dude in the world.
Here's a better idea. Why not have someone on the editorial staff do the job? It seems like having someone with authority actually defend the paper or announce changes would be infinitely more useful than the Globe's idea of just having some dude saying "Yep, those are interesting comments by the readers, but since I can't do anything about them, let's move on..." and also better than the Chron's idea of "I must defend the practices of the paper at any cost, because I don't have the authority to take their suggestions into consideration."
. . .
|
. . .
|
