DEBATING THE FUTURE: Alan Rusbridger, Editor, The Guardian, delivers the lecture "Do newspapers have a future?" in New Delhi on Tuesday. At right are N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, and Ian Meyes, Readers' Editor, The Guardian. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

NEW DELHI: The benefits of having an ombudsman in a newspaper depend on the "altruism" of the "original motivation," The Guardian's Readers' Editor Ian Mayes argued in the course of twin lectures organised by The Hindu on Tuesday evening.

"You appoint an ombudsman because you want your news organisation to be an honest self-correcting institution with a dedication to getting it right and no interest in getting it wrong," he said.

Mr. Mayes, whose independence is guaranteed by the owner of The Guardian, the Scott Trust and the terms of reference published on the newspaper's website, compared his role to that of a referee in a football game, one that can get rough at times.

Pointing out that the ombudsman's role was self-regulatory, he said the position offered a real chance for a responsible news organisation to build a new, more open and responsive relationship with its readership or audience.

A recent survey of The Guardian readers showed that 75 per cent believed that the existence of an ombudsman made the paper more responsive to their complaints and queries, Mr. Mayes said.

"What I believe does undermine trust among readers, listeners or viewers is not the admission of error — even when the error is of an extremely serious nature — but the discovery or revelation or forced admission of a significant error that has gone uncorrected.

"An honest piece of advice to readers might be: never trust a newspaper which never appears to get anything wrong ... every journalist who has ever worked in a newspaper knows that the portrait is incomplete and misleading without the warts ... "

Speaking on the theme of "The news ombudsman — a visible presence, an independent voice," he said that last year The Guardian published more than 1,600 corrections while some of the larger newspapers in the United States carried over 2,000 in a year.

"The way to break free from the culture of denial — a denial of the realities of news production — is to acquire the habit of correcting as you go," he told the audience. In Britain, the Press Complaints Commission set the rules of the game.

"These rules are embodied in a document correctly called the editors' code — because this again, it is important to emphasise, is self-regulation. It is called the editors' code because the editors wrote it. And, it applies only to printed journalism."

He said the idea of having resident ombudsmen in news organisations, although still taken up by a tiny minority of publications and broadcast channels, had been around for a little over 50 years. It originated, in the principal form in which it now exists, in the U.S. in the 1960s.

According to Mr. Mayes, who is also the president of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen (ONO), the head of The Guardian's legal affairs department believed that the prompt action he was able to take to deal with serious complaints had reduced the number of people seeking to sue the paper for libel and defamation by between 30 and 50 per cent.

"I certainly believe that I reduce the number of complaints relating to The Guardian that go to the Press Complaints Commission in Britain. Theoretically, it is possible for a complaint against The Guardian to come first to me, then if not satisfied, to go to the Press Complaints Commission, and if still not satisfied, to go to law. In the eight years that I have been ombudsman of The Guardian I think only three or four people have gone through all three stages.

"On the rare occasions that they have done that and a complaint has been upheld, damages have been reduced because of the efforts already made to satisfy the complainant. It is worth saying here that the idea that the recognition of a justified complaint and the publication of a quick and sincere apology aggravate matters and actually prompt litigation is in my experience almost totally false in the context of the United Kingdom... " he added.

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