A Full-Employment Act for Ombudsmen!

Is it too late to reanimate the ghosts of Pulitzer, Hearst, Bennett and Kane
to save the contemporary newspaper from yuppie self-infatuation
and terminal boredom?

By Van Gordon Sauter
Former president of CBS News

A well-intentioned colleague suggested I discuss the changes that will occur in the communications business over the next 20 years — by 2018. An engaging concept, until I thought back to what I might have prophesied in 1978 about changes in the industry by 1998. That was sobering.

Who in 1978, for instance, would have predicted that a rambunctious, hokey, idiot savant from Georgia…who inherited a …

Excerpts from welcoming remarks at the 1998 ONO conference

By Karin Winner
Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune

“In these post-O.J. Simpson days, as we chronicle the developments of one ‘gate’ after another, the readers’ representative is that vital link between us and our constituents. You provide the proper measure of constructive criticism and consciousness-raising, but also diligently defend our First Amendment rights.”…

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“These are times when that freedom is under constant attack, often unfortunately because we’ve abused it.”

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“All of you as mouthpieces for credibility, arbiters of fairness and good taste, and judges of what’s right and wrong, play a huge role in convincing readers that newspapers are an

For wire editors, the news ‘never stops’…

They are the people you want to have on your side in a game of Trivial Pursuit.

They know the names of all the countries in Africa and Eastern Europe.

They can explain the latest U.N. resolution and identify the hottest figures in country music and alternative rock.

I’ve always held wire editors in awe. Their jobs in the newspaper seem to carry so much power, such awesome responsibility, such profound influence.

They read (or at least scan) hundreds of dispatches every day from all over the world and then select a few dozen …

Raining on their parade…

Linda Mason’s daughters had dressed as insects, characters from a favorite book, while her son marched with his trumpet in the middle school band. They were among hundreds of participants in last Sunday’s parade marking Manchester’s 175th anniversary.

Mason was surprised as were other Manchester residents when she picked up her Monday Town News section. Dominating the top of the cover was a huge color photo of a brick tenement with men peering out two windows as the tops of two blurry people in Scout uniforms passed by waving flags. A smaller photo showed a …

The 1998 Philip M. Foisie Memorial Lecture

The third annual Philip M. Foisie Memorial Lecture was delivered on May 12, 1998, at the Westgate Hotel, San Diego, Calif., by Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, the largest newspaper in the Northwest.

From 1984 until April 1993, Ms. Rowe was executive editor and vice president of The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia. She had been with the papers for 22 years, serving as reporter, assistant city editor, features editor and managing editor before being named executive editor in 1984. Under her leadership, the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for …

The Clash of the Paradigms

By Dr. Deni Elliott
Practical Ethics Center
University of Montana

It doesn’t take a psychic to predict journalistic backlash. Take any scandal or any sensational event that dominates the news shows and news columns. The public will be riveted by the story. They will read the same rumors in three different newspapers and news magazines. They will surf the channels looking for one more re-telling of the same speculation.

Then, the handwringing and head-shaking over the state of journalism begins. The story after the story is how journalists screwed up. In something as complicated and on-going as the Clinton-Starr saga, …

Why Newspapers Need Ombudsmen to Ensure their Credibility and Accountability in a Multi-Media, Multi-Ethnic Society

By Chuck Stone
Walter Spearman Professor
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

When St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor Cole Campbell offered me the position of ombudsman with specific responsibility to monitor an upcoming racially polarized mayor’s race, two thoughts occurred to me: One, I had a high threshold of ignorance about the responsibilities of ombudsmen; and, two, I was amazed at the alacrity with which my even higher threshold of hubris impelled me to accept.

After my mercifully brief baptism of only five months on the Post-Dispatch assignment, I came away a devout …

Why don’t more newspapers hire ombudsmen?

By David Cox

One of the most important responsibilities ceded to a newspaper by its community is the editorial page role as independent and unwavering observer, adviser and, sometimes, critic.

Generally speaking, I think we do a pretty good job of it. We investigate issues, weigh the facts and urge conclusions or make judgments. And, if we do our jobs well, these daily pronouncements may frequently be unpopular.

We weather the criticism and make our observations in the name of societal health and the overall best interests of our community. Thanks to our efforts to shine the light of fact …