Media Matters for America
Doug Feaver has left his position as The Washington Post’s “reader representative,” Joe Strupp reports. Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt tells Strupp “the Post is still considering whether or how Feaver will be replaced, saying that Feaver’s deputy, Alison Coglianese ‘may assume the role.’ ”
Last March, Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth said the paper would eliminate its ombudsman position: “We know that media writers inside and outside The Post will continue to hold us accountable for what we write,” she said.
The reader representative, she said, would “address our readers’ concerns and questions” instead. Hiatt told Strupp “much of the reader representative’s role does not show up in print or online,” Strupp writes.
Last April Craig Silverman interviewed Feaver:
Feaver says he won’t hesitate to bring reader questions and concerns to the relevant people at the Post. So far, he said, “nothing has come up where it seemed to me that I needed to go and review with a reporter or an editor to find out what the hell went wrong here.” But, he added, “I certainly would have no problem doing that.”
Would he also be willing to suggest a change if he felt the paper could do better?
“You know, that’s very hard to answer,” he said, adding that “if things need to be recommended I will follow and feel free to do that, but I’m saying that as a generality. … I will be reluctant to say that, you know, there’s a problem there.”
