Charles Seib, 84; Ombudsman at the Washington Post

Charles B. Seib, 84, a former managing editor of the old Washington Star-News who served as ombudsman of the Washington Post from 1974 to 1979, died Thursday at a hospital in Rockport, Maine. He had leukemia and sepsis.

Seib was the Post’s fourth ombudsman with responsibilities to answer readers’ complaints, monitor the newspaper for fairness and relevance and write memorandums to the editors and occasional columns of media criticism in the newspaper.

He also pushed so vigorously for the inclusion on the Post’s front page of brief notices -- called keys -- to alert readers to presidential news conferences and other events of interest that they became known in the newsroom as “Seib keys.”

Seib was born in Kingston, N.Y., and raised in Allentown, Pa. He graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., with a degree in journalism and got his start working for the Evening Chronicle in Allentown.

In 1971, he wrote a book titled “The Woods: One Man’s Escape to Nature,” about spending quiet, peaceful moments in a small, secluded cabin on 33 acres of pine forest he owned in the Virginia hills near Shenandoah National Park.

He moved from Washington to Rackliff Island, near Rockport, about 12 years ago.

In retirement, he was a part-time journalism instructor at Harvard, Northeastern and Syracuse universities, and the University of Maryland.