The Ombudswoman #2

By Elisheva Weiss
For avid readers of Spectator (and let’s not make conjectures about how many of those there are), last week was confusing.


On March 22nd, The Eye published a feature on Columbia athletes, called “Ivy League Hustle.” Last Wednesday, March 28th, the sports section published a column by former sports editor Jon Kamran—“Story on Ivy Athletes Not Based on Fact”—about what he viewed as failures in The Eye’s coverage in that feature. In itself, slightly bizarre for the sports page to publish criticism of Spectator’s magazine, right? But the story got more bizarre because in Thursday’s issue of The Eye, the From the Editor slot contained excerpts from the very same column.


As a reader, this series of events confused me. (It also confused IvyGate, which linked to Jon’s article with “Sports columnist bizarrely furious at own paper’s sports story.”) I couldn’t really understand why a criticism of The Eye—a semi-independent magazine—would find its way to the sports page or how that criticism would find its way back to The Eye. After doing some reporting and finding out what happened, I’d venture that it was more of an anomaly than a reflection on larger problems, but it does point to a few points that should be addressed at Spec.


Firstly, I think it’s important to note that The Eye did a great job keeping the sports section in the loop about this article. Knowing that it was an article that might worry sports, The Eye gave the sports editors advance warning and also shared drafts of the article. If the sports editors had voiced some of their concerns in response to the drafts that were forwarded, perhaps some of this could have been avoided. Maybe not, but communication is key.


Something else that needs to be addressed is the relationship between the daily and The Eye. I know that this is something that the 130th Managing Board (the one I served on) sort of left hanging. I also know that it’s entirely possible—in fact, likely—that Spec’s readers care very little about the relationship between the daily and The Eye. But that divide plays itself out in ways that matter. Because there is communication between the two publications. Because it confused readers when criticism of The Eye ran in the daily. Where exactly does The Eye stand in relation to the daily? Is it independent? What exactly does independence mean? Is there a value to it being that independent? Does shared office space and shared resources mean they are forever intertwined? Is that a bad thing?


Perhaps the most important point: a publication should have a venue for criticism in its own pages. In the daily, that place is the “Letters to the Editor” section on the opinion page. The Eye is enough of its own publication that it should run its own “Letters to the Editor” section. Readers should have a place where they can respond or criticize or praise the coverage the magazine provides. Feedback is important so that a publication can know what its readers are thinking.


Eye editor-in-chief Alex voiced concern about publishing a letters to the editor space when the magazine publishes just 16 pages a week, saying it seemed a bit too self-involved. Alex said that the magazine gets 4-5 letters a week. If those letters say something, especially ones that point to valid criticisms, The Eye has a responsibility to run those letters. Printing the already-voiced criticisms in the “From the Editor” column may have been a one-time solution, but it is not the way things should work. Readers should feel comfortable knowing they can send their feedback to The Eye. Perhaps a compromise that might work is printing letters to the editor every other week. (Fun fact: Former New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger rarely inserted himself in editorial decisions at the paper. He did, however, write letters to the editor, signed “A. Sock.”)


Readers should feel comfortable voicing criticism of Spectator to Spectator. One of the most disturbing complaints at Spectator’s town hall was that students felt like they couldn’t approach Spec with their criticisms—either because they thought there was an inherent bias or they thought the editors wouldn’t care or because they thought it wouldn’t make a difference. Readers need to know that Spec does care about them and is open to hearing their voices


This is not to say that I don’t think columnists should say what they want in their columns, but the question of what sort of criticisms belong where is one that also must be addressed. Last year, when an opinion columnist wrote an inflammatory column about athletes, two former sports editors responded with an opinion submission though either could have responded in a column. Probably the readers of The Eye are different than the readers of the daily’s sports page. (That’s an educated guess, but a pretty good educated guess.) And that’s fine. But if a response and criticism to an Eye article ends up on the sports page, then the response is going to reach a different audience than the article. When should criticism run on the sports page instead of the opinion page? Or in the daily instead of The Eye? Is the answer different when the criticism comes in the form of a column instead of a letter to the editor? Do columnists have a special role that allows them to voice criticism in the less-than-ideal space for such criticism? All questions worth thinking about.