"Our followers on social media and our readers across the Internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog, more vigilant and forceful than one person could ever be." That's what @nytimes said in killing the public editor position. politico.com/story/2017/05/… 1/
Here's a story that puts that claim to the test. vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/m… A key editor is dismissed for #MeToo reasons, but the Times won't say a thing about it. We are left in the dark. Readers are supposed to serve as the answer-demanding journalist now? How does that work? 2/
One of the seismic events in journalism these days, as I argued here medium.com/de-corresponde… is a shift in power. The loyalists — heaviest users of the product — are paying a greater portion of the costs. They are more needed than ever. Their reactions cannot be dismissed. 3/
It made no sense to me: at a time when the core readership of the Times had more power than ever over the future of the franchise, the people in charge chose to eliminate the reader's representative, the public editor, whose job it was to get answers on behalf of the readers! 4/
This was not a strategically wise decision. It was not forward thinking but defensive in nature. Times leadership wanted to rid itself of a sand-in-the-gears position. Now it has a #MeToo problem and it would be way better off if there was a public editor to push for answers. END
