Organization of News Ombudsmen » Ombudsmen in the News

Brisbane will be new public editor at New York Times

Kerry Sipe — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:58:47 +0000

The New York Times today named its next public editor, Arthur S. Brisbane, a journalist and news executive with 34 years experience, including as publisher and editor of The Kansas City Star and as reporter and editor at The Washington Post.

Brisbane is the fourth public editor appointed by The Times.

Read the announcement at nytimes.com

Job was like “a shock absorber”

Kerry Sipe — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:11:42 +0000

Media Matters’ Joe Strupp interviews departing New York Times Ombudsman Clark Hoyt at the end of his three-year run in the post. He says the experience has been positive, although sometimes making him feel like “a shock absorber.”

“I was expecting it to be sort of a shock absorber job between the newsroom and individual…s who were commenting about things – that is the way it has turned out to be,” Hoyt said.

Read Strupp’s entire interview

Being the complaint department at The New York Times

Cara Fogarty — Wed, 12 May 2010 01:00:27 +0000

When veteran journalist Daniel Okrent joined the New York Times as the newspaper’s first public editor in 2003, he entered a newsroom reeling in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal and found himself critiquing the work of some of the best reporters in the country—many of whom were unused to having their work questioned. As a result, he says staffers “were very, very dubious, and in some cases openly hostile” toward him. ”

Read the entire Big Think article

Ombudsman can help prevent cheaters, Kurtz says

Kerry Sipe — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:17:20 +0000

In Howard Kurtz’s Washington Post review of “My Times in Black and White” by former New York Times managing editor Gerald Boyd, Kurtz acknowledges that an ombudsman in the newsroom helps change the kind of atmosphere in which cheating journalists like Jayson Blair can thrive.

“The Times has changed that atmosphere under Bill Keller’s editorship, and the existence of a public editor — an outgrowth of the Blair scandal — provides an important safety valve,” Kurtz writes.

See Howard Kurtz’s complete column

Salt Lake Tribune eliminates reader advocate post

Kerry Sipe — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:42:30 +0000

The Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City, Utah, has eliminated the position of reader advocate. Connie Coyne, who has held the position for the past seven years, will be leaving the paper as of March 26.

Read the post on Romanesko’s blog.

Read report in The Salt Lake Tribune.

ONO president promotes ombudsmanship in U.K.

Kerry Sipe — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:26:05 +0000

ONO President Stephen Pritchard participated in the annual meeting of the UK Branch of the Commonwealth Journalists Association, a panel of expert speakers on technological and commercial trends in both electronic and print journalism over the first decade of the 21st century.

He said that apart from his counterpart at The Guardian there are no other ombudspersons in the British press, where they were common in major U.S. newspapers and there were now over 70 world-wide. News accountability, he said, was essential to maintain credibility.

Read coverage at BusinessDayOnline.com.

Saying, ‘Yes,’ to courage in journalism, compassion and imagination

Kerry Sipe — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:03:18 +0000

Deborah Howell

Jacqui Banaszynski, Knight Chair Professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, delivered a eulogy at the Washington, D.C., memorial service for Deborah Howell, former ombudsman for The Washington Post.

“We in journalism have lost a guiding star, “Banaszynski said. “But Deborah’s star sparkled at the center of a constellation that continues to grow and shine. Stories beget stories beget stories, and live on.

“So if I look down to find the bottom of my grief, I am looking the wrong way. I need to look up, into a universe that is infinite and eternal. And in that universe, I see not cold ash, but the finest stardust.”

The full text of Banaszynski’s tribute is published at MinnPost.com.

Memorials scheduled for former Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell

Kerry Sipe — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:00:03 +0000

Deborah Howell

Deborah Howell, former ombudsman at the Washington Post and a campaigning editor and bureau chief has died as the result of an automobile accident while on vacation in New Zealand.

An obituary appeared in the Jan. 3 edition of The Post.

ONO President Stephen Pritchard described Howell as a great supporter of ONO. “We will miss her lively, enquiring mind and her wise interventions at our conferences,” Pritchard said.

Services will be held at 11:30 a.m. Jan. 15 — what would have been Howell’s 69th birthday — at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. A reception will follow.

A second ceremony has been set for 11 am Jan. 23 at Central Presbyterian Church, 500 Cedar St., St. Paul, Minn.

The family has created a scholarship in Howell’s name and prefers donations there in lieu of flowers. The Deborah C. Howell Memorial Scholarship for Women in Journalism was created to help women majoring in journalism at the University of Texas in Austin (where Howell received her journalism degree). Online contributions can be made at https://www.texasexes.org/form/donate.asp.

Sourcing of Article Awkward for Paper

Kerry Sipe — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:44:21 +0000

Facing criticism for publishing the work of a start-up news organization, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that it should have disclosed more about the group’s financier and his connections, and the paper’s ombudsman said he was looking into the relationship.

The start-up, The Fiscal Times, covers economic issues, with a particular focus on the federal budget, the growing deficit and efforts to rein in health care and Social Security spending. Its financing was provided by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire investment banker who advocates deficit reduction and restrictions on entitlement programs.

On Dec. 31, The Post published the first news article produced by The Fiscal Times, a report on the support in Washington for a proposed deficit-reduction commission. The primary expert quoted in the article is from the Concord Coalition, whose mission is also balanced budgets and limits on safety-net spending.

But the article did not mention Mr. Peterson, his backing of The Fiscal Times, that he was a co-founder of the Concord Coalition or that his foundation was a major underwriter of the coalition.

The full text of the story by Richard Perez-Pena is available on nytimes.com.

Station ombudsman builds viewer trust

Kerry Sipe — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Paul Giacobbe isn’t on-air much at WJAR Providence, but when he is, viewers—and station staffers—take particular notice. Both parties are prime players in Giacobbe’s Viewer’s Voice segments, which shine a light on WJAR reports that have stirred controversy with the station’s audience.

Giacobbe is the ombudsman at the Media General station, charged with making sure that WJAR’s reporting follows the rules of fairness, accuracy and balance. He may be the only station ombudsman in America, but at a time when local TV is increasingly looking to build viewer trust, some believe the role has never been more essential. “The ombudsman gives the station a greater amount of credibility,” Giacobbe says, “and gives people a sense of trust in the station.”

The ombudsman—a public advocate keeping an impartial watch on a media outlet’s reporting—is a rare breed. Among others, Clark Hoyt holds the Public Editor title at The New York Times while Andrew Alexander fills the ombudsman role at The Washington Post. But the crunch hitting the newspaper industry has made the position an unaffordable expense for many.

The post is less common in broadcasting. Don Ohlmeyer was named ESPN ombudsman in July, and Michael Getler does the same for PBS. However, Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO) Executive Director Jeffrey Dvorkin says Giacobbe is the only local TV ombudsman among ONO members, while ABC News and NPR are among the very few other national networks with one in place. He counts 40 news ombudsmen in the U.S., down from around 50 five years ago, though a few recent hires may suggest a post-recession trend. “That may indicate that some media organizations are coming back to a position where they understand the value of the ombudsman,” he says.

RTDNA Chairman Stacey Woelfel says stations often address viewer concerns with on-air segments. But with stations increasingly looking to involve viewers in the newsgathering mix, he says the ombudsman model can make abundant sense for those that can afford it. “As we move to an era of transparency and interactivity in local news,” Woelfel says, “having an ombudsman is a great way to do both.”

Initially a newspaper reporter with the Providence Journal, Giacobbe started at WJAR as an investigative reporter in 1978, but left two years later to practice law full time. He reconnected with WJAR when then-parent GE mandated that its owned stations have some sort of quality control mechanism in place. WJAR’s news director at the time saw it as an ombudsman, and Giacobbe came on board 11 years ago.

WJAR is a news power in Providence. It bagged $28.48 million in 2008, according to BIA/Kelsey, good for 43% of the revenue in the No. 53 DMA. But the station has been hit hard with the layoffs and furloughs mandated by Media General, and has seen increased competition. LIN’s WPRI grabbed late-news honors in November for the first time since 1993.

But through it all, WJAR has kept its ombudsman. It’s not a pricey position; Giacobbe gets $500 a month and airs four to five segments a year, while addressing a larger number of viewer concerns on a blog. Giacobbe speaks with the reporters and managers involved in the story in question before producing his segment.

On Dec. 4, he addressed the previous week’s report about a man who went missing while “quahogging” (digging for regional quahog clams), during which it was revealed that the man had been convicted of a sex crime a decade before. After 18 viewers contacted the station to say it was unnecessary to mention the conviction, Giacobbe met with the reporters.

Giacobbe said the station was right to mention the man’s criminal past—he’d been the first sex offender in Rhode Island subject to community notification under Megan’s Law—but was wrong to give it as much airtime as WJAR did. “Mentioning the man’s past should’ve been just that; only a mention and not a full separate story with pictures revisiting the circumstances of his 1999 conviction,” he said on-air. “That’s what was done, and that was too much.”

Besides correcting the record and keeping reporters on their toes, the ombudsman makes life easier for WJAR VP/General Manager Lisa Churchville, who can direct perturbed viewers (and advertisers) to an impartial arbiter such as Giacobbe. Churchville calls Giacobbe a “valuable” staffer with a deep concern for journalism. “Holding ourselves as accountable as we hold others is important,” she says. “Paul has diffused many situations—especially in the separation of journalism and commerce.”

WJAR managers say the ombudsman has been essential in building trust with viewers in an era rife with unaccountable “news” sources. “I do hear in the community that the ombudsman ups the trust factor,” says WJAR Content Brand Manager Chris Lanni, “when people can communicate directly with the news station.”