The recently appointed news ombudsman at The New York Times represents an encouraging trend: In the past decade, larger U.S. news organizations such as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and even National Public Radio have appointed ombudsmen who address issues of accuracy and fairness in their news reporting.
In addition, during the past several years, ombudsmen have been appointed at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Orlando Sentinel, The Houston Chronicle, The Anniston (Ala.) Star, The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., and, just days ago, at The Baltimore Sun. Along with long-timers such as Mike Clark of The Jacksonville Times-Union, Gina Lubrano of The San Diego Times-Union and myself, they contributed to the record 50-plus members who attended the Organization of News Ombudsmen meeting last week at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.
For years, however, as the loss of ombudsmen at some news organizations has been balanced by gains elsewhere, the number in the U.S. has lagged at a lamentable fewer than 40. Thus, last year’s ONO president and conference host, Yavuz Baydar of The Milliyet newspaper in Istanbul, Turkey, represents an even bigger trend: the overseas growth of what once was primarily a U.S.-Canadian phenomenon.
There long have been ombudsmen in Sweden and the Netherlands; the gender-neutral word, which means “intermediary” in English, is Scandinavian in origin. In the past decade, ombudsmen also have begun serving for France Televisions, as well as in Brazil, Australia and Colombia. This year’s ONO (as in, “Oh No!”) meeting brought newly appointed ombudsmen from venues as varied as San Juan, Puerto Rico; Cape Town, South Africa; and Tbilisi, Georgia – as in the former Soviet republic. We all came to compare notes and hear from speakers who might help us to make our news organizations more accessible and accountable.
“The principle,” said Ian Mayes, readers’ editor at The Guardian in London, England, and ONO’s vice president, “is a simple one: that news organizations which, almost by definition, constantly call others to account should be more readily accountable and open themselves, and should be seen to be so.” After he was appointed in 1997, he said, three other British newspapers quickly named ombudsmen: The Observer, The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Mirror. He is “the only person in Britain who does the job full-time and daily, working inside the paper from a position of independence, washing – not whitewashing – the paper’s dirty linen in public, as one U.S. ombudsman has put it.”
The fact that each newsroom defines the job differently was the point of Mr. Baydar’s opening remarks: “We have a saying in Turkey that ‘Everyone has a different way of eating yogurt.’ ” Aside from ombudsman, some papers call theirs the readers’ representative, reader advocate, public editor, public contact editor – or, in my case, Listening Post editor. Most are authorized to air criticisms and provide answers from staff members in regular columns such as this one. While we can provide a public hearing when readers have no other recourse, we can’t give orders – we’re not a part of management.
I also serve on the paper’s editorial board and write editorials and occasional opinion columns unrelated to reader comments on The Post’s news and feature articles. The words “Listening Post” below my name differentiate my general interest columns from that one, which I consider to be primarily a readers’ forum, and where to my mind the crucial elements are reader concern and staff response. I get to express my opinion, but even more important to me is to provide the needed background enabling you to form your own.
Our dual role is to “provide an earphone for readers, and serve as a sounding board to funnel and transmit that to the management of the newspaper,” as Mike Gettler of The Washington Post put it, and “to help the public outside the newsroom better understand what journalism does and how it does it,” said Bob Steele, the Poynter Institute’s noted journalism ethicist.
In future columns, I hope to reflect some of the exemplary journalistic thinking heard at the Poynter meeting. One sensible suggestion, from Mike King of Atlanta and others, is that editors explain controversial decisions – such as publishing the photos of Americans’ charred bodies on the bridge in Fallujah, Iraq – the day they appear rather than days later in the ombudsman column.
The highest participation ever for our annual meeting, with almost half coming from abroad, “tells us that the demand for quality journalism and telling the truth is stronger than ever,” said Mr. Baydar. The growth abroad, however, is a continuing indictment of the 1,500 U.S. newspapers that continue to question every other institution while refusing to publicly address criticisms and be seen to be more accountable themselves.
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
