Subscribers and journalists. Summer chronicle

Josep Maria Casasús was Reader's Ombudsman of The Vanguard between 2000 and 2007. At that time, he analyzed that the most appropriate way to qualify the pieces of the ombuds was the term so commonly used in the profession "chronicle", after discarding the legal term "opinion". Casasús also has a degree in Law and knew what he was talking about, and throughout his career he has combined the pure science of professional practice with a spectacular academic resume that made him a professor and dean of the Faculty of Communication at UPF. We also owe him the fact that, in 1995, in the normative dictionary coordinated by Teresa Cabré, the IEC – he is a full member – admitted "journalistic" in three meanings, one of them being the definitional one: "Science of Communication that has as its object the study of the phenomena and elements that make up the activity of the period". Casasús had already introduced the term in his book Introduction to journalism (Teide, 1988). We are fortunate to be able to read it in your section "Before Now", a collection of historical pieces.

So about theauctoritas Casasús today titles this section "chronicle", and I give myself the license that the genre allows to address two issues that at first glance might not seem appropriate for the Reader's Ombudsman, but that with a hermeneutic that guarantees the "opinion", I must consider: subscribers and journalists.

I receive many communications from subscribers; I deal with those that fall under the canon of complaints regarding texts according to the Ombudsman's Statute (it's posted openly), but I forward those related to logistics to the appropriate department. But today I want to address a recurring logistics complaint that I had experienced myself. I'm transcribing the voicemail sent to me by Maria Fàtima Fortuny, regretting that I can't reproduce her speech with its emphatic accents:

"Hello, my name is María Fátima Fortuny, and I'm contacting you because I'm fed up! I've been a subscriber to ARA since issue 1, from that cover it seems to me that it was with Dr. Broggi. I don't know how many times each year they make me feel like I'm not a subscriber, and you make me put mail, and it never lets me in. It's incredible! There have been years when I've thought about not subscribing anymore and just letting it go. Now I haven't done so for months, but it's started again for days. It's incredible! I'm fed up, really! I'm fed up!

The underlying problem is that the digital's automatic response to security re-identifications is annoying - allow me this colloquialism ad sensum with the chronicle – for some subscribers, and in this case for a subscriber who has been a subscriber since the first issue and has remained loyal to the publication for almost fifteen years now!

The subscription department has diligently contacted the reader, who has been tutored to resolve the problem, and she is grateful. However, the essential part was already resolved some time ago, following other complaints alleging that the automatic re-identification process could imply that they were not subscribers. I'm seeing that for many people, being an ARA subscriber has the added value of belonging to a community, and it didn't make any sense for us to be the ones to destroy that sense of belonging with a kind of digital excommunication. We'll see now, after the summer, if re-identification can also be streamlined, which is a common demand for other newspapers.

The second topic that usually falls outside my scope is the complaints or problems of editors, which are addressed in perfect harmony with my necessarily journalistic practice and bordering on opinion. Believe me, readers, this profession, which must reinvent itself every day if it wants to be what it is, subject to pressure and strain, presents personal challenges that sometimes require that the analysis be compensated in the pharmacy. Therefore, I appreciate that readers who approach me criticizing a journalist do so within the canons of polish, and I regret so much disrespect in online comments, often unidentified.

Given the exceptional nature of the issue and the fact that it is of general interest to journalists, I am making use of the emails I have exchanged with Trinitat Gilbert, editor of theNow We Eat. They refer to topics she has covered firsthand, and therefore ARA readers have enjoyed the absolute and etymological Latin value of the news, what is being reported, but which other media have subsequently covered. She gives me two examples, and I'll copy the most recent ones. an interview with a restaurant waitress, Gemma López Gramunt, who gave it this headline: "I don't serve customers if they call me "queen", "xsst" or chatter their fingers to order my dishes." This piece was published on July 7th and fifteen days later, a national newspaper addressed the same issue with this headline: "Beautiful, bring me the painful one: the phrases and activities that the waiting room staff deal with".

I replied this to our gastronomy editor, always concerned with seeking new themes and approaches, beyond a field of too many commonplaces and too much propaganda: "Dear Trinidad, I have looked at this and in no case can it be considered plagiarism [she headed the email with this word]: she uses diverse sources and makes the manga diverse sources and makes the paragraph; literal: Taking ideas from colleagues (being inspired by them, as you say) is something else, if each one contributes their own way; sadly blurred in collective intellectual property and Gramsci's "organic intellectual" will be reincarnated in a pervert gremlin".

Fortunately, journalistic protocols are automatically activated when faced with the most significant and eye-catching exclusives, and they are cited, although sometimes with the added benefit that the outlet has confirmed the story already reported by the other outlet. Another thing—a final corollary—is that journalists, beyond obligations and protocols, have the grace to cite each other, even to acknowledge that we are addressing a topic that has recently been raised by a colleague... And has inspired us.

The Readers' Ombudsman pays attention to doubts, suggestions, criticisms and complaints about the contents of the newspaper in its digital and paper editions, and ensures that the treatment of information is in accordance with the codes of ethics.

By contact the Readers' Ombudsman You can send an email to eldefensor@ara.cat or record a message of no more than one minute on WhatsApp at 653784787. In all cases, identification with your name, surname, and ID number is required.