One of the biggest incentives of being a Readers’ Editor (RE) is the chance it affords me to think about the process of news making in its entirety, on a regular basis. As a reporter and later as an editor, the pressure of a deadline forced me to look more at the contents of the next issue or bulletin. It hardly permitted space for reflection. The additional benefit of being an RE is that it adds to my quest for more knowledge on the processes and practices of journalism, especially when readers come up with some incisive questions. I am grateful to all the readers who have pointed out shortcomings and errors, without withholding their praise when it is due.
One of the regular writers to this office, M.D. Ravikanth, recently asked for a column on the opinion section of the paper. He wanted to know how the authors for editorial and comment pieces are selected. He asked: “What sort of editing is done by the editor of opinion pieces? Do you take prior approval of the author in case editing is done? What sort of fact-checking is done and who does it? What is done if there is error or lack of clarity in facts? How are pieces containing views that are in contrast to the stand of the newspaper dealt with? How far would they be edited or diluted before publishing?”
The edit page contains editorials, the lead article and letters from the readers. The comment page has the world view and other columns, and comment articles. The opinion of the newspaper is reflected in the editorials that are written by senior staff members who have expertise in various subjects: politics, governance, law, diplomacy, micro and macro economics, banking, finance, strategic affairs, sport, literature, art, entertainment, rural affairs, urban affairs, corporate affairs, science and technology. The letters section is devoted to the opinion of the readers.
The rest of the opinion section is open both to external commentators and to staff members. The response of the editorial team that handles this section is: “We have a list of contributors for various subjects, but we also accept contributions from experts on any given subject — those who have not previously contributed to us. Many contributions are sent directly, unsolicited, and we take them depending on the person, the topic and the content. Editing is done by us. Of late whenever major changes are made, we have made it a practice to mail the article back to the author. Facts are checked by those at the desk. If there are doubts, these are again checked with the writer. There have been several articles that have contradicted the stand taken in the editorial. The edit and comment page articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper. Any well-articulated argument will be considered for publication.”
Insights from readersThe editorial team also acknowledges the contribution of the readers. They say: “Readers focus much of their attention on content that appears in the editorial and op-ed/comment pages and nothing escapes their scrutiny. The editorials, the leader page article, the comment in the form of “world view,” other op-ed articles, and even the ‘Letters to the Editor’ column are all subject to intense reader interest/checking. This keeps the desk on its toes. E-mails and letters on facts, figures, spellings, punctuation and even metric units of measurement and data in graphics (as articles are moving towards incorporating this form of data analysis) on these pages are a regular feature. They are sent to the desk either through the Readers’ Editor’s Office or as ‘Letters to the Editor.’ Fact-checking forms an integral part of the editing process and the team gets back to the writers either by e-mail or over the telephone or by referring to credible sites of information. Further, many of the insights from readers, not necessarily pointing out an error, but as a clarification or in the form of additional information, are valuable and educative as they are from subject experts.”
A regular writer to the readers comment section in the web edition raised a question: “Why should the RE, even after two years on the job, still invoke foreign authors and authorities to cement and augment his points?” Journalism should retain its universal outlook and cannot afford to ignore what is happening in other media environments. Indian journalism is not a hermetically sealed and isolated entity. I have also cited a number of Indian experts — Justice Krishna Iyer, Rajeev Dhavan, Amartya Sen, Justice Chandru, Sashi Kumar and Salman Rushdie to name a few. The terms of reference for the Readers’ Editor expect the RE to play a role in “identifying possible new or alternative courses of action and ways to develop the paper for the benefit of its readers and the paper itself.” Given the fact that there are no other internal ombudsmen in the Indian print environment, it becomes incumbent on this office, a solitary effort at self-regulation, to look at the best international practices to benchmark and evaluate itself.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
