First saw this at The Huffington Post: Editor and Publisher is reporting on the recommendations of an internal NYT committee that examined ways to bolster reader confidence in the newspaper.

An excerpt:

NEW YORK An internal committee at The New York Times has recommended steps to increase readers' confidence in the newspaper, including reducing errors, increasing coverage of religion, "rural areas" and "middle America," making reporters and editors more accessible, and possibly starting a blog.

Executive editor Bill Keller, who had asked the panel to study questions of journalistic credibility, endorsed the recommendations in Monday's editions, calling the report "a sound blueprint for the next stage of our campaign to secure our accuracy, fairness and accountability."

The committee proposed taking steps including encouraging high-ranking editors to write a regular column dealing with the internal workings of the Times -- this is in addition to the fairly new public editor's column. Other suggestions include using the Internet to provide documents used for stories and transcripts of interviews, and further curtailing the use of anonymous sources. It saw no point in boycotting background briefings.

Recommendation #4 reads: "Consider creating a Times blog that promotes interaction with readers."

As for accessibility: "The Times makes it harder than any other major American newspaper for readers to reach a responsible human being," the committee's 16-page report said. It also noted that the paper printed 3,200 corrections last year.

The committee was made up of 11 editors, 6 reporters, a copy editor and a photographer.

Here's some excerpts from the Times' story:

The committee also recommended that the paper "increase our coverage of religion in America" and "cover the country in a fuller way," with more reporting from rural areas and of a broader array of cultural and lifestyle issues. ...

In a draft of his response to the report, Mr. Keller (Note: Bill Keller is the paper's executive editor) noted that one big issue, the use of anonymous sources, was already being addressed. Last week, the Washington bureau chiefs of several newspapers met with the White House to urge that background briefings with anonymous administration officials be attributed by name.

The report urged strict limitation of anonymous sources, but did not call for them to be eliminated entirely. Nor did the committee see much point in boycotting the background briefings. Sometimes, it said, guaranteeing anonymity is the only way to extract important information.

Note: For more on this see NYT public editor Daniel Okrent's May 8 column.

As for errors, the report noted that the paper printed 3,200 corrections last year and proposed a system to track errors to detect patterns to try to prevent them from recurring. The committee said the system would not be used to compile error rates of individual reporters, noting that using raw numeric counts as part of a reporter's evaluation "would breed resentment."

It also said The Times had discussed plagiarism-detection with Lexis-Nexis, which was working with iThenticate, a firm that develops detection software for use in academia. Once the software is refined, the committee said, The Times should use it when plausible suspicions are raised.

The full text of the report is available as a .pdf file.

Here is a summary of recommendations:

FROM THE REPORT

An internal committee at The New York Times has made specific recommendations to improve the paper's credibility with readers. They include the following:

1. Encourage the executive editor and the two managing editors to share responsibility for writing a regular column that deals with matters concerning the newspaper.

2. Make reporters and editors more easily available through e-mail.

3. Use the Web to provide readers with complete documents used in stories as well as transcripts of interviews.

4. Consider creating a Times blog that promotes interaction with readers.

5. Further curtail the use of anonymous sources.

6. Encourage reporters to confirm the accuracy of articles with sources before publication and to solicit feedback from sources after publication.

7. Set up an error-tracking system to detect patterns and trends.

8. Encourage the development of software to detect plagiarism when accusations arise.

9. Increase coverage of middle America, rural areas and religion.

10. Establish a system for evaluating public attacks on The Times's work and determining whether and how to respond.

Here's some stuff on Keller's response:

The report comes as the public's confidence in the media continues to wane. A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing of what they read in their daily newspapers, a level of distrust that may have been inflated because the questions were asked during the contentious presidential campaign when the media itself was often at issue. When specific newspapers were mentioned, The Times fared about average, with 21 percent of readers believing all or most of what they read in The Times and 14 percent believing almost nothing.

In a response to the committee's report, Mr. Keller called it "a sound blueprint for the next stage of our campaign to secure our accuracy, fairness and accountability." He said he wanted to "hardwire these guidelines into the newsroom" and would be explaining them to the staff and appointing people to enforce them.

But, he asked: "Will these reforms, by themselves, reverse the decline of public trust in news organizations? Of course not." He said that while there were too many factors beyond the paper's control, it was still essential "to maintain high standards over the things that are in our control."

Here is Keller's full response.

The other interesting stuff was about responding to attacks on individual articles, reporters or the paper itself.

The committee asserted that The Times must respond to its critics. The report said it was hard for the paper to resist being in a "defensive crouch" during the election but now urged The Times to explain itself "actively and earnestly" to critics and to readers who are often left confused when charges go unanswered.

"We strongly believe it is no longer sufficient to argue reflexively that our work speaks for itself," the report stated. "In today's media environment, such a minimal response damages our credibility," it added. As a result, the committee said, the newsroom should develop a strategy for evaluating public attacks on The Times and determining whether and how to respond to them. "We need to be more assertive about explaining ourselves - our decisions, our methods, our values, how we operate," the committee said, acknowledging that "there are those who love to hate The Times"' and suggesting a focus instead on people who do not have "fixed" opinions about the paper. A parallel goal of this strategy, the committee said, was to assure reporters "that they will be defended when they are subjected to unfair attack." The defense should be led by journalists in the newsroom, the report said, "with support and advice from our corporate communications, marketing and legal departments."

The report also called for the paper to "devise a strategy governing when and where it makes sense for us to be on TV and radio," and recommended that reporters be given television training.