Like the NYT, which just eliminated their public editor role.

Oh. Did they give any reasons?

"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"

Although, what Sulzberger actually said was:

“Our followers on social media and our readers across the internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog, more vigilant and forceful than one person could ever be,” he wrote. “Our responsibility is to empower all of those watchdogs, and to listen to them, rather than to channel their voice through a single office.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/business/media/new-york-t...

That's funny, because I don't see the logic there beyond it sounding superficially like a savvy decision to cut costs and leverage the community, however the role shouldn't really be a single person in the modern era, but an advocate collating voices and ensuring the editors and writers are informed by an opposing (or descenting) voice within their ranks or you risk a form of 'group think', which I believe probably had more to do with the Guardian's error than anything else.

A world-weary cynical read:

"Our followers on social media and readers can be ignored a lot easier than a guy in our office, so when complaints come in, we can simply sweep them under the rug"

I would greatly disagree with that. The rest of the world can see complaints on social media, whereas no one knows if the guy in the office is being ignored.

The designated commissar could also use twitter too.

Eh, one person's twitter can be ignored.

These days people get so worked up on social media anytime a brand does anything (i.e. people getting mad a cinnabon for their carrie fisher bun pic - http://cbsnews3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2016/12/27/a9c2ac0c-3...). I think social media can serve as a watchdog for more important issues, too.

The New York Times retiring their ombudsman was high profile news, but is there actually a trend of (quality) newspapers removing that role from their staff? The NYT move was widely criticised by its peers (not just by the other ombudsmen, but by the newspapers themselves in their respective editorials).