NYTimes names Elizabeth Spayd as public editor

The New York Times said Wednesday it named Elizabeth Spayd, editor and publisher of The Columbia Journalism Review, as its new public editor, responsible for being readers' advocate and reviewing the newspaper's stories and editorial process.

Spayd, who spent much of her career at The Washington Post as reporter and editor, will join the Times later this summer, replacing Margaret Sullivan. Sullivan left earlier this year to join the Post as media columnist.

"Her work at CJR along with her long and successful history at the Washington Post have given her a broad range of experiences that will serve us well as she assumes this critical position serving as a reliable and engaged representative of our readers," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the Times, said in a statement.

Spayd, who will report to Sulzberger, will be the Times’ sixth public editor. She joined CJR in 2013 after working as the Post's managing editor. She began her career in small newspapers before joining The Detroit News as business editor in 1984, the Times said.

The Times created the role of public editor in 2003 after one of its reporters, Jayson Blair, was caught plagiarizing stories and fabricating sources and quotes. The job is to provide “readers a direct place, independent of The Times’s editing structure, to take complaints about journalistic integrity,” Sullivan wrote in 2013.

Sullivan is credited with ushering the position to the digital era, filing her thoughts online quickly as issues of concern surfaced. "The whole concept of coming to work every day to handle complaints, and maybe to criticize work done at the next desk over, well . . . The job is always a tightrope walk and certainly can be unpleasant at times," she wrote last month. "And it’s been fascinating to watch a legacy media company reinvent itself."

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