'Wash Post,' 'NYT' Invite Readers into the E-mail Conversation

By: Joe Strupp The Washington Post and The New York Times are opening up the lines of communication between readers and staff writers.

Last week, the Washington Post began hyperlinking bylines on washingtonpost.com to Web-based e-mail forms. On Tuesday, NYTimes.com will institute a similar feature, which is designed to provide readers with greater access to reporters and columnists without burdening staff with massive amounts of spam e-mails.

Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, explained the move in a statement released Monday afternoon: "The many interactive features on washingtonpost.com have shown that the dialogue between writers, editors, and readers is mutually beneficial. Not just for conversation, but for perspective, source material and story ideas as well. These new links to e-mail offer an additional opportunity to build a better relationship between writers and the audiences they serve."

In a column in the Post's Sunday edition, Brady explained the paper's efforts to create a civil dialogue among readers, reporters, and editors in light of his well-publicized decision last month to shut down reader comments on a blog that had become "ground zero for angry readers."

For the Times, the decision to allow greater e-mail access grew out of the Siegal Report, a review of the paper's codes and practices launched after the Jayson Blair fiasco. Executive Editor Bill Keller informed employees of the new policy today in a memo posted on the Romenesko site.

"We've struggled for a while with the question of how to invite more readers to communicate with our reporters without inviting tons of junk mail or spam," Keller said in the memo. "Creating such a system was a recommendation of the Credibility Committee in its report in April. Now we have an answer."

Keller went on to explain that the system allows readers to send messages and notifies them when they are received. The Siegal Report contained a number of suggestions for improving the paper's operations, including restrictions in the use of anonymous sources and other ethical issues.

On the connection with readers, the report stated, "Making it easier for the public to approach Times people has numerous benefits. It sends a message to the paper's readers -- our customers -- that we are indeed accessible. It also opens up another avenue for reporters and editors to get ideas and tips that can lead to stories."

Keller cited that suggestion again in his memo, adding that the new e-mail option is "a nice system, with great potential benefit to all of us institutionally and personally." He did not explain why it took several months to be instituted.

Currently, readers may only e-mail writers and editors through general e-mail addresses provided in the paper's print version, one for each news section, Times Spokesman Toby Usnik said.

"But it won't work if we don't use it," Keller stressed in his memo. "Readers appreciate thoughtful answers to legitimate questions and criticisms. That doesn't mean that every personal attack must be parried, every anti-Times campaign repulsed, every line-by-line analysis rebutted in kind. It simply means that readers should be heard and, whenever possible, engaged.

"In many cases," the memo went on, "no reply will be called for beyond the auto-reply acknowledging that a reader's message has reached you. In other cases, a polite acknowledgement will be plenty. And in all cases, it's worth keeping in mind that what you say to readers and how you say it will be taken -- rightly or not -- as representative of The Times."

Usnik confirmed the new approach, which is currently used for all columnists on the TimesSelect pay portion of the Web site. Those writers, who cannot be accessed without paying the monthly online fee or being a Times subscriber, may currently be contacted only through a similar Web e-mail form for paying subscribers.

As with the majority of the Times Web site that is free, e-mail access to those staff writers also will be free. "It's a way to invite our readers to communicate with our reporters," Usnik said.