El “Programa de Avaliação Externa de Escolas”

One of the world’s smallest, but potentially significant self-regulating communities is the network of ombudsmen and readers’ editors who work independently within news organisations as the uncomfortable interface between journalists and their readers, listeners and viewers.

Newspapers have had complaints departments of one sort or another for almost 100 years, but the media ombudsman is a relatively new phenomenon. The first appointment of someone whose job was solely to handle relations between readers and journalists was 40 years ago at the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. Since then some of the world’s leading newspapers and public service broadcasters — the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Le Monde, and Radio France Internationale — have created similar positions. In the best cases, the readers’

editors or ombudsmen have dedicated space and complete freedom to comment without their material being edited.

In 2006 in Madrid a conference on self-regulation in news organisations, convened by the Federation of Press Associations of Spain (FAPE), launched the country’s first nationwide ethical code for newspapers. Spain now not only has an ethical code, it has news ombudsmen on three leading newspapers, El País, La Vanguardia and La Voz de Galicia as well as in the national public broadcaster RTVE.

This is the kind of self-regulation that can build trust between a specific news organisation and its readership or audience through the rapid, systematic and impartial handling of complaints, and the open discussion of ethical issues raised by readers. Ideally, the ombudsman keeps the newsroom honest by encouraging self-criticism, acts as a listening post for disgruntled members of the public and provides a credible form of problem-solving dialogue.

To its supporters, this system offers a real chance to build a new, stronger relationship between journalist and reader by improving editorial quality and increasing public trust in the way news is produced.

While everyone may agree that visibility and independence is critical to the role of readers’ editors, some media are concerned about losing editorial control. In newspapers the ombudsman normally has a free-ranging weekly column, which cannot be edited, cut or modified without their permission, but there has been less willingness to open up the airwaves. The ombudsman for RCN TV in Colombia, and of TV 4 in Sweden have their own weekly television shows, but those working for Danish Broadcasting Corporation and societie radio Canada publish their reviews of complaints about television and radio on the web, not on air.

In cash-strapped times this fledgling movement of self-regulating, quality-inspired professionals is in danger of being extinguished by a combination of economic pressure and indifference within the industry. Editorial managers looking for newsroom cuts are increasingly wary of investing money in discussion of editorial misdemeanors. During 2008, the editorial axe eliminated ombudsman and public editor positions on seven of the major regional newspapers of the United States, including, ironically, the pioneering post at The Courier-Journal.

Even the New York Times, which first added an ombudsman in 2003, following a scandal over fabrication and falsification of stories, considered eliminating the ombudsman, known as the Public Editor, in an unprecedented round of editorial job cuts. The proposal caused an outcry and was shelved.

Stephen Pritchard, the Readers’ Editor of The Observer in London, and President of the Organization of News Ombudsman, an international network with around 60 members, says of the crisis:⁶⁰

“Today, there are ombudsmen working in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America, following the lead set by the United States and Canada, but by a cruel irony it is in America today where this system is most under threat. United States ombudsmen are losing their jobs alongside their fellow journalists.

60 See: http://www.

newsombudsmen.org

Some managements view the position of ombudsman as an indulgence they can no longer afford.

“They are wrong. An ombudsman engenders trust in an audience, and trust is a positive asset in any business, but particularly in the media. Readers, viewers or listeners are empowered when they know there is an independent arbiter they can turn to. Remove that post and the audience is left voiceless and suspicious of your motives. If anything, ombudsmen are needed now more than ever.”

Those like Pritchard who have worked as ombudsman are, unsurprisingly, full of enthusiasm and not without reason. However, Alicia Shepard, Ombudsman at National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States says that there are now only 34 “public editors” or “reader representatives” left to act as Ombudsmen in the US media, and only four of these posts are in broadcasting.

Those who do survive play a useful role. A survey of 132 newspapers in the United States, for instance, found that 24 had full-time or part-time in-house critics or ombudsmen.⁶¹ Among the positive benefit this group reported were:

E A regular place for publication of corrections was created E Advertising of pornographic material was banned

E Extra space allotted to headlines on important news stories to avoid distortion and improve scope for accuracy

E Attention to local groups and local sports was increased E Addresses of witness in local crime stories no longer used

E Systematic accuracy checks on stories with directly quoted sources to identify any errors E Reader opinion polls analysed and used more carefully

E Fairer coverage of racial controversies.

Nevertheless, even before the editorial axe was brought down on many of these foot soldiers for quality journalism, serious doubts have been expressed over the value of the system. Some believe that the ombudsman is an insider who, no matter how well-intentioned, ends up diverting attention from more systematic, independent and sophisticated criticism from outside the news room.

Ben Bagdikian, a crusading campaigner over media monopolies and their impact on quality journalism, spoke for many journalists in the United States when he said they were better than nothing.

“It’s been a kind of self-indulgent, self congratulatory gesture by a lot of publishers, but I think it’s also been a useful mechanism and frequently very effective. It’s a beginning step in the realisation that most newspapers are increasingly detached from their communities and it may be a way to get the leadership of the paper more closely acquainted with the real community…”⁶²

This comment from the 1980s provides a challenge that still resonates today in the multi-platform universe inherited by modern media — what structures do we need to bring the “real community” closer to journalism?

If there is a ray of hope, it is in the number of media looking to appoint Ombudsmen in countries where press freedom has not always been taken for granted. In 2007, Estonia created the post of Ombudsman for its public radio and TV. Tarmu Tammerk, the first person in the post, writes internal criticism four or five times a week and has a monthly radio show. He sees great potential for Ombudsmen in Central and Eastern Europe. “These countries — the new member states in the European Union — have been able to build up free and democratic media systems for the past fifteen years,” he says.

“There’s an even bigger potential for media Ombudsmen in the former Soviet republics, which are still struggling with how to turn former government broadcasters into public broadcasters, which would be journalistically independent.”⁶³

61 Quoted by Edmund Lambeth, Committed Journalism, p 89

62 Cassandra Tate, “What do Ombudsmen Do?”, Columbia Journalism Review, May/

June 1984

63 Alicia C Shepard, NPR Ombudsman, 5 June 2008. http://www.npr.org/

ombudsman/2008/06/

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seven years, the council dealt with more than 1,300 complaints and in 99 per cent of cases honour was satisfied, disputes were resolved and the courts were untrou-bled by expensive, punitive and time-con-suming law suits.

It is a remarkable achievement, says Bambang Harymurti, who is a serving member of the council. Harymurti has been on the receiving end of government pres-sure, official sanction and hostile law suits as editor of the independent news maga-zine Tempo.

The council provides a reasonable alternative to using the courts to make jour-nalists accountable and at the same time has become an effective lobby in favour of freedom of the press. It is the final arbiter in disputes regarding the application of the code of professional ethics.

It organises training sessions for judges, police chiefs and official prosecutors on the press law. It embodies the paradigm of self-regulation in contact with society. People are encouraged to avoid the reflex to take their complaints against media and journalists to court, but instead to use the council’s own complaints procedure.

In a country where democracy is maturing and there is no established culture of tolerance of fair comment and respect for media scrutiny of people in public life, the council is constantly alert to the dangers that continue to lurk for press freedom. In July 2008 it was outspoken in its criticism of the legal uncertainty that still exists over media governance when four people who had letters published in a local newspaper were taken to court. One of them was found guilty of defamation under the criminal code and ordered to pay US

$108,108 in damages, but another defend-ant was found not guilty by a different panel of judges who tried the case under the press law.

The council says that all published arti-cles, including opinion pieces and letters of protest, are journalistic works because the media was responsible for editing and publishing them. And it promotes urgent remedy. It has encouraged media to adopt the policy implemented by The Jakarta Post of confirming all incoming complaints and seeking to deal with them in two days. This

would allow the media the chance to pub-lish both the complaint and response on the same day.

While press council jurisdiction covers the printed press, it is also the conscience of the wider media industry. Issues of ethi-cal conduct and journalistic practice in the broadcasting sector are routinely referred to the council by the country’s broadcast-ing commission, which deals with technical regulation of audiovisual media.

The financing of the council is defined in law, which permits “unrestricted dona-tions.” The council may seek financial sup-port from central government. For the first five years of its existence it was able to get by without an injection of taxpayers’ money, but the workload has increased significantly.

It now has a team of 30 staff, funded with public money.

The council is administered by an executive director who is appointed by the board. The council itself has nine members

— three appointed by journalists’ associa-tions; three nominated by publishers; and three respected representatives of civil soci-ety chosen by the journalists and publishers together. The council chairman is not from the media, but is chosen from among the civil society representatives.

Article 15 of the Press Law says, “a Press Council is established in an effort to develop freedom of the press and expand the existence of national press”. It stipulates that the Council has the following functions:

E To protect freedom of the press from outside interference

E To conduct studies to develop the exist-ence of the press

E To enact a journalistic code of ethics and control the compliance of the code E To give consideration and find

solu-tions to complaints lodged by the public towards cases concerning press reports E To develop communication between the

press, public and government

E To facilitate press (journalists and media owners) organisations in establishing media regulations as well as to increase the quality of journalistic professionalism

while press council