A Year in the Life of a Watchdog
IT'S a Monday morning in August - last Monday, to be precise - and more than 500 e-mails have arrived in the public editor's in-box. Some are spam. Some are requests for corrections or assignments, which can be sent to another desk. But a bunch, maybe two dozen, are legitimate topics for investigation or exposition. As my crack assistant, Meghan Gourley, does triage on the e-mail, I pick a subject for a blog post that seems timely, important and of broad interest - The Times's use of anonymous sources, particularly on that day's front page - and start reporting it.
During the day, I interview Scott Shane, a national security reporter, and Carolyn Ryan, the politics editor. I refresh my memory on what the stylebook says, and I quote from two letters from readers that are especially on point. I write about 800 words and send the post to the copy desk. In the meantime, we deal with other complaints unlikely to be the topic of columns or blog posts: a grieving sister who has been in touch with us for many months about a news report on her sibling's death; a reader who thinks the photographs in a full-page ad for a Times cruise don't represent reality; a reader complaining that his idea for a story was stolen. Each gets some attention.
I also have my scrawled notes from reading the Sunday paper. I'm still looking at T: The Times Style Magazine to see if its level of diversity has increased (not much). I'm wondering if the Clintons-do-the-Hamptons story could be intended as Timesean self-parody. I'm paying particular attention to the skepticism and soundness of the Syria coverage, which becomes the topic of my Friday blog post.
The day hurtles on. My boss, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., stops by for a moment to make a joke (I'm hereby deleting his expletive) about The Times's printing the “f-word,†which is being written about elsewhere as if it were the first time, though it isn't. Later, I'm asked by a few media reporters to comment on this momentous nonevent, but I don't have much to say. (Journalists, journalism professors and journalism students take a particular interest in the Times public editor's role as the readers' representative and internal watchdog; I hear from many of them by e-mail, on Twitter and in real life.)
A familiar sense washes over me of being simultaneously overwhelmed and exhilarated. I leave for the day. But I can't really get away - the 24-hour-a-day world of continuous comment follows me wherever I go. I've taken seriously The Times's desire to have the public editor go digital; the job is more public than ever, and in new ways. As a result, I'm sometimes grateful for my smartphone's “do not disturb†option.
When I started as The Times's fifth public editor almost exactly a year ago, I couldn't have anticipated the intensity and breadth of the job. It is equal parts fun and horror - every day, all day. I've joked to friends that this is the universe's way of teaching me, once and for all, not to try to please everyone. Sometimes I feel like shouting, “I get it, already!â€
The one-year mark has encouraged me to pause and take stock. Here's what I feel good about: The feedback from readers who tell me they feel I'm listening to their thoughts about The Times; the sense that, a few times, I've made a small difference - in pushing to ban quotation approval by news sources and to avoid false balance in stories, in calling for a high bar on acceding to government requests; in highlighting the need for more coverage of poor and low-income people, and more sustained environmental coverage; in writing passionately about government secrecy and press rights during a crucial time.
I don't feel so good about not being able to investigate every complaint from every individual reader fully, or about making some misjudgments in individual posts - my Nate Silver commentary, among others, has probably been off-base - or about failing to make a dent in longtime problems like the overuse of anonymous sources. Looking forward, I hope to give more attention to the quickly changing world of newspaper economics and how journalism is affected, as The Times explores the necessity of making money in new ways - through conferences, cruises, advertiser-sponsored multimedia projects and new forms of advertising.
I'm often asked what I've learned about The Times from this unique perch. I've found it to be excellent but hardly flawless, and its flaws are stubborn ones. Its resources - a top-flight newsroom of more than 1,000 people - make its journalism indispensable, but that is often accompanied by self-satisfaction. Although The Times usually corrects factual errors quickly, it is not quick to admit that matters of tone or practice could be better, or that a decision should be reconsidered; when questioned, some of its journalists shift reflexively into a defensive crouch.
Maybe because they are highly intelligent and at the top of their profession, some Times staff members are more inclined to mount an elaborate argument than to accept the value of someone else's point of view. That's not everyone, of course. But it's typical enough behavior that the opposite - openness and the desire to seek improvement - seems like the exception to the rule.
And yet, paradoxically, a spirit of collegiality and idealism often prevails. Although being public editor is no way to win a workplace popularity contest, I have found a remarkable level of cooperation, professionalism and even appreciation from Times staff members. In the big picture, they want The Times to be as good as it can be, and as good as its readers expect it to be.
My ruling principle has been to report each blog or column fully, to amplify the voices of thoughtful readers, to read The Times with an eye toward constructive criticism and to press reporters and editors for answers.
The day I began last September, I sent out a Twitter message quoting Bob Dylan's warning: “You're gonna have to serve somebody.†I said then that I wanted to serve Times readers. It's been a tumultuous year, but, as I head into a second one, that goal hasn't changed a bit.
Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com. The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 1, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: A Year in the Life of a Watchdog.