#public editor

MARGARET SULLIVAN is the public editor of The New York Times. She was editor and vice president of The Buffalo News before she being named as Times public editor in September 2012. She was the first woman to serve as the editor and as the managing editor of The News, after working as a reporter and columnist there. As editor, Margaret focused the paper’s reporting on poverty, economic development and inequities in public education, and established its first investigative team.

Margaret was appointed to the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2011 and has been a juror four times, serving as the chairwoman of the distinguished commentary jury in 2006. She was elected twice as a director of the American Society of News Editors and has led its First Amendment committee. A native of Lackawanna, N.Y., Margaret is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she is a member of its Hall of Achievement.

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1. What do you do as Public Editor? How do you differ from previous Public Editors? I represent the interests of readers of The Times. I do that partly as a kind of internal watchdog on journalistic integrity issues and partly as an advocate for readers' concerns expressed in my blog (The Public Editor's Journal) and my column in the Sunday Review section. The difference in my role is that I've taken the job digital–particularly by posting frequently to the blog and using Twitter to hear from and respond to readers.

2. How important is social media in your job? What advice do you have for journalists incorporating social media into their work? Social media is a great tool. The immediacy and responsiveness are really valuable elements that I would hate to do without. There are some dangers with it that can mostly be avoided by thinking twice–maybe more than twice–before pressing that last key. You really have to be careful and, when in doubt, walk away from the keyboard.

Be prepared to push for recognition in your newsroom.

3. As the first woman editor and managing editor at The Buffalo News, what surprised you about being in those roles? I found out that I was only as good as my staff. Luckily, I had a great one and I was also able to hire about 60 people during the time I was in charge. I emphasized local enterprise reporting and it was wonderfully fulfilling to get stories into the paper that really made a difference in the community–which also happened to be my hometown. That made it even more meaningful. I don't think the "first woman" thing affected what we did too much, but it was a great honor to have that distinction.

4. What should women do to move up the ranks in their newsrooms? Women have to do what everyone does–work really hard, care passionately about your work and figure out how to distinguish yourself. You also have to be prepared to push for recognition in your newsroom, not in a self-promoting way but as a way to do more meaningful work. Do a great job on the lower rungs so that when you ask for the better assignment–and you should ask–it's natural to give it to you. Have a plan for what you want to do and where you want to go, and then work that plan as hard as you can.

5. How do you balance having children with your career? What advice would you give to other journalists balancing work and family? There are very few things more meaningful than having children, so don't wait too long looking for the perfect time. It will never arrive. There's no magic to this, but if you can avoid leaving the workplace for too long, that will benefit you. Yes, take a leave of absence but come back pretty fast, even if it's just part time. You need to develop the very strange skill of being in two places at once, or seeming to be. Remember: Nobody asks men how to balance family and career. It helps to have a spouse who's willing to take a full role in the balancing act. Happily, there are more and more people like that now.

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From PantaGraph.com

Who holds the news media accountable? We all do. Given that the First Amendment precludes the government from being an actual “watchdog on news media,” who else steps in to call the news media to account?

In today’s world, increasingly…

From Tuesday’s New York Times:

An obituary on April 9 about the actress Annette Funicello misstated the title of one of her films. It is “Fireball 500,” not “Fireball.” (A reader pointed out the error on the day the obituary was published; this correction…

According to a new article by New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, The Times may be ready to consider alternatives to the term "illegal" in reference to immigrants living in the U.S. without papers—undocumented immigrants. 

The article quotes Philip B. Corbett, the associate managing editor for standards at The Times.

“We do think about this, and we talk about it all the time,” he said.

Does this mean a change anytime soon? Probably not. However at some point, given more information, Sullivan stated, she could "take a stand." 

Other journalists taking a stand are Jose Antonio Vargas, who prompted this discussion in a recent email exchange with Sullivan. Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, came out with his undocumented status in a 2011 article in the New York Times Magazine.