Ombudsmen: good for the news business?

BY sevanti ninan| IN Media Practice | 24/12/2008

In the debate about self-regulation that has followed excesses committed by TV news channels during the Mumbai terror siege, an agent of self-regulation that is rarely mentioned  is the reader¿s editor or ombudsman. Given the size of India¿s media it is way behind smaller countries in its deployment of this institution.

Earlier this month at a large gathering of journalists and media NGOs in Athens, Steven Pritchard Reader¿s Editor of the Observer, London, who is the  current president of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, said the recession hitting the media sector has seen 12 ombudsmen lose their jobs. " The first people who seem to go are reader¿s editors. We are not the most popular people in the world."

He went on however to argue that it was a short-sighted approach to consider the reader¿s editor in an organization dispensable, because there was a "business argument" in having  them. "People trust a newspaper more when there is an ombudsman there," he said. A panel at the gathering discussed whether an ombudsman was  a solution to accountability. A good ombudsman, they said, was someone everybody in the newsroom would be worried about.

The ONO has some 70 or 80 members worldwide  (http://www.newsombudsmen.org/members.htm ) in 15 countries. Thirty-seven of them were in the US, but several of those  no longer have their jobs. While India has one, the Reader¿s Editor of the Hindu, Argentinia has two, Brazil  three, and Columbia two. There are none in the rest of South Asia, none in West or South East Asia, three in the Netherlands but none in France or Germany. South Africa and Turkey boast of one each.

Estonia is the only country in the Baltic states to have an ombudsman, for  its public broadcaster. The Hoot caught up with him, at the Athens conference of the Global Forum for Media Development.  Tarmu Tammerk is the ombudsman for the the Estonian Public Broadcasting Company (ERR). When this public service broadcaster was restructed in 2007 to merge its  radio and TV divisions, they also created this  watchdog post. The post of ombudsman was first filled in autumn 2007, so Tammerk  been in office for a year now.

Before he took the job he was chief editor of a newspaper and had radio show of his own on Vikerraadio, part of the public broadcasting company.  The Hoot asked him a few questions:

You said you get small complaints all the time, but six to ten substantial ones a month?

Yes.

Of what nature are these, roughly? Both the small and the big ones?

The small ones: about music (choice of music; the background music to speech, which distracts the listener from listening). About small factual mistakes (wrong first name, wrong historical date). Matters of taste in satirical programmes (from people who don¿t take jokes easily).

The more substantial complaints are about bias and neutrality in news coverage (the TV evening news programme attracts most attention in this respect, and I raise issues  myself on this topic on a regular basis).

Also, the privacy issues (in most cases, I handle these discreetly without informing the public about them, when the person involved does not want extra attention to the problem).

 What is the most difficult part of an ombudsman¿s job?

How to strike a balance between being the eyes and ears of the public on the one hand, and on the other hand protecting the journalists from outside criticism which I find groundless.

Do you agree that it makes business sense to have an ombudsman, because it

 increases viewer and listener trust and therefore brings more viewers,  readers, listeners?

Yes.

 What is the most satisfying part of your job?

It¿s exciting to chart new waters by being the first ombudsman in Estonia, trying to shape an institution. Also, I am very happy when I can solve a conflict that has emerged between a source and a journalist. Or when I have been able to protect journalists against baseless criticism, and I can see that they get new courage to

continue their journalistic aspirations.

 How do complaints come?

By e-mail and by phone. My phone number is advertised sometimes on our

programmes. Since the beginning of 2008, I have had my monthly radio programme called the Media Hour. I handle complaints there, giving an overview of the most important ones and give my solution to them. Here¿s a link to my corner in the

company¿s site.  It is in Estonian only: http://www.err.ee/ajakirjanduseetika_nounik/tutvustus1/