When the New York Times began to experience its recent credibility crisis starting with the exposure of plagiarism and fabrication by Jayson Blair, it got an ombudsman. The Times hired Daniel Okrent as its public editor in December 2003.
The Times joins a short list of newspapers that have ombudsmen or public editors. The Organization of News Omubdsmen lists only 39 working in the continental United States.
AJR has a story on why some newspapers have ombudsmen but most don’t. You can read it here.
Florida is virtually overrun with ombudsmen compared to all the other states. We have four. They are Mike Clark, reader advocate for the Florida Times-Union; H. Judy Green, reader advocate for the Ocala Star-Banner; C.B. Hanif, Listening Post editor for the Palm Beach Post; and Manning Pynn, public editor for the Orlando Sentinel.