Dear colleagues,
I hope that you managed to take a good break in the last month or so because the news did not as wars in Gaza and Ukraine became ever more brutal, politics more polarised and the run ofelections just kept on going. But at least the Paris Olympics gave some respite from the gloom. As you will see, we at ONO have used the time to finalise the speakers for the Shoptalk on September 10 and make a decisive move to upgrade the website. In addition, we are happy to welcome yet another new member, Lyndsey Christ, who is responsible for news standards and practices at Spectrum News in the US – we hope to have a bit more about her in next month’s newsletter.
Finally, we have members’ contributions and stories from around the world that reflect the issues ofjournalism in 2024.
Margo Smit, president
Jack Nagler, vice-president
Elisabeth Ribbans, treasurer
Chris Elliott, executive director
Shoptalk: Speakers fixed
We can now confirm our speakers for the Shoptalk on September 10, which will look at the ways in which colleagues deal with the coverage of populist politicians.
In addition to Bert Lauwers, VRT News ombudsman, and Ruud Hendrickx, VRT adviser for programme ethics and professional integrity, the other speaker will be Adriana Gomez Licón (below), currently covering Donald Trump’s campaign trail for the Associated Press.
In Europe, the US and all around the world the coverage of populist politicians is a dilemma for journalists covering the beat. What’s best practice for journalists? Our three speakers will examine the questions and we will hear from other colleagues about the way they deal with this increasingly difficult issue at 12 noon UTC on September 10. A reminder of the zoom invite to come.
New technology
The board has decided to take up Jeff Brown’s offer of working pro bono to update and clean up the ONO website, host it and offer 24/7 support. The move has already saved ONO $500 as we were just about to renew the contract with Siteground, the company that currently hosts the site. The decision to work with Jeff was made after a full and frank zoom call set up by Pierre on August 5, which explored the issues involved in the move. On the call were Jeff, Pierre, Jack Nagler, ONO VP, and Chris Elliott, executive director.
As some of you may remember, ONO decided to quit the Fourth Estate site, which is part of Jeff’s company, Honeytree Technologies, based in Florida, in 2019. However, the board has agreed that all outstanding matters have been resolved.
Migration has already begun, and this may result in some disruption with links not working so well and articles being in unexpected places. There will be further work to scope out what more needs to be done. Jeff says it will go on his company’s list of work and could happen within 30 days. He agreed to expedite the move to avoid ONO having to pay the cost of the Siteground contract. The work includes the removal of several redundant plugins and an upgrade, not least because Jeff believes there may be security issues due to the outdated plugins.
His company currently hosts around 1,000 companies and organisations, 80% in the US. He said many of them were connected to journalists or journalists’ organisations. Chris asked him directly whether he had any clients that would be problematic for ONO to be alongside. He said his firm turned down between 30% and 40% of those companies wanting to work with it. “You don’t want to be next to ‘bad actors’,” he said. The companies who work with him are a mix of profit and non-profit.
Members’ contributions
Please refer to the PDF version of the August 2024 Newsletter.
This is your newsletter!
If you want to share your own experiences or have reports all ONO members should know about, find us at newsombudsmenorg@gmail.com and we will include it in ONO’s next newsletter.
Did you know…
…that the ONO Newsletter is also available on the ONO website? It may be a little later going up on the site this month, but it will be there.