Since the release of Akira Kurosawa’s iconic film, Rashomon , in 1950, the term Rashomon effect has come to denote a range of ideas in politics, economics, psychology and the arts. The broad consensus about the meaning of this term is that it is possible for different people to describe an event in different ways without any one of them consciously lying. Is there a term to suggest that different people can arrive at the same inference, but for different reasons? Drawing from my six years of experience, I am increasingly convinced that the Readers’ Editor (RE) may be an inversion of the Rashomon effect.
An independent office
The RE’s office is independent; it is beyond the control of the Editor. It has a dedicated space for a weekly column and the weekday Corrections and Clarifications box, which cannot be vetoed or altered. The visible mending process is a sign of accountability and transparency. When this office was created 12 years ago, it was widely seen within the profession as an enviable job. I was starry-eyed when I was asked to become the third RE of this legacy institution. But soon I realised the downside of being the person who addresses complaints, effects redress and ensures adherence to the newspaper’s core values. Ian Mayes, the first RE of The Guardian , once said: “Being visible and accessible means you are a sitting duck.” It took time to understand the real import of that statement. Everyone involved in journalism appreciates a mechanism for course correction. But when the mistake is laid at someone’s door, the person feels hurt. While most people point out other people’s mistakes and openly seek an apology for them, they see public acknowledgement of their own mistakes as a weakness.
Reporters, subeditors, designers, data journalists and readers share this perception. Some readers always ask whether the RE is with those readers who oppose the editorial or with the editors who authored it. When I find some of the readers’ objections to be unfair, they feel that I am justifying the newspaper. One of the pithiest comments I have received read: “You are employed by the newspaper and it is quite natural not to bite the hand that feeds one.”
I knew that this job would never fetch admirers. But what I did not bargain for was victimhood. I use the vantage point of being outside the editorial process to discuss a range of issues governing the functioning of the media in general and this newspaper in particular. Being a custodian of readers’ interests does not mean, by any stretch of imagination, endorsing only one view and rejecting others.
Breaking down the numbers
For the sake of transparency, I decided to run a fine toothcomb over my 313 columns since September 2012. I broadly divided the columns into six categories. I decided to rely on data journalism because it challenges rhetoric with hard empirical evidence. I have consciously left out the data relating to the Corrections and Clarifications space, which had about 3,780 entries during my tenure alone. Some have accused me of only addressing issues relating to media regulation and larger media ecology issues. In reality, only 58 columns dealt with the media ecology. Some friends on the desk, after I wrote a sharp column on headlines, felt that I prefer reporters to the desk. While 47 of my columns dealt with editing norms, the reporting team has been pulled up in 126 columns. Some readers think that I have become an “Editors’ Editor”, but only 33 columns have pointed out unfair criticisms levelled against the newspaper. Twenty-one columns can be classified as ‘interaction with readers’. The numbers suggest that the inverse of the Rashomon effect is a newspaper ombudsman.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
