Of all the institutions in our inordinately complacent society, none is so addicted as the press to self-righteousness, self-satisfaction and self-congratulation.
The words are not those of some member of the Nixon Administration but of a working newsman, the assistant editorial-page editor of the New York Times. When A.H. Raskin wrote them three years ago, he suggested that newspapers combat their smugness by appointing ombudsman-like editors to investigate readers’ complaints. The suggestion has been largely ignored by U.S. newspapers, including Raskin’s own. But at least two papers—the jointly owned Louisville Courier-Journal and Times —have tried it.
Grandfatherly John Herchenroeder, 62, a former city editor, was appointed ombudsman at the Louisville papers only a few weeks after Raskin’s idea appeared in the New York Times Magazine. Since then he has handled complaints from nearly 1,500 readers. Some have resulted in corrections under a standing headline, BEG YOUR PARDON. Some have persuaded the paper to run new stories. Many upset readers have been satisfied simply with a chance to talk to someone in authority.
“The big names in government and business have always felt they could call the executive editor or publisher direct,” says Courier-Journal City Editor Paul Janensch. “The vast majority of complaints the ombudsman gets are from ordinary citizens who used to feel they didn’t have easy access to the papers.” Some, like a college dean who complained about inadequate coverage of a cultural event, are even pleased to be proved wrong. After a visit from Herchenroeder, the dean wrote: “It is devastating to be indicted and found guilty in a courteous fashion. I appreciate the trouble you took to react to my overhasty note.”
Some of Herchenroeder’s biggest problems are with editors and reporters whose stories are called into question. “Newspaper people are very defensive,” he says. “Sometimes they’re harder to deal with than the public.” Herchenroeder wins most of his internal battles. A few weeks ago, former Kentucky Governor A.B. (“Happy”) Chandler denied a Courier-Journal report that he had pulled a student’s hair and hit him after a meeting of the University of Kentucky board of trustees. Chandler insisted that he had only hit the student. Some of the paper’s editors, feeling that Chandler was splitting hairs, wanted to ignore the denial. Herchenroeder disagreed—and the paper carried Chandler’s clarification.
Other readers have used the ombudsman to suggest style changes at the two papers. The society section, for example, stopped a common newspaper practice of mentioning the former high schools of brides-to-be only when the schools were fashionable. Ombudsman Herchenroeder agrees that most of the complaints he receives might seem minor to editors. “But they aren’t to the readers,” he says. “To them, it’s important to get an answer.” At the Louisville papers, though it sometimes pains the staff, they do.
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