Thursday, November 23, 2006
Newspaper Ombudsman
Does it bother anyone that many newspapers, magazines do not have Ombudsmen? An Ombudsman has many functions. They include receiving and investigating complaints from newspaper readers or listeners or viewers of radio and television stations about accuracy, fairness, balance and good taste in news coverage. He or she recommends appropriate remedies or responses to correct or clarify news reports.
The Washington Post has one as does the Boston Globe. Yet the Dallas Morning News nor the New York Times feel the need to have one. The result is we have a news media that are aloof, arrogant or insensitive to concerns of the public and generally inaccessible to average citizens. Isn't it nice what you can do when you are a monopoly?
http://www.newsombudsmen.org/what.htm
The Washington Post has one as does the Boston Globe. Yet the Dallas Morning News nor the New York Times feel the need to have one. The result is we have a news media that are aloof, arrogant or insensitive to concerns of the public and generally inaccessible to average citizens. Isn't it nice what you can do when you are a monopoly?
http://www.newsombudsmen.org/what.htm
Labels: media bias
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Jonathan, that's a really good point -- I guess I assumed that every paper had someone like this. Great link, too. It's good to know how the large organizations work or are supposed to work if we're trying to influence society and institutions in a positive way.
Hey, maybe you could write a letter to Dallas Morning News and apply for the position. (That would be funny for other reasons, heh, heh.....) Well, regardless of whether that works we could try to start a campaign where we publish the phone numbers of all news organizations who don't have ombudsman. Then we keep calling them asking to be transferred to the ombudsman. If they say they don't have one ask to speak to the editor to ask him why not.
Hey, maybe you could write a letter to Dallas Morning News and apply for the position. (That would be funny for other reasons, heh, heh.....) Well, regardless of whether that works we could try to start a campaign where we publish the phone numbers of all news organizations who don't have ombudsman. Then we keep calling them asking to be transferred to the ombudsman. If they say they don't have one ask to speak to the editor to ask him why not.
Pauli thanks for the kind note. The DMN would not hire an Ombudsman because they are part of a monopoly held by the Belo Corporation. In Dallas it controls the newspaper as well as WFAA. It leaves them with a sense of superiority that comes from being the only game in town. This is a reason for Mr. Dreher's elitism.
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