Who stands for the public in Murdoch vs the government?

Editor’s introduction: In this essay, Geoffrey Robertson QC, who has extensive experience representing media companies and free speech cases, explores the role of the Leveson Inquiry, established by UK Prime Minister David Cameron in July to conduct a “judge-led inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the press and the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International and other newspaper organisations.” Robertson places the inquiry in the historical context of media regulation in the UK. He casts a skeptical eye on the prospects for meaningful media, especially given the failures of past similar attempts and the low credibility of the UK’s Press Complaints Commission (PCC) in either protecting privacy or enforcing its ethical rulings.He then explores various proposed alternative structures to media regulation. Since the essay deals with UK-specific material, British grammar conventions have been preserved.

Ombudsman mandate review launched

CBC/Radio-Canada have launched a review of the mandate for their ombudsmen.

The review follows last year’s update of CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices and deals specifically with the role of the ombudsmen in the current media landscape. The mandate has not been reviewed for several years.

CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix says social media and the Internet have changed the way in which the corporation does business, so “it’s important that we understand new media’s impact, either real or potential, on the mandate and role of our ombudsmen.”

Roundtable focues on media self-regulation in Turkey

A group of senior Turkish journalists and international experts met in Istanbul to discuss media self-regulation and ombudsman mechanisms in a national roundtable. This meeting started the second series of events initiated by UNESCO within the framework of the project, Alignment to International Standards in the Media Sector of South-East European Countries.

Discussing a dilemma

Members of ONO recently discussed an issue concerning complaints, fairness, balance, and ethical dilemmas. The conversation took place via e-mail. It is re-posted here to serve as an example of the thinking and clarity ombudsmen bring to their jobs.

Keeping Tabs on the Times

Part journalistic Renaissance man, part regular guy, former reporter, columnist, editor, publisher and corporate executive, Arthur Brisbane is the new public editor of The New York Times.

Read more: Keeping Tabs on the Times…

Defensores del público en la prense LatinoAmericana: Un trabajo complejo que busca consolidarse

Introduction:

Prof. Flavia Pauwels of the University of Buenos Aires is a scholar of ombudsmanship
in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Here is her scholarly assessment of the
growth of the institution in Latin countries. An English translation to follow shortly.

Resumen:

Al iniciarse 2010 al menos treinta experiencias de Defensorías del público se encontraban en funcionamiento en los medios de comunicación de América Latina. No sólo en diarios, sino también en medios audiovisuales, particularmente en aquellos de gestión pública. El trabajo de los News Ombudsmen o Defensores en la región es complejo, debido a las dificultades económicas que atraviesan …

The news ombudsman: Watchdog or decoy?

Ombudsman: Self-criticism in newspapers

By Jairo Faria Mendes
Master of Arts in communication and culture
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Few people know what an ombudsman is, but various of the biggest newspapers in the world have the column, as Le Monde (France); El Pa¡s (Spain); Washington Post, Boston Globe e Philadelphia Inquirer (USA); The London Free Press, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazete, Toronto Star e Halifax Cronicle-Herald (Canada) for instance; and even the Russian newspapers Izvestiya, known as an official organ of the communist party of the extinguished USSR. About half of the Japanese newspapers have an ombudsman, among which the one with …

Fighting the enemy within

(Andrew Finkel was until recently a Reagan–Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. He has also served as a correspondent based in Istanbul for a variety of international organisations including The Times, TIME, the Economist, and CNN. He is also one of the few foreigners to have written a regular column in the Turkish language media.)

By Andrew Finkel
IBI Global Journalist

Blaming the media when things go wrong may be an old political trick, but it is one that succeeded only too well in earning Turkey’s prime minister Tayyip Erdoðan an enthusiastic round of applause …

Death of the ombud? Only in Canada

By Jeffrey Dvorkin
ONO executive director

Are news ombuds an endangered specied. In North America, the answer now seems to be yes.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I agreed in May to become the first executive director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO) in the midst of the largest economic downturn in the history of journalism.

Only a few years ago, newspapers and broadcasters around the US and Canada would point to their in-house ombuds (aka readers’ editor or public editor) as an example of openness and transparency with their readers, viewers and listeners.…