May 31, 2005
Fire away
Today’s Monitor editorial lavishes praise on Daniel Okrent, the New York Times’ first public editor. Judging from the response in Sunday’s Times to Okrent’s swan song, the praise was nearly universal. Editors especially liked the way Okrent took on the major questions facing our profession and dug into them.
So if a public editor or ombudsman, as the job is known at other papers, is such a good idea, why doesn’t the Monitor have one? Wouldn’t readers benefit from an independent reporter with the power to delve into what we report and how we report it?
The answer is yes, but . . .
One part of the “but” is money. The Monitor has a generous news budget for a paper its size, but we could always use more. Yet an ombudsman would be pretty far down the list of what we’d spend it on if we had it. Readers would be far better served if we hired more reporters. I’d start with someone to cover health care full-time. Next I’d hire someone to cover the court system. Then I’d look hard at the way we cover issues involving young people, perhaps adding a second schools/youth reporter. I’d try to add content that appealed to a younger audience and interested an older one.
I could go on.
There’s another reason an ombudsman wouldn’t be high on my list: There are already plenty of ways in which we are far more accessible to readers than the New York Times. It is one of the advantages of being small. Readers are not shy about criticizing our coverage. They call us every day, and we listen. When they write, we go out of our way to publish their criticisms.
When readers ask us in letters to the editor why we did something a particular way, we generally give them an answer. As we work through our content-driven redesign, a project that is taking longer than we thought it would, we don’t make a move without consulting readers first. Occasionally, another editor or I write a column explaining a thorny issue.
Finally, one reason I started this blog is to give readers one more point of contact to ask why we do what we do.
Posted by Mike Pride at 06:18 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 27, 2005
Sporting chance
I’m an amateur blogger, having read The Wonkette and several other political types during the 2004 presidential race and only a few others. But one I like is former Monitor assistant sports editor Chad Finn’s sports blog, with its heavy Boston pro sports focus.
Chad works for the Boston Globe now. At the Monitor a few years ago, he wrote a series of front-page columns tracking the Patriots’ first Super Bowl run. When you read one of Chad’s columns on game-day morning, his insights into the players’ strengths and weaknesses made the game more fun. His crystal ball was magical, too, telling readers not just that the Patriots would win but often how and why.
Chad’s recent postings include one predicting who should go and who should stay on the Celtics’ roster. After Reed Johnson’s walkoff homer against the Sox the other night, Chad compiled a list of the “subpar, non-descript and just plain lousy ballplayers who have tormented the Sox in recent years.”
You can check out Chad’s blog at touchingallthebases.blogspot.com
Posted by Mike Pride at 04:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thanks to those who have responded to the first
postings on Mike's blog. As a follow-up to comments on
the "Church and State" entry, you might want to check
out a story in this week's New Yorker magazine on the
concept of "intelligent design."
Posted by Mike Pride at 04:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 24, 2005
More on Blackmun
I reviewed Linda Greenhouse's new book on the late Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe vs. Wade decision, in the Sunday Monitor. It was headlined "A slice of history that's still hot."
On Monday, the Supreme Court surprised a lot of people by agreeing to take up New Hampshire's parental consent law. That made the review seem timely indeed. No clairvoyance on my part, just dumb luck.
If you're as interested in the Supreme Court's inner workings as I am, there are plenty of good Web sites that provide commentary on Blackmun and his 24-year tenure. One intriguing one is David J. Garrow's article in Legal Affairs magazine on his own conclusions after reading Blackmun's papers. He argues that Blackmun "ceded to his law clerks much greater control over his official work than did any of the other 15 justices from the last half-century whose papers are publicly available. Whether any current justices are similarly abdicating their responsibilities will not be known until their case files are opened in the future."
Posted by Mike Pride at 05:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
Graduation day
Saturday was graduation day at UNH, a proud day for many families, including ours. I hope I have time this week to write a column about our experience for the Sunday Monitor. We owe UNH a lot.
But before the memory of the day itself fades, I want to record a few impressions that I’ll bet are not mine alone.
We arrived at the football stadium 20 minutes early. It was an overcast day, chilly and gusty but blessedly dry. The stands were full enough that we didn’t think we’d find five seats together. We headed for the field, where the long podium and risers stretched nearly from sideline to sideline at the east goal line.
We found five vacant folding chairs a few yards in front of the west goal posts. From there the dignataries on the podium looked slightly larger than ants. This did not matter because our view was mainly of the backs of the heads of the people in front of us.
There were many speakers. Clearly they had mined the Internet, today’s faster, vaster version of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, to find words of wisdom for 2,300 graduates and their thousands more relatives. They quoted everyone from Mother Teresa to Yogi Berra. The commencement speaker, Tom Werner, TV producer and part-owner of the Red Sox, shared his interpretation of the demise of Icarus. Despite what you might think, he said, the story’s real moral is that you should fly as high as you can. But first make sure you have the right equipment.
Maybe two hours into the ceremony, doctoral degrees were conferred individually to perhaps 30 students. The crowd began to thin. Next, in the large area where the bachelor’s degree candidates sat, there began a semi-orderly scramble to parade up and collect diplomas. These were not actual diplomas but diploma cases containing sheets promising that the real diplomas would soon be in the mail. Many graduates, presumably with their families, departed immediately after receiving these diploma cases.
The ceremony still had about 20 minutes to go. The final speakers were brief and determined, but three-quarters of the seats were empty by then.
We diehards took a few pictures in the cold and walked to our cars. We were dry and proud and glad it was over. We’ll always remember the day as a happy one. But by next May, UNH should figure out a way to make its commencement exercise as personal and meaningful as the achievements it celebrates.
Posted by Mike Pride at 12:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 20, 2005
Church and state
This is my first blog entry. In coming days and weeks, I’ll be doing more like it that deal with issues that come my way as editor of the Monitor. But I plan to write about lots of things: books I’m reading, places I go, people I meet, sights I see around the area, ideas I find on the web that I think might interest Monitor Online readers. In the spirit of the blogosphere, I welcome your comments.
When I started editing the letters to the editor years ago, I had a strict rule: I did not allow letter writers to use citations from the Bible to make their points.
My reasoning went like this: A daily newspaper is not the place for the endless argument about what the Scripture means or whether particular passages should dictate the mores of Jews and Christians today. It also seemed to me that the Bible could be interpreted to support either side of almost any modern-day argument.
In recent times I’ve relented a little. I still spike letters that are just strings of biblical quotations, complete with citations. Generally, those strike me as boring. But I have found myself letting more biblical interpretations slip through the gate and into print on the editorial page.
Why? Religion has reasserted itself in American public life. I don’t like this much. I thought the Creationism debate ended in 1925. To me, beyond “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” I don’t think the Bible has much useful to say about homosexuality. I nearly walked out of church on a Sunday in 2000 when the priest told the congregation how to vote.
My own belief is that it isn’t that difficult to separate one’s spiritual life from one’s political life and that we are better off as a country keeping the two separate. Starting with the president, whom I respect as generally able to be ecumenical despite his personal faith, I think we have taken more than one step backward from John F. Kennedy’s famous declaration in 1960 on separation of church and state.
I’m usually skeptical of the old slippery-slope argument, but we’re on one now. It isn’t just the obvious issues like gay marriage, abortion rights and stem-cell research that draw debate with a religious cast. It is also the Iraq war, capital punishment, the filibuster. I heard a self-described Christian leader hold forth on television the other night on the kinds of judges who should be seated. It sounded as though he thought their job was to interpret the Bible rather than the Constitution.
So if you read the Monitor’s letters to the editor, you’re seeing some letters in which readers argue the issues through the prism of religion. I should say the prism of Christianity, since that is what it has been so far. And occasionally you’re seeing a biblical quote – and perhaps a few days later a biblical quote fired back from the other side of the issue.
I still believe the letters section is no place for arguments about biblical interpretation, but I see no choice but to roll with the times.
Posted by Mike Pride at 05:36 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack