I finished putting this mailbag together on Monday afternoon. But literally minutes before it was to be posted, the contentious, internal issue within PBS—that was the subject of the posting—was resolved, at least temporarily.

The answer to the question in the headline is that it is up to the president to make his case to the American people with respect to why he and/or members of his party should be elected or re-elected.

These last several weeks have turned out to be an unusual time for me in my role as ombudsman. Over the years, the usual flow of mail from viewers covers a pretty wide swath of programming offered by PBS.

The mail keeps coming from viewers engaged with the powerful, important and controversial drama that has unfolded in recent weeks from Ferguson, Mo., to Cleveland, Ohio, to Staten Island, N.Y.

Viewers, not unexpectedly, continue to be stirred by news coverage of the grand jury decision on Nov. 24 in the killing of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo., and by coverage of the aftermath of that decision.

As expected, the aftermath of the grand jury decision Monday night in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo., has stirred up controversy, violence, emotion and lots of opinion.

Two segments on the PBS NewsHour in the past 10 days or so made some viewers—most probably Republicans but maybe others as well—jump up and down, and then sit down and send emails to me crying foul.

Loving the boss is not an emotion generally found in the newsroom of a big metropolitan daily newspaper filled with cranky reporters and editors.

I’m telling my readers, in case some of them haven’t heard, that David Brooks, the well-known New York Times columnist who also is a...