The Twin Cities-based Star Tribune has an ombudswoman, a.k.a. the readers' representative, whose thankless task it is to deal with irate subscribers. The problem with Kate Parry — and quite a few of her ombudsing colleagues at other news organizations — is that she feels obligated to take every whinge and niggle seriously, including ones submitted anonymously. I feel bad for her. Columnists and even reporters have a certain amount of leeway in telling unreasonably grousing readers to buzz off, politely or not. (Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times does it rather memorably.) Parry's understanding of her job, on the other hand, is that she must be always eager to please, the way a dog will heel obediently — and nervously — at the command of an ill-tempered master.
Here's a perfect example — one that says a lot about the groveling, asinine way too many of publishing's ombudscritters do their jobs.
Parry gets an anonymous voice message from a reader bitching about the food section's recipes. Too many deserts, too many calories, the caller charges, and adds that a headline over a recent food column should have been "The Star Tribune supports obesity." Parry, in her printed reply, makes it clear — twice — that most readers of the cooking section prefer to make high-calorie foods. For instance, when the newspaper, in an experiment, ran only recipes for "healthy" foods for a while,
...readers demanded the return of the unhealthy recipes because that's what they were actually cooking.
To her credit, Parry also points out that, like it or not, it's precisely
those tasty, fat-laden favorites that have made Taste [the food section] so popular.
Thus it seems that her reply to the complaining reader can only be something along the lines of "Sorry you feel that way, ma'am — can't help you." Instead, Parry illogically goes into jabbering doormat mode:
I decided that reader's headline idea on obesity hadn't gone far enough, that perhaps, "Star Tribune cooks up deadly, but tasty, food for readers" would be more accurate. I think Taste can do a better job of serving readers ... How about a 50-50 split on those recipes? Sometimes newspapers need to help readers confront unpleasant truths. Here's one: We're getting fatter, it's not good for us and the recipes in Taste, delicious as they are, contribute to that problem.
Wow. I won't even go into the fact that fatty foods, in moderation, are not inherently unhealthy, of course; that the "deadly" consequences of being overweight have been grossly overstated; and that, regardless, adults surely can make up their own minds about what they eat, even if that means trading longevity for pleasure. Let's just focus on the sad state of today's news business for a second. To wit: One anonymous complaint by some sour-pussed nanny, and the reader's representative springs into action, strongly advocating an overhaul of the popular, national-award-winning food section — a change that goes diametrically against what readers have already told the paper they want.
It's one thing to give your customers a chance to vent. It's quite another to publicly wear a "please kick me" sign and turn yourself into a cowering wuss at the first sign of a reader's displeasure. [via MediaNews]
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