"As a foreign service officer for the United States Information Agency, I had the opportunity to read papers in several parts of the world, and living in Washington, I read The Washington Post.

"The Post has a person who is called the ombudsman.

" . . . Your column, titled 'Reader Advocate,' would seem to have the same purpose. But apparently I am misreading what a reader advocate does. It seems to me that almost whenever anyone writes something critical of the newspaper, you become the editor's or the publisher's advocate, although you do report statistics on complaints. Don't you think such boosterism is better left to the editor or publisher?"

A handful of newspapers in this country have someone in the position of ombudsman or reader advocate or public editor or reader representative. Each of these positions comes with a different job description.

At The Salt Lake Tribune, the reader advocate serves a number of roles: Most important, this post is the entry point for reader complaints and praise for what the staff puts in the paper and what it leaves out, what articles are fair and what articles go too far, what photographs are great and what photos are too graphic, the overall content of the paper and perceived unfairness in coverage.

That alone would be a daunting task. I spend hours every week talking to readers and routing them to the right editors and reporters, empathizing with their nostalgia for how things used to be and explaining why we did what we did when we did it.

But I discovered this week that I am not the only reader listener who gets dinged as a "shill for the company line."

Other reader reps and ombudsmen across the country share the same fate:

* A compadre in Texas e-mailed: "Some readers expect me to side with them no matter what. When I don't, and I offer an explanation of why we do what we do, they're angered and usually accuse me of disinterest in their concern. I talk with them about how reader advocacy can involve lessons in basic journalism for them to help create transparency as well as agreeing with them and arguing for them with staff.

"For instance, I'll get complaints from some readers who want us to express their prejudices. They don't like our policy of not identifying criminal suspects according to ethnicity unless there is police report documentation that does so. They'll say something like, 'Everyone knows those guys were Hispanics, and common sense tells you that they're illegals, but you guys are so politically correct, you don't have the guts to tell the truth.' ''

* One in Minnesota e-mailed: "I get this from a few, almost all sort of perpetually angry guys online, who really aren't happy unless I'm savaging someone. Of course, like everyone else, my columns are [a] mix of taking the paper to task, explaining what happened and giving readers a glimpse of how decisions are made here and who makes them. But, for every hothead who doesn't like the weeks when I do a Q&A with an editor or write something else that I think of as a transparency column, I hear from many more readers that they really appreciate those columns."

* One from the District of Columbia e-mailed: "Happens to me all the time. I'm called a shill and worse. I criticize the paper when I think it's wrong and I don't when I think [it] is right. What I try to do is lift the curtain to explain to readers how decisions are made."

It's nice to know I am not alone.

When I first took this job more than four years ago, I wrote in a column: "The Reader Advocate at a newspaper is like a bridge over sometimes troubled waters.

"But, be warned: This bridge does not allow nuts, bolts, screws, bigots, hotheads, the terminally bored or the constantly disgruntled across the span."

I listen to all the complaints, but I draw the line at dignifying some stuff - UFO reports, anger because someone's husband was arrested and the story was in the paper or vitriolic racist rants - by talking about them in a column.

And, just so you don't think I never have a criticism of the paper, I think we lost total bladder control over covering the sale of the final Harry Potter book. We had more than 27 stories on it in fewer than 10 days.

---

* THE READER ADVOCATE'S phone number is 801-257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. E-mail: reader.advocate@sltrib.com.