Two or three times a week I get calls from readers seeking help with consumer problems, such as the mother who said her child’s gerbil chewed its way out of its cage shortly after they got it home from the pet store.
Obviously there’s something wrong if a product sold as a gerbil cage doesn’t fulfill its basic function.
But I have to disappoint these callers, some of whom associate the role of reader’s advocate with a public service column called “Sound Off,” which was discontinued in 1987 after a 20-year run.
True, an advocate is someone who pleads for another or for a cause but my current job is limited to concerns about The Free Press, not the broader field of battling unresponsive business or government bureaucracies.
I am still in the complaints business, but directed towards giving readers a place where they can sound off about the newspaper, if they feel their concerns haven’t been satisfactorily answered through regular channels, such as direct contact with editors and managers.
I have no power to direct The Free Press to make amends, beyond the powers of persuasion.
However, to ensure that persuasive power, the newspaper is committed to publish “in a prominent position” details of whatever investigations or comments the advocate deems appropriate about “errors of commission or omission on the part of The Free Press.”
Further, “the primary role of the reader’s advocate (formerly called ombudsman) is to help ensure The Free Press is fair and balanced in its reportage, commentary and public persona.”
These terms of reference were spelled out by editor Philip McLeod at the time of my appointment on Feb. 1, 1991, and the paper has faithfully lived up to its part of the bargain. I have been given this space on Page A2 each Saturday as a soap box from which to pass judgment.
However, I do not sit as a sort of surrogate editor but to allow a forum for readers to express what sorts of things trouble them or to make suggestions for improvement.
Apart from the usual copy editing for spelling, grammar and correction of typos, my columns have appeared as written. As the disclaimer at the end of the column states, opinions expressed here are mine and do not necessarily reflect the position of the newspaper.
People are often curious how a person can be allowed to sit in judgment of his or her employer. “How can you bite the hand that feeds you?”
It is not diffcult when you are not a direct employee but retained on contract, part-time rather than full time, and not wholly dependent on the job for a livelihood.
This has allowed an arms-length relationship and provides readers with a court of last resort should they run into roadblocks in trying to get their complaints resolved through normal channels.
Most of my time is spent acting as a mediator of sorts, attempting to balance readers’ expectations against the realities of publishing.
It has also provided a forum in which to discuss the behavior of the news media in general from time to time, including such high-profile issues as the right to privacy and what the public has a right to know, as in the celebrated Paul Bernardo-Karla Homolka case.
Most readers I hear from haven’t a specific problem but simply wish to express their views about the news of the day and how it was handled (or overlooked) by the newspaper.
How does the newspaper benefit?
Having a contact person, able to explain the news-gathering process but also able to obtain answers from any level within the newspaper, from publisher on down, helps to overcome the belief the newspaper is aloof or insensitive and inaccessible to concerns of the public.
Relatively few of the more than 1,800 daily newspapers in the U.S. have ombudsmen, but they include some of the biggest, oldest and most prestigious, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In Canada, The London Free Press is one of only five dailies with an ombudsman or reader’s rep. The others are Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, Toronto Star and Halifax Chronicle-Herald.
Despite public demand for more accountability, membership in our world-wide Organization of News Ombudsmen has dwindled in North America but risen in other countries getting their first taste of an open, democratic society.
A prime example is Izvestiya, for years the mouthpiece of the Kremlin and official organ for Communist propaganda, which surprised everyone last year by appointing a former assistant in the Moscow prosecutor’s office to the position of ombudsman. His job: “to review claims against the editorial board which are connected with (their) truthfulness” and “evaluate the ethics of Izvestiya journalists’ conduct.”
In the final analysis, it is the readers who are served and will decide whether ombudsman columns such as this are necessary and worthwhile.
