Longtime Listening Post readers tell me they look for these columns on the annual meetings of the worlds news ombudsmen. Ombudsmen in a Time of Transition was this years Organization of News Ombudsmen conference theme. It might as easily have been, Internet: Friend or Foe?
I dont think ombudsmen are a panacea to all the challenges this new digital age is throwing up, said Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian newspaper of London. But speaking on Ombudsmen in the Digital Future during the opening session at our Harvard meeting, he added that a refusal to have some kind of independent system embedded within news organizations, as we all come under more and more intense scrutiny, looks increasingly odd.
Mr. Rusbridger particularly cited the 24/7 spotlight in which the entrails of mainstream journalism are picked over by millions of bloggers. His analysis laid out the new challenge for news organizations:
Various technological and economic forces are bearing down on what we do so forcefully and, frankly, so fast, that the very nature of journalism is being challenged in fundamental ways that have yet to filter back into more conventional print-focused newsrooms.
The full text of Mr. Rusbridgers remarks is posted at www.newsombudsmen.org. So are reports such as mine on the session Is There a Shared Watchdog Role for the Public, the Blogs & Ombudsmen? Also a series of my reports to Post readers on past ONO meetings, dating almost to when we ombuds still shared columns with each other through regular mail.
This year, significant discussion focused on the Web-facing trend in which The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) is a leader. In April, it posted online 250,000 Comment is free remarks from readers. There were 600 within 48 hours on just one piece about religion and atheism, Mr. Rusbridger said, prompting a colleague sitting next to me to wonder what the 601st could add to the discussion.
The more you are Web-facing, the more dialogue, said Mr. Rusbridger. Yet the fact that you cant possibly monitor all of that illustrates one reason why he added, Were having the same debates every other organization is having.
Those newsroom debates may also help explain why, from my perspective as ONOs longest-serving current member, and having attended more of these sessions than any active member, I perceived considerable insecurity this year. Despite ONOs premise that each organization defines the job differently, I can recall past years shop-talk debates about the value of an ombudsman who doesnt write a column. Some of this years ombudder-than-thou discussion, however, such as about writing explanatory vs. critical columns, hinted at confusion even among some ombudsmen about what we do. And there also were the usual references to the myriad studies by academics and other commentators who lack the temperament to field criticisms from irate readers, much less their organizations staff.
But some insecurity no doubt was reflected in the obituary read by Gina Lubrano, our executive secretary, of some news organizations that once had ombudsmen: The Boston Globe, Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, Orange County (Calif.) Register, Nashville Tennessean, Fort Wayne News Sentinel, Delaware News Journal, Knoxville Journal, Honolulu Star, Fresno Bee, Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., Philadelphia Inquirer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Miami Herald, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Amarillo Globe-News, Rocky Mountain News, Indianapolis Star, Akron Beacon Journal, Arizona Republic, Ann Arbor News, Portland Oregonian, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Cedar Rapids Gazette, New Brunswick (N.J.) Home News, Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minn., Seattle Times, Star Banner in Ocala, Bradenton Herald in Florida.
Canadian ombudsmen were ONO founders and active when I attended my first meeting in 1987. Yet papers that no longer have ombuds include the Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Winnipeg Free Press, Montreal Gazette, Chronicle-Herald in Halifax, London Free Press in Ontario and Calgary Herald.
But Ms. Lubrano also notes organizations that have added positions or joined ONO in the past 15 years: Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., Cleveland Plain Dealer, Orlando Sentinel, Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., Anniston (Ala.) Star, Toledo Blade, Houston Chronicle, Colorado Mountain News Media, USA Today, San Antonio Express-News and ESPN. Thats in addition to growth abroad illustrated by The Guardian.
In this murky dawn of the digital age, as media-kind continue to stumble in search of ways to serve well and prosper, it is clear that ombudsmen remain part of the solution. We can refuse systematically to correct or clarify our journalism, said Mr. Rusbridger, but we would be foolish to imagine that it will therefore go uncorrected or unclarified. It will: All that will happen is that it will take place elsewhere.
Citing our president and his own newspapers former sacrificial lamb, he said ombudsmen not only can explain their news organizations to readers, viewers and listeners:
Sometimes they manage the even harder job of explaining us to us. Through hundreds of columns, Ian Mayes helped Guardian journalists understand better how we were seen by our readers. Just as often, he did something to explain particular decisions or judgments to our readers. Occasionally, he would criticize or defend an article or editorial call. More often, he would simply hold it up to the light and examine it.
C.B. Hanif is an editorial writer and ombudsman for The Palm Beach Post. Items for Listening Post may be sent to lp@pbpost.com
