Crimson Board Names First Ombudsperson

Rajath Shourie '95, who is executive editor of The Crimson, will take over today as the paper's first-ever reader representative.

The reader representative is responsible for responding to and investigating complaints about reporting, as well as dealing with possible conflicts of interest among reporters.

Readers can express their complaints via a new 24-hour voicemail hotline to be set up later this month. Shourie will check the line periodically throughout the day. He can also be reached by calling 5-9666.

"There are basically two types of complaints newspapers receive," Shourie said. "Those involving misspelling of names, misquoting, and other unwitting errors, as opposed to more long-range complaints."

Shourie said he will focus primarily on the second type of problem.

"If I see stories that are blatantly wrong or biased I will go to the reporters to check up on what they did," he said.

Shourie has covered the Law School and College issues for The Crimson. He is from New Delhi, India.

The position of reader representative was created by The Crimson's news executives and its president.

"We instituted this position to provide the readers with a direct representative inside the paper," said Crimson President Marion B. Gammill '95. "We thought that readers would feel more comfortable expressing their problems with The Crimson if there was a [reader representative] to talk to."