In addition, the Post has an ombudsman who follows up on readers' complaints and reports his findings on the Op-Ed page. The current ombudsman, Michael Getler, has been so sharply critical of the paper that some reporters have howled in protest. The Times offers no such outlet. Even concerning its coverage of Wen Ho Lee, which generated so much controversy, the paper did not run a single critical letter. "Re 'Nuclear Scientist Set Free After Plea in Secrets Case; Judge Attacks U.S. Conduct' (front page, Sept. 14)," began a typically bland submission. "The Wen Ho Lee case raises some troubling questions...." Only after the Times ran its own lengthy mea culpa in late September did it allow a few notes of protest to creep onto its letters page.

The true purpose of that page became apparent to me after reading a memo that executive editor Joseph Lelyveld circulated to his staff in October (and that someone at the paper sent me). "We've long had a policy of openness and engagement with readers," the memo began. "Most of us answer our mail conscientiously, and we publicly correct every error we learn about. Still, in a large and busy newsroom, it's easy for a message or a letter to go astray, or for a phone caller to reach someone who doesn't know how to help or, worse, can't be troubled. Now we're going to take a few steps to fulfill our promise of openness."

Henceforth, the memo continued, the Times would publish a daily announcement on page A2 inviting readers to phone in or send e-mails about not only errors of fact but also their larger concerns. "We are guaranteeing that every message will receive a prompt answer," the memo stated. "For those readers whose comments are thoughtful and serious, we mean to make our replies substantive."

Deciding to put this new policy to the test, I sent an e-mail to the Times laying out my observations about the letters page. As a regular reader of that page, I wrote, "I have noticed that the paper rarely publishes letters that are directly critical of the paper's news coverage. Editorials, Op-Ed articles and other letters are often criticized, but news articles seldom are. Rather, letters about news articles usually convey the writer's views about the subject in question--not about the way the paper has covered it. Does this reflect a policy on the part of the Times?"

I received an e-mail back the next day. "The editors of the letters column are not averse to publishing criticism," it stated. "But you perhaps infer such an aversion from the fact that we never use the column to correct errors that the paper has printed. We believe that an error of fact in an article needs to be corrected in the corrections space on Page A2, so as to make quite clear that we are conceding the fact of the error. A reader of a letter asserting that The Times had been wrong might come away from it wondering, in effect, Who's right? Once you exclude that category of letters, what's left tends to be opinion. Hope this helps you."

I found this highly disingenuous. For the Times's "Corrections" space is known for its almost comic preoccupation with triviality--misspelled names, incorrect dates, garbled titles. "Because of an editing error," a recent example read, "an Arts Abroad article on Wednesday about modern Kabuki performances in Japan misstated the location of Hiratsuka, the hometown of one enthusiast. It is 38 miles southwest of Tokyo, not 132." Sometimes, the Times, in its "Editors' Notes," does make larger concessions, but these run very infrequently and address only major screw-ups. In between the minor factual errors addressed in "Corrections" and the larger blunders handled in "Editors' Notes" are such important concerns as balance, fairness, bias and depth. My beef with the piece on Pino Arlacchi concerned not any factual errors but what I considered its excessively fawning tone. Under the Times's prevailing guidelines, however, I had no way of registering my dissatisfaction. Indeed, its new policy seems intended to make sure complaints are handled in-house, away from public view.

The Times--a great newspaper--is in the business of holding powerful people accountable. Shouldn't it provide readers a forum to hold it accountable?

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.