Stephen Pritchard is the readers' editor of The Observer of London and president of the Organization of News Ombudsmen.
OH, THE IRONY. THE FIRST NEWSPAPER in North America to appoint an ombudsman — The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky. — was among the first to dissolve the post when the dark clouds of recession began to gather over the nation's newsrooms last summer. The decision not only robbed the readers of their independent voice after 40 years, it also lost the Organization of News Ombudsmen its figurehead — Pam Platt, The Courier-Journal's public editor, was its hard-working president.
“These are very difficult times ... and we are having to make tough decisions,” said Courier-Journal Executive Editor Bennie Ivory. “The position has been a very valuable part of the newspaper, but I felt the need to move the resource to another area. I didn't think we should weaken the editorial voice of the newspaper.”
We can all understand that an editor needs to concentrate cash on newsgathering, but does it necessarily make economic sense to deprive the audience of their champion? Others obviously believe it does. Reader representatives have disappeared from a dozen U.S. titles in the past year, including the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant and The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.
And to rub salt into the wound, the Editor & Publisher Web site last year reported on journalist Simon Dumenco's contention that the newspaper ombudsman is now obsolete.
He gave five reasons:
- Readers can now effectively do the job for themselves, especially with the popularity of blogs. Many bloggers can influence how controversial newspaper reports are “received and spun.”
- Jim Romenesko's Poynter Institute media blog “effectively makes any newspaper's public-editor column seem both parochial and anemic.”
- More people now directly engage in conversation with journalists and editors through e-mail and Web site comments.
- Ombudsmen are “boring as hell,” a personality that opposes how newspapers should be engaging with their readers
- Money can be saved or spent on something else.
Well, at the risk of being “boring as hell,” I want to show why I believe this short-term thinking is wrong, why it damages newspapers and their Web sites to be without an ombudsman and why other editors who are considering removing the post should think again.
For those who have never had an ombudsman on their paper, let me explain that these men and women work within newsrooms, dealing with complaints, publishing corrections and writing columns and internal memos on their papers' journalism. These readers' editors, readers' advocates, public editors — call them what you will — act independently of the editor, and represent the people who buy the paper or who appear in it.
This swift and flexible form of self-regulation has been embraced in the U.S. and Canada since the late 1960s. The rest of the world has taken a little longer to wake up to its benefits. The press in the United Kingdom, for instance, has been remarkably reluctant to take up the idea. To admit to your mistakes is still seen as a sign of weakness that simply can't be tolerated in a cut-throat race for readers. Of all the British newspapers, there are still only two with permanent readers' editors: the Guardian, which was the first to establish one 13 years ago, and my paper, the Observer, where I was appointed eight years ago.
The principle is simple: If news organizations hold governments and institutions to account, they too should be accountable to their audience for their actions.
Small wonder, you might think, that those U.S. ombudsmen have lost their jobs. An editor looking for cuts would not need huge encouragement to remove someone who could be seen as a major irritant in the newsroom. Journalists are proud people and don't take easily to criticism. Editors don't necessarily like being reminded that they preside over what is at best is an approximate version of the passing show. Need to save some money? Well, what about those people we allow to point out our errors and embarrass us? They can go, surely? After all, readers can still write to us to complain, and better still, they now have instant access; they can get on our Web site and post comments to tell the world what they think of us. Who needs an ombudsman?
It's an understandable reaction, but, almost in the same breath, any editor will tell you that those most important to them are their audience: the people who read their papers, their Web sites, listen to their radio stations or watch their TV channels. And yet it is astonishing how poorly the media treats those who consume them. Yes, they have letters pages and blogs, they have customer service departments and marketing focus groups, but how many have a staffer who stands back from the fray and really listens to them and, furthermore acts on their comments from a truly independent position within the organization?
It's all about transparency. From transparency flows trust. Show your readers that you care about accuracy, about fairness, about getting the story right and you gain their trust. If they trust you they will buy you. A survey of Observer readers two years ago showed 77 per cent trusted the paper more because it had a readers' editor. There is a strong business case for accountability.
Remember, The New York Times felt it didn't need an ombudsman until the Jayson Blair scandal showed it just how much it needed to regain its readers' trust and keep them buying the paper.
Editors often argue that they are the ultimate ombudsmen — they determine what is fair and accurate — but who would claim that they read every word in their paper, let alone their continually updated Web sites? One edition of my own paper contains far more words than a Dickens novel. It's impossible to read everything.
We have about 100 journalists and more than 1 million readers of the newspaper and up to 26 million unique users of the Web site we share with our sister paper, the Guardian. Disputes between Observer readers and journalists are now largely my domain. It's hardly surprising that Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, wrote that his appointment of Ian Mayes, his first readers' editor, was “on every level, the single most liberating act of my editorship. On the most pragmatic level, it freed me from the necessity of dealing with 'stroppy' callers, whether they be defamed Cabinet ministers or outraged readers. On the most elevated level it as led to a much more mature acceptance of the nature of the task we're all engaged in.”
So what sort of person does this job? A masochist, you might think. After all, who really wants to have to listen to the audience and then take their complaints to a bunch of grumpy hacks? It's not quite like that, of course, but it does require someone who has been around the block a few times and understands the nature and conventions of journalism. It also needs to be someone the organization considers to be fair-minded and impartial.
It's a job that is infinitely adaptable to circumstances. On a weekly or Sunday newspaper it may not be necessary or indeed possible to invest in a full-time ombudsman. I combine my role with other duties on the paper. The main thing is the person doing the job is recognized as independent when they are doing it and is visible to the readership.
It can be a lonely post, but if the paper has broad enough shoulders to take some criticism, it can be a hugely beneficial appointment. It clears the editor's desk of nagging complaints, allowing him or her to get on with the job; it shows your audience that you actively care about accuracy; it promotes loyalty within that audience and it significantly reduces the traffic through the lawyers' office, saving considerable litigation costs.
Since I started the job in 2001, my assistant and I have dealt with more than 60,000 complaints and queries. Each has to be investigated and valued to determine whether a correction is necessary or whether the issue might be a topic for wider discussion in a column I write every month, the contents of which I determine with the agreement that it won't be altered by the editor.
This work does have its lighter side. The rush to put a newspaper together can produce all sorts of hilarious gaffes, which prompt all manner of amusing corrections — something the readers really appreciate. Here are some examples:
“Sheep might be dumb ... but they're not stupid” (News, last week) said that studies in Oxford showed that a Caledonian heifer called Betty had managed to bend a piece of wire to construct a hook and retrieve food from a jar. Betty is, in fact, a New Caledonian crow, a creature perhaps better adapted to bending wire than a cow.
“Revealed: Callas' secret passion” (World news) intended to refer to Aristotle Onassis as “the shipping magnate” — not “the shopping magnate.”
Our interview with American literary sensation Benjamin Kunkel (Review) was accompanied by a panel of quotes from U.S. reviews supplied by his publisher. One, from Entertainment Weekly, read: “Kunkel has succeeded in crafting a voice of singular originality” but omitted the next line “ — one you want to punch in the mouth.”
The late John Paul II was a remarkable man, but if he had traveled “more than 500 million miles” as we claimed in “The man in white who changed the world,” he would have circumnavigated the earth about 20,000 times. We meant 500,000 miles.
Observer Food Monthly misquoted chef Michael Caines as saying of the restaurant Andrews on the Weir, at Porlock Weir, Somerset: “On some days, you can spot whales in the distance.” Wales would be more likely.
Jobs may be going in the U.S., but it is not all doom and gloom for this form of media self-regulation. The United States and Canada established an idea that is now being taken up all over the world, often in places where the media is struggling to find its voice — in the former Soviet Union, in Africa and in South America.
I have taken up the post of president of the Organization of News Ombudsmen (the wonderfully named ONO) after Pam Platt's lamented and enforced departure from her post as public editor at The Courier-Journal (she's now a member of the paper's editorial board). It's not going to be a picnic, but I firmly believe that ONO has a role to play on the international stage. It has become the body that owners and editors turn to when they want to know more about this form of self-regulation and I believe we have a duty to share our experience as widely as possible. To this end, I am currently seeking funding to appoint a permanent executive director, who will travel to places that need our help and who can help the board give a future shape and direction to ONO.
By great good fortune we meet in Washington in May for our annual conference. Some of our deliberations will take place at the Newseum, that vast temple to the media and the ideals of the First Amendment, set proudly on Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a perfect place to concentrate our thoughts on the future of accountability and transparency in the world's newspapers, TV and radio. We shall be inviting editors, publishers and media commentators to hear the arguments for the virtuous circle of self-regulation. Let's hope they listen. *
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