Tell us what you think

Read our new “Inside the Newsroom” column by John Cutter and give us your thoughts.

I have a new role now with a rather grand-sounding title — content director for operations and standards. It includes many responsibilities, most here in Orlando Sentinel and a few at our sister paper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

One is to write about what the newsroom does and why we do it — and, more importantly, to listen better to what you are telling us. I think of it as serving the people who keep us in business — you, the readers.

At some media companies, the role is called ombudsman or reader advocate. The last person in a similar role here was Manning Pynn, who was public editor from 2001 to 2008. In his first column, Manning wrote that his job was to invite “readers into the newsroom to see how journalists make decisions and why” and to “address issues of accuracy, balance, ethics and fairness.

I have many ideas, some similar to Manning’s, from letting you know more about the people who work here to addressing changes to the web site and newspaper. But I want to know what you want to know about us — what questions, concerns or thoughts do you have, specifically about the Orlando Sentinel or more generally about journalism.

But first, a little about me, in the tradition of former Orlando Sentinel columnist Charley Reese, who wrote an annual column disclosing who he was and what he believed. The idea was that if he was going to write his opinion all year, readers deserved to know more about the person behind the words. Our columnist Scott Maxwell has taken up the idea in recent years and columnist Lauren Ritchie did it this year.

I’ve always loved the concept

and wish I had done it as managing editor, when my job was to supervise the newsroom and make multiple decisions each day about what we cover — and what we don’t cover. Now’s my opportunity.

I was born and raised in New York City, but I now have lived longer in Florida — since 1985 — than I did in the city. I am a bigcity boy who became a small-town man — I live in Mount Dora and think it’s the best place around.

My father was a stationary fireman, which until I was about 5 I thought meant he was firefighter. He wasn’t — he fired up and maintained coal boilers at Harlem Hospital in Manhattan before becoming a steamfitter, although he always worked a second job pumping gasoline or parking cars. My mother raised my brother and me and sometimes cleaned houses, offices and for a while the convent of our local Catholic church.

Neither of my parents finished high school, so they valued education dearly, as only people who didn’t have one can. They were neither helicopter nor lawnmower parents. They never saw me play ball or run track, which is such a contrast when I think of all the events I’ve attended for my daughter — by the way, I have two and am married to my current wife for 25 years in January. I recently became a first-time grandfather.

My parents did the best with what they had, which was never much. If I had to pick one trait they instilled, it was that I could do anything I put my mind to.

I became a journalist because I loved to write and was told I was good at it. I also came of age in the 1970s, when Watergate turned reporters into heroes.

I studied mass communications and political science at Fordham University in the Bronx, where the Jesuits taught me to think and question as well as to write. When I graduated in 1979, I worked for a while at small papers in New Jersey before following friends to the St. Petersburg Times. I intended to stay for a couple of years and return north, but my older daughter, Cait, was born in 1987 and I could not imagine raising her in the city — a weird feeling for a New Yorker.

Plus, I came to love this state. I love the warm weather and the people. I love that within an hour’s drive I can kayak on a river or see a theme park. I love my small town and big-city things that keep coming to Orlando, like the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

I came to Lake County when my former wife settled here with our daughter. The Orlando Sentinel hired me in 2002 to manage the Lake County bureau and after two years, moved me to Orlando as the criminal justice editor. I got into the digital side of things in 2006, rising to deputy online editor in 2008 before I left for WESH-TV to serve as its digital news manager. I returned to the Sentinel in 2010 as digital news manager and then was associate editor, and for the last three years I was managing editor.

In mid-November, I got this job, which includes being your eyes and ears in this newsroom. I work for Julie Anderson, the editor-inchief for our two Florida newspapers, who hopes to hire a new managing editor by the end of 2018.

If you google my name, you will find a bit more about me. For now, that’s enough to get our conversation started.

I do have one simple request — can we keep it civil? I hear from many readers and have been called all sorts of names. Scott Maxwell has fun every so often writing about his nasty email.

I get it. People feel passionately about something that they hold in their hands each day, whether on their phone, tablet or newspaper. I’d hope we can have a discussion and not a fight.

Don’t take that as meaning I want you to shy away from criticism, asking hard questions, showing your passion. Let’s try to do it without resorting to nastiness. If you think that makes me a snowflake, then we might not be getting off to the right start — but I’ll hear you out.

So if you have thoughts for me, email jcutter@orlandosentinel.com. (We are working on a Facebook page where we can have more real-time interaction.) You will be able to find this and future columns at OrlandoSentinel.com/ johncutter and in print on Fridays on the Local & State front.

I look forward to hearing from you.