One of the first rules of news writing is this – get to the point. So here goes: This is my last column as the San Francisco Chronicle’s ombudsman.
After 35 years in journalism, 22 of them with the Hearst Corp. and seven here as the readers’ representative, I am leaving the paper to try my hand at a few projects, to learn new things and to demonstrate to myself, if not to others, that life begins at 62 and that nothing so inconsequential as heart surgery can keep me down.
When I started this department in 2001 at the direction of then-Editor Phil Bronstein, the goal was to make the paper more accountable, more open and more responsive to readers. In exchange, Bronstein made a deal-clinching offer: I wasn’t obliged to take the side of the newsroom or take the side of readers. I was as independent as anyone could be and still accept a paycheck. Bronstein delivered on that promise, just like his successor, Ward Bushee.
Over the course of this gig, I learned more about newspaper readers than over the previous decades as a reporter and editor. It wasn’t always pretty. There were spaceship calls, settle-this-bet calls from bars, angry 3 a.m. messages from callers demanding to know why I wasn’t answering the phone, and the incessant pestering of readers who thought the paper’s role was to reinforce their particular ideology and screen out dissenting ideas.
Then there were the rest of you.
I long ago lost count of how many telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and letters I exchanged with readers. By late 2003, I was up to 20,000-plus. I began to feel like a one-person focus group, coming to understand that for most topics, there were readers who knew as much as or more than the paper. In this spectacularly diverse, smart and engaged region, readers helped the paper make course corrections, keep the record straight, find untold stories and otherwise improve itself. Much of what the paper does well is a credit to the people who read it.
Today, after spending seven years conveying complaints, corrections and criticisms to the newsroom, I’ll indulge in the luxury of abandoning my neutrality.
Even as newspapers are in distress, if not under siege, the people who gather the news have never been more important.
This paper is paring back – for the second time in two years.
In an effort to wrestle down costs until it finds ways to pump up revenue, The Chronicle has offered buyouts to as many as 125 employees across the company. Contrary to what some think, it’s not a ploy to boost profits, it’s a campaign to find some.
In the face of all this, the newsroom has kept its cool and its focus. For all its shortcomings, the paper manages to inform, to entertain, to surprise and to reflect the values and culture of the Bay Area. It does so imperfectly and incompletely, to be sure, but no other newsgathering organization in this region can claim to do as much.
The work can be hard and stressful; the benefits more psychic than tangible. Among the writers, editors, photographers and graphic artists I’ve known, most got into the craft for the modest glory of a credit line, a little fun and the satisfaction of learning something new to tell readers – not for riches or influence.
For them, that’s been reward enough. It was for me, too.
