Tim Rutten couldn't be more wrong about newspaper ombudsmen. They aren't the "flavor of the month in American journalism." According to the Association of News Ombudsmen, "Some papers have dropped the job. Many others have established it to a total of about 45 newspapers in the United States, Canada, Britain, Spain, Brazil, France, Japan and Italy." That doesn't sound like a
flavor of the month" trend to me, although leave it to the LAT to think that something must now be a trend simply because the NY Times is doing it.

And as for Tim's comment that "there is no evidence that it's good for journalism," I'd reply that there is no evidence that it is bad for journalism either.

It was purebred junk. To cover it as a news story is even lower. Journalism is rapidly becoming a self-perpetuating field, like art history, where art historians only teach students to become art historians, not showing how it might be at all useful to humanity-at-large.

John raises an interesting point. It's true the practice isn't so common. But I think the ombudsman concept is almost universally hailed within the media-crit establishment -- among journalism professors, media critics, and fellow ombudsmen -- and I would predict that more American newspapers will be hiring public editors now that the NYT has.

"...it isn't the existence of bias itself that's objectionable, but the expression of bias other than one's own."

No, what's objectionable is the existence of bias that a news organization or reporter denies he, she or they are susceptible to or guilty of. For example, I know Tim Rutten is quite liberal, if not leftwing. I wonder if he's honest enough to admit that colors his perceptions of the world and, in turn, the way he writes about any number of people and topics.

This is a little on the long side, but it contains several really interesting stories:

http://www.newsombudsmen.org/rizer.html

And the quote at the end is killer: "He loved us enough to tell the truth, even when we didn't want to hear it."

Anything that holds corporate media to a higher standard than the LCD we're used to in this country is a good thing - so if an ombudsman-type position can do that, so much the better.

If not, it's so much posturing.

But perhaps if the LAT had one, that person could be lobbied to ask Tribune to hire John Sherffius for the editorial page, now that he has left the Post-Dispatch.

He would make a nice alternative to Ramirez's usual offerings.

I just finished posting on Rutten at First Draft and I come here to see John Hollon saying just what I said: Rutten could not be more wrong. Newsroom reponsibility to fairness, accuracy and excellence is not a zero sum game. Adding Okrent removes none of the obligation to those values from editors and reporters.

Brad -- The Times *does* have a reader's representative, or at least did last time I checked (two months ago). She just doesn't write regular columns....