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March 24, 2008

Ombudsmen Can Be Important to Journalism

Simon Dumenco thinks the time has come to retire news ombudsmen (not that there are very many of them). He lists five reasons, and I challenge those reasons:

Readers are doing it for themselves. Yes and no. Citizens can certainly keep an eye on journalism these days in a way not possible 20 years ago (see my earlier post today). But I think an intermediary--of a kind that Daniel Okrent was--can go a long way toward helping citizens and journalists understand each other. My essay on Daniel Okrent will be published later this year in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. I'll have more to say on this at that time.

Chances are, Romenesko has already been there, done that. Certainly Romenesko is the "go-to place for not only journalistic navel-gazing but serious, worthy, in-depth considerations of journalistic issues." But how does that help a reader of the Podunk Daily Bugle deal with a particular local issue?

Journalists and editors are doing it for themselves. This has nearly always been the case with decidedly mixed results hampered by professional arrogance. The whole point of having an ombudsman should be to create an intermediary not of the paper but who understands what journalists do--again, the Okrent model. That this does not describe the position of many ombudsmen is a failing of imagination on the part of American newspapers.

Ombudsmen are (sorry) boring as hell. This is an evaluation based on personal opinion. I cannot refute it. No one can. Dumenco finds them boring. My question: Who gives a rip?

The money's better spent elsewhere. Newspapers are being squeezed by corporate owners who care little for journalism and much about profit. In an age when journalism itself is embattled, the ombudsmen can be a mediator of ethical standards and a boost to a news organization's credibility.

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Posted by acline at March 24, 2008 11:21 AM | | Spotlight