How to engage with your audience: why public editors still matter

Kathy English, former public editor of the Toronto Star, discusses what public editors do, their role in ensuring accountability to readers, and how reader engagement via public editors has changed over the years. Meera Selva speaks to Kathy English, former public editor of the Toronto Star, about what public editors do, their role in ensuring accountability to readers, and how reader engagement via public editors has changed over the years in response to changes to the news environment and politics. Meera Selva is the Director of the Journalist Fellowship Programme at the Reuters Institute. She is a senior journalist who was a London based correspondent for the Associated Press, Africa correspondent for the Independent based in Nairobi, along with stints in business journalism at a range of publications including the Daily Telegraph. She is currently a Journalist Fellows at the Reuters Institute. Kathy English is a Canadian journalist based in Toronto. Kathy served as public editor of the Toronto Star from 2007 until July, 2020 when she stepped down from the role of adjudicating reader complaints and upholding trust and transparency standards across all of Torstar Corp's news platforms. Kathy is chair of the Canadian Journalism Foundation, a national non-profit organization that promotes excellence in journalism and engages broader audiences in public discussions about journalism's mission in a democracy.