Virginian Pilot's New "Public Editor": Pilot Walks Well on Water.

The Virginian Pilot has a new person with the job title “Public Editor.” She is Joyce Hoffman, and is not a Virginian Pilot employee; rather she is a journalism professor of Old Dominion University.

According to Dennis Hartig, the Virginian Pilot’s editorial paged editor, this is her job description:

Like all of her predecessors, her job is to serve as a bridge between the public and the paper. She will listen to and report on complaints from readers, but her principal job is to monitor how capably and responsibly The Pilot news staff serves its public mission.

That’s an interesting job description because it implies one thing but says another. She is not an ombudsman but a "bridge," that is, she does not serve the interests of the readers. She is, in the immortal words of Tom Wolfe, one the the Pilot's "flack catchers."

“She will listen and report [to whom?] on complaints from readers, but her principal job is to monitor [for whom?] how capably [who defines capably?] and responsibly [who defines responsibly?] The Pilot news staff serves its public mission.”

And once this monitoring of undefined criteria is accomplished – in between grading papers – what happens? Well, she can write a column, but it’s going to be edited by Dennis Hartig, so good luck with a column critical of the paper’s editorial policy.

But don’t worry gentle readers. There is no chance at all the Joyce Hoffman will criticize the paper, its writers or its editors. That is made perfectly clear in her maiden column.

In it she discusses how the news of the upcoming sale of the paper was disseminated. All the criticism there was levied at the soon-to-be-departed owners. There were white hats and black hats and the white hats were worn by the intrepid news staff and the black hats were worn by Landmark management.

In a Jan. 3 interview with Pilot staffers Phil Walzer and Bill Choyke, Batten made comments that revealed the newsroom/boardroom conflict. From the beginning, the business team had been counseled by Editor Denis Finley to "cover this just as aggressively as we would any similar change at Norfolk Southern or any other big business. It would be hypocrisy to do otherwise." [note: interpid editor unafraid of consequences] Walzer said he asked all the obvious questions and kept asking them even as Batten repeatedly deflected those efforts.

As portrayed in the story that followed, Batten left little doubt about whose interests were uppermost. "I'm just trying to do a good job for our shareholders," he said. In a possible sale, those shareholders' interests are doubtless best served by revealing less rather than more information. But his fiduciary responsibilities aside, in the absence of any parallel statement of concern for his employees, for The Pilot's readers or for the community that helped his family build its empire, it all seemed a bit cold-hearted [Snidely Whiplash turns the Little Nell into the cold on Christmas night].

In fact, it is not unfair to characterize her introduction to the paper in this way: “the Pilot walks well on water.”

On some of journalism's most deeply held principles, The Pilot has led other newspapers by its example. It was, in fact, one of the first U.S. newspapers to provide readers a person and a place to air their concerns. The kind of self-examination that comes with appointing a public editor, a step taken here in 1974, has long been unwelcome in many American newsrooms.
...
...fewer than 40 American newspapers have a newsroom watchdog.

The Pilot's commitment to accountability to readers, accuracy, fairness and taste is the only coin that buys credibility here or at any newspaper. My hope is to serve those ideals in the coming months.

Regarding the "watchdog" we regret to say that most of the self criticism is aimed at largely irrelevant mistakes such as missplled names or incorrect dates. Then there are the columns devoted to changes in the crosswords.

It’s really too bad and it is characteristic of the beleaguered nature of the newspaper business today. An industry that is under this much pressure should be challenging its basic assumptions and asking for suggestions from its customers what it can do get them back. Instead, an institutional arrogance pervades the pages. A holdover from the days when newspapers were “THE” primary information medium and, in the absence of alternative sources of information, were able to shape, flake and mold the “truth” without much regard for being told they got it wrong. That time is irretrievably past and no amount of cheerleading for the home team is going to recapture that dominance.

In this the papers are aided by a core band of faithful readers who believe all they read in the paper and agree with the editorial positions because they are ideologically compatible. Make no mistake, the paper could print a story about the immaculate conception of Hillary Clinton tomorrow and there would be a flood of letters to the editor complimenting them on their courage and wisdom in uncovering the truth. When the story came out that Pat Robertson might make a bid for the Virginian Pilot, these same readers wrote in vowing to cancel their subscriptions if that came to pass. So it’s easy for the true believers at the Virginian Pilot to think that they are on the right path and the curmudgeons who disagree are in the wrong.

So how do they explain the general decline in readership both locally and nationally? There are many reasons given in the Virginian Pilot’s management offices, but examining the quality of the product is never the reason. If you have any doubt, you have only to read the public editor.