Opinion - News Analysis   

Focus is on the needs of the silent majority

K. Narayanan

News ombudsmen are a rare species considering the fact that there are fewer than 150 of them in the world; may be an endangered species, with some newspapers in the United States, which has the largest number of readers’ representatives, dispensing with the post, because of the financial squeeze the industry faces.

Even among this limited number, there is ambiguity about the role of ombudsmen and their own perceptions of it. There are now new challenges for them, with changing technologies making news not a finished product but a continuing process and readers having immediate access to the news source. The change has forced some rethinking on the working of ombudsmen. “The news ombudsmen today and tomorrow” was the theme of the annual conference of the Organisation of Newspaper Ombudsmen (ONO) held in Stockholm, Sweden, from May 28 to 31, 2008.

As Joakim Jardenberg, one of the owners of the Swedish media entrepreneur group Mindspark, put it at the conference, ombudsmen were created when there was more distance between reader and newspaper. Now that distance has collapsed. Still ombudsmen have work to do: “One of the things ombudsmen need to do is work as ‘internal evangelist’ to encourage news staff to join the conversation going on about their work.”

In this new universe “in which no story is finite or final,” the concept of objectivity is getting a new look, pointed out Jane Singer of the University of Central Lancashire/University of Iowa. User-generated (“all rights and no responsibilities for users”) comments and concerns needed immediate answers. The radically evolving media scene provided a fertile ground for ombudsmen when it came to transparency, discourse, ethics, and relationships with readers.

Stephen Pritchard, Readers’ Editor of The Observer, London, writing after the conference, put it this way: “The Readers’ Editor’s focus is on the needs of the silent majority rather than those who make the most noise. Our task will continue to be one of trying to maintain ethical standards, to correct our errors and to explain the working of the media.”

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How do ombudsmen view their work and what pitfalls do they face? I found two presentations at the conference interesting. One was a report by Peter McEvoy, ABC Fellow, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford, about his survey of ombudsmen on how they viewed their work and their effectiveness. Another was a study, “The Internal Watchdog — self-regulation in the media,” by Esben Orberg, Head of Communications, the Danish Union of Journalists. It dealt with “pitfalls and barriers on the road.”

McEvoy distributed a questionnaire to those who attended the 2007 ONO conference at Harvard and received 37 responses, 29 from newspaper ombudsmen and eight from broadcast media. He agrees that a survey of such a small group is of limited use, but it was useful to compare the results with earlier studies.

The survey invited ombudsmen to define the important aspects of their role, the nature of the complaints, their impact on the newsroom, the major obstacles they face and the nature of their interaction with readers or audience.

Ombudsmen described their role as variously “fielding reader concerns,” acting as a “channel of communication,” or “contact point for readers.” Most of them said their work was to “investigate complaints and provide independent criticism.” (All these describe the work I do.)

Asked about the types of complaints received, the most common response was “bias” (90 per cent), “errors of fact” (69 per cent), disagreement with editorial choices and priorities (28 per cent), and ethical concerns (22 per cent). The pattern is more or less the same in my work too, but complaints of bias have dropped significantly since they had no perceptible effect. Significantly, no ethical concern has been voiced so far about The Hindu, though some present charges of bias as an ethical issue.

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Which is more important in assessing editorial decisions — the readers’ view or professional codes and your own editorial experience? The ombudsmen clearly rated professional codes and their own experience more highly. That is my priority too, for the reader is not always aware of the circumstances and considerations that influence editorial decisions. These often need some explaining. Quite a few ombudsmen agreed (and I too do) that readers did have a role in bringing up new ideas and perceptions. Whether these find acceptance with those who matter remains a question.

What was the impact of the ombudsmen’s work on the quality of journalism and ethical standards in the organisation? The general reaction was that they made journalists within the organisation more conscious of standards and quality. (This awareness is seen here too.) A quarter of the respondents claimed that journalists were better able to understand and respond to the concerns of the reader because of the work of the ombudsmen. (I do not make the same claim.)

The respondents were asked to assess how their own journalists judged the importance of their role, on a five-point scale from “very important” to “not at all important” and it got a “low” mean of 3.4, says the report. (I keep my mind open on whether that is high.) Fifteen of the 37 respondents cited the lack of management and editorial support and defensiveness among journalists as major obstacles in their work.

More on the two surveys in the next column.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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