The Southern Daily Echo is advocating a new approach to readers’ complaints.

Each week, a senior journalist is designated Your Advocate. Their name, photo and phone number appear next to the Comment column and readers are invited to call with complaints, comments and questions.

“Accuracy is the cornerstone of our work,” the paper says.

“Because the business of journalism is a public trust, we encourage readers to help us.”

Ian Murray, editor of the six-edition, 60,000-circulation tabloid, based in Southampton, picked up the idea from an American newspaper while holidaying in Florida.

Newsdesk staff take turns to be the Advocate but Mr Murray plans to extend the rota to other senior staff, such as the chief sub and chief photographer. He believes it helps to build public confidence and gives everyone in the newsroom a clearer picture of how the paper is performing.

Traditionally, he says, it was all too easy for a reporter to answer a call from an irate reader, who’d seen his or her byline, then soft-talk them out of taking the matter further. No-one else in the newsroom would be any the wiser and the editor would turn up to address a Women’s Institute meeting, confident that his paper was doing a marvellous job…only to face a barrage of complaints about misspelt names and left-out doily-decorators.

Response from readers has been “fairly brisk” with up to about 12 complaints a week. The paper responds either by deciding to take no action – in which case, complainants can appeal to the editor – or publishing a correction or clarification. Occasionally, several complaints and responses are published together in a column about the Advocate’s work.

Mr Murray (41) says feedback suggests readers welcome the chance to make their point to someone more accessible than the editor, while reporters are becoming more responsive to complaints.

“Internally, it means that a lot more complaints are being centralised to someone sitting on the newsdesk and they are able to assess just how many problems we are having.”

He admits there was “a sharp intake of breath” when the scheme was announced, with staff worried that it would give the impression that the paper was constantly making mistakes.

“I said we were just admitting, correcting and moving on, and it gives us the moral high ground.”

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