We have always said that the nature of everything will change – including the idea of who puts pressure on media to do better. It will be the audience, in a time of social convergence. The audience isn’t necessarily an organized group, but it is no less powerful for that.

And no less than the world’s paper of record is acknowledging that. Yesterday, it announced the closure of its public editor role: “Elizabeth Spayd, a former Washington Post managing editor who was named the paper’s sixth public editor last year, was expected to remain in the position until summer 2018.” She had served in the position for less than a year.

The public editor is some kind of ombudsman that takes on public criticism of a per, aligns it with inside responses and creates a feedback loop between both that ensures accountability. It doesn’t really do much, but it’s a quaint throwback to a time of expansive media incomes, where the media could afford to critic itself, even. And it just made certain media really aspirational. We even considered it once in this newsroom, and still do.

Like all old, grand things, we are a little sad it will no longer be here. But then Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the paper’s publisher is right, change comes with the future.

“The responsibility of the public editor — to serve as the reader’s representative — has outgrown that one office, he noted. “Our business requires that we must all seek to hold ourselves accountable to our readers. When our audience has questions or concerns, whether about current events or our coverage decisions, we must answer them ourselves.

“The public editor position, created in the aftermath of a grave journalistic scandal, played a crucial part in rebuilding our readers’ trusts by acting as our in-house watchdog. We welcomed that criticism, even when it stung. But today, 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. Our responsibility is to empower all of those watchdogs, and to listen to them, rather than to channel their voice through a single office.”

The new solution is instructive:

“We are dramatically expanding our commenting platform. Currently, we open only 10 percent of our articles to reader comments. Soon, we will open up most of our articles to reader comments. This expansion, made possible by a collaboration with Google, marks a sea change in our ability to serve our readers, to hear from them, and to respond to them.

“We will work hard to curate and respond to the thousands of daily comments, but comments will form just one bridge between The Times and our audience. We also, of course, engage with readers around the globe on social media, where we have tens of millions of followers. We publish behind-the-scenes dispatches describing the reporting process and demystifying why we made certain journalistic decisions. We hold our journalism to the highest standards, and we have dedicated significant resources to ensure that remains the case.”

In other words: Power to the people.