An important daily function of the media is to hold others accountable, whether they are corrupt politicians, or public officials wasting the money of the taxpayer, or a company whose owner has fraudently used the investments of pensioners. This function is mostly in the public interest.
“Why do we as journalists expect that we can hold others accountable for incongruities and mistakes if we are not prepared to be measured by the same yard stick when it comes to our own mistakes?”
This question was raised over the past week by Ian Mayes, President of the international Organization of Newsombudsmen (ONO), during discussions in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, where he talked to senior journalists of the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), Die Burger and the Cape Times, as well as postgraduate journalism students at Stellenbosch University.
Mayes was visiting South Africa as guest of Media24 and also spoke to editors and journalists in Johannesburg about the growing international awareness of the need for ombudsystems within the media environment.
Mayes has been the reader’s editor of the British daily The Guardian for the past decade. He is the author of six books, inter alia Only Correct: The Best of Corrections & Clarifications, a book with examples of the type of corrections The Guardian has published in these ten years. In 1997 he became the first internal ombudsman in the history of the British press, and his latest book, Journalism Right and Wrong, gives an overview on the necessity of a conscience at newspapers.
Mayes writes in the introduction to this work that there is growing interest in establishing ombudsystems in the media. “There is, in fact, huge curiosity around the world in the possibility of applying the ombudsman principle of impartially adjudicating complaints to the turbulent field of journalism.”
He writes, “What I tried to do through these columns was to facilitate a conversation between the journalists and their readers that remained reasonable in tone even when the journalists’ work was the subject of adverse criticism, or when, as happened quite often, the reader’s complaint was in the end rejected. The demonstration that such a conversation was possible is what I think has attracted the interest of practitioners and students of journalism around the world. By opening a door into the newspaper readers have been able to discover what degree of thought has gone into specific decisions, whether the decision is seen on reflection to be right or wrong.”
“It is the only form of self-regulation that can, that should, have the effect of building trust between the employing news organisation and its readers, listeners or viewers.”
In the preface to Journalism Right and Wrong, the editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, explains the function of an ombudsystem at a newspaper and emphasises the reasons why such a system would effect the credibility of journalism.
“I don’t know anyone – reader or reporter – who truly believes that journalism is anything but a blunt, imperfect tool. But very few editors behave as though it is. Clarifications and corrections on most papers are still granted grudgingly and tucked away where as few readers as possible will notice them. I think we should correct systematically and prominently. First, because it’s right and fair. If we get things wrong, or not quite right, there’s an ethical obligation to do something about it. Second, because owning up to mistakes makes people trust us more, not less. Third, because the zeitgeist of the digital age is increasingly about challenges to the pronouncements of old media and expectations of higher standards of
accountability and transparency. And finally, because it makes a statement about the nature of the endeavour in which we’re all engaged.”
Only two newspapers in South Africa – there are 17 daily papers published countrywide, and hundreds of weekly papers – have an ombudsman: Die Burger, and the weekly Mail & Guardian. Here some editors erroneously argue that they do not want an ombudsystem at their papers because it will curtail proper investigative reporting. Their argument is that an ethical conscience stands in the way of hard newsreporting.
This is a bizarre and, in fact, ignorant attitude because research has shown that media where an ombudsystem is in place, proves the opposite. An ethical code of conduct enables journalists by means of practical guidelines to be fair and honest journalists, all in the interest of their readers. Furthermore, I think the history of international papers such as The Guardian and The Washington Post (the latter in exposing the Watergate scandal) unequivocally contradicts this viewpoint.
An example at Die Burger: Our ethical code of conduct emphasises that our journalists should be “independent of the government at all levels, as well as any pressure and or interest group.” Furthermore, “Reporters and photographers of Die Burger should be free of obligations to any pressure group, interest group and political party. Their only obligation should be to the public’s right to know.”
Would you as reader prefer such a policy to one where journalists are influenced by pressure groups, of whatever nature or because of whatever dubious reason? Would you trust travel journalists, art reviewers or motor journalists more if they write fiercely independent reports and unafraid of pressure (read: sponsors)? Or political journalists who have membership of a political party or activistic pressure group less?
Independence cultivates trust, is the acceptance of accountability.
Ethical journalism is not cowardly journalism; it is journalism with a conscience.
