Meet The Banner’s new public editor

In naming me its first public editor, The Baltimore Banner is going against the trend.

At a time when many other news organizations have gotten rid of similar positions, The Banner has given me the opportunity to use the space it occupies on the Internet to criticize, critique, and second-guess the news decision-making of its reporters and editors. Such a grant of power requires a great deal of self-confidence – and courage – on the part of the paper’s leadership.

In 2017, The New York Times eliminated its public editor position. Four years earlier, The Washington Post got rid of its ombudsman, a public editor by another name. Both independent monitors were sacked, ostensibly, to remove the middleman between readers and the editors and reporters who inhabit the papers’ newsrooms. And while USA Today continues to have a standards editor, that position never had the unfettered ability to question, critique and explain news coverage decisions that The Banner has given me.

Coming as it does just a few months after this nonprofit online newspaper began operations, The Banner’s decision to ask someone who is not a member of the paper’s newsroom staff to be the guardian – and sometimes the arbiter – of its credibility and ethics is a big deal.

Here’s what you need to know about this arrangement.

I am an independent contractor, not an employee of The Banner. This arrangement frees me to speak up when I think The Banner has dropped the ball in its news reporting – and to speak out on its behalf when I believe the paper’s actions have been misunderstood by readers, or simply need to be explained. As public editor, I will sometimes be an advocate for readers and other times I will be a champion of the paper’s newsroom.

Journalism is not a science. But it is governed – or at least it should be – by certain values and principles. In rendering my opinions, I will always filter them through the prism of what I’ve learned during my long journalism career – and balance them against the Newsroom Policies & Code of Ethics that The Banner has adopted.

I began my journalism career in 1973 as an intern with The (Baltimore) Evening Sun. Over the next 45 years, I worked as a broadcast and print journalist for media organizations like USA Today, CBS News, Black Enterprise, BET and U.S. News & World Report. I taught media ethics at Delaware State University and North Carolina A&T State University; and I was a distinguished visiting professor of journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2013, I became the founding dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism & Communication. I’m also a co-founder and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

But, arguably, my best preparation for this job is that I’m a son of Baltimore. I was born in Sandtown-Winchester and have lived in Cherry Hill, Forest Park, Woodlawn, and the Owings Mills sections of the Baltimore metropolitan area.

I’m a Ravens season ticket holder and a lifelong Orioles fan.

And most important, I am a Baltimore news junkie. I love this city’s rich journalism history. I remember when three daily newspapers – The Sun and two now defunct newspapers, The News-American and The Evening Sun – plus the then-twice-weekly Baltimore Afro-American competed for readers with legendary journalists like Richard Ben Cramer, Elizabeth Oliver, Sam Lacy and Carl Schoettler.

Today, the public square is crowded with people who believe that access to social media is the only credential they need to claim the identity of a journalist. Few of them adhere to recognizable standards that would make them a credible journalism source.

In announcing The Banner’s launch, Editor-in-Chief Kimi Yoshino said the paper’s mission “is to be an indispensable resource that will uplift, unite and strengthen our community.” To do this The Banner must first establish itself as a credible source of news and information.

Subjecting itself to the scrutiny of a public editor is an important first step.

publiceditor@thebaltimorebanner.com

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