The concise, dispassionate work of Marcelo Beraba, my counterpart at Folha de So Paulo newspaper in Brazil, long has earned my admiration, in no small part because of the complexity of the issues and the climate for news journalism in Latin America.
Last week, I experienced firsthand some of that complexity as my colleague hosted the 26th annual meeting of the increasingly international Organization of News Ombudsmen in his city, like New York on steroids, which ranks with Tokyo and Mexico City in sprawl and population. Although very unlike more touristy Rio de Janeiro, business-oriented So Paulo still features Brazil’s remarkable ethnic diversity.
I’ve reported often here on the ONO meetings, quoting editors and publishers who have authorized, as has this paper’s management, someone to independently address the concerns of readers, viewers and listeners at news organizations around the world. Longtime Post readers know, for example, that any item in the newspaper can be a topic for discussion in this Listening Post column, whether from the standpoint of factual or linguistic accuracy, transparency in how the newspaper works, or accountability for balance and fairness.
So it seems appropriate to switch focus to the voices of journalists from throughout Latin America and even some So Paulo-area university students. Our exchange of ideas again begged the question why there aren’t more U.S. ombudsmen.
“What role do we play as ombudsmen in Latin America?” asked opening-session speaker German Rey, former ombudsman for El Tiempo newspaper in Bogota, Colombia. “I had to deal with drug dealers and corrupt politicians and misinformation from the military,” he said in comments translated into English. “The reality here” he said, “is a constant situation of poverty that has a quarter of Latin America living in misery and having to make choices: Go to a movie, or eat. Read a newspaper, or eat.”
Consider the letter he received, signed by the 30 biggest criminals in Colombia, saying he had the opportunity to make their lives easier by correcting an El Tiempo article. One drug dealer “received me in his cell with French champagne,” he said. But while criminals, too, have a right to demand that correct information be published about them, he added, “I never granted a clarification to illegal groups – because they were never right.”
Maria Teresa Ronderos, El Tiempo’s political editor, recalled a drug dealer, “not dangerous but who had quite a lot of influence,” who was fighting extradition to the United States. She had anguished over “how to tell this story, of someone who could not read or write, without reducing it to a caricature of the good guys versus the bad guys.”
Such articles “help build the society we understand, the complexity, the nuances,” she said. Yet what bothers her most professionally, she added with candor rare among journalists, “is the quick judgment I make of everything. The political passion, the ideology, the bias.”
Such strong commitment to telling the truth may help explain why the rate of ombudsmen growth overseas has been outstripping that here, where journalists “are very comfortable in their bunkers,” as someone said. “This voice exposes the media to constant moral examination,” said Octavio Frias Filho, Folha’s editor-in-chief. “It submits the organization which is ready to accept this challenge to the same scrutiny which it adopts toward personalities in the news.”
In contrast, the huge credibility issues for U.S. journalism, cited as the scandalous dereliction of duty before and since the invasion of Iraq, were a theme repeated during the sessions and by students during Folha’s 85th anniversary conference, which followed.
“All the world was led through the nose to this war,” someone put it. “I do not think the U.S. press is in a position to teach anything after our performance” on the invasion, said Andres Oppenheimer, The Miami Herald’s Latin American editor.
“You got a fairer sense reading the Latin American press than the U.S. press,” he said.
“I often say that if a news ombudsman’s comments do not frequently irritate those responsible for a newspaper, there must be something wrong, either with the ombudsman or the newspaper,” Folha Editor Filho said.
“There shouldn’t be any dispute over thoroughly checked fact, although the truth is there often is. However, everything else in our professional activity is open to discussion. The most appropriate approach for reporting, the aspects to be highlighted and the priority of news on the pages – none of this is science, let alone exact science.
“Since Folha introduced the post of ombudsman 17 years ago, we have increasingly learned about our errors and how to prevent them. We have better knowledge about that significant part of our readers who call upon our ombudsman. We have also learned, to some extent, about accepting criticisms with serenity. The most remarkable aspect, however, has perhaps been that it offers us a formal channel for elucidating and settling controversies, which are inevitable in journalism.”
Such recognition, especially given the climate, is another indictment, as Mr. Beraba observed in his ONO welcoming column, of “the arrogance of journalists and news organizations who believe that they are above criticism.”
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
