Wanted: A Public Editor

By Dasu Krishnamoorty

A blogger detected that on April 23, 2004, the city supplements of the country’s leading English daily the Times of India (both of Mumbai and Kolkata) carried a story titled "Sex and the City" on their front pages. The text of the story and the heading were the same. Since the metros changed, the names of the characters also changed: Ryan in Bombay Times became Raghav in Calcutta Times, Amit Patil (23) became Amit Datta (23) and social psychiatrist Dr.Anjali Chhabria became psychiatrist Dr.Shiladitya Ray and so on. That is not the end of the comedy. Though Anjali Chabbria became Shiladitya Ray in the first paragraph of the Calcutta Times story, in the next paragraph she forgot to change her disguise and remained Anjali. Nobody knows whether the entire story is fictitious or only the characters.

This is a clear breach of the unwritten compact between the newspaper and its readers. It is not known if the Times of India had apologized to the readers or, at least, acknowledged the unethical practice. An admission of this journalistic malfeasance would have helped increase the readers’ trust. Trust is an important factor in determining the manner in which readers realize media content. To resume faith and loyalty, readers do not want retribution but a frank admission of acts of omission and commission in the newsrooms.

That is where the relevance of an ombudsman who is now increasingly known as a public editor, comes in. Ombudsman is a generic term. Since trust is becoming more important than ever in the consumption of news and other matter, a public editor will be of great help in maintaining reader affiliation. If the Times of India had a public editor, he/she would have detected this crime and apologized to the readers. Even the minimum courtesy of a correction was not forthcoming. Daniel Okrent, first public editor of the New York Times, says, "To the editors, the corrections reflect the paper’s determination to convince its readers that it takes accuracy seriously."

For the New York Times, it took a crisis to appoint a public editor. In the beginning, NYT’s managing editor Bill Keller opposed the entry of an ombudsman.. "We believe the top editors of the paper, and the department heads, need to be personally accountable for what we print - accountable to our readers, to the broader public and to those we write about. Accountable, too, to our staff, for the way in which we evaluate their work and, on occasion defend it. Historically, we have believed that an ombudsman or similar reader representative, formally designated, would represent a dilution of those relationships," Keller said. But after the Jayson Blair fiasco, NYT had to appoint Daniel Okrent as the public editor.

Public editors in America are not an overnight phenomenon. In 70's, the National News Council, similar to our press council, had to close shop with the New York Times leading the attack against it. All because journalists like A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times, Walter Cronkite and others believed that it would stifle a free press. Rosenthal said that in order to have National News Council you have to have regulations, and "I am against regulation of the press, including self regulation except within each individual newspaper or broadcast station." No wonder in1995 January, U.S. News & World Report said, "The public these days does not merely dislike the press - it hates it." Okrent said on assuming charge, "I want to be able to let you know what I know- to remain a reader, even if a reader with an all-access backstage pass. I never want to be in the position of saying, "I know they did this right, but I'm not allowed to tell you why." Okrent’s appointment is an acknowledgement of the need for self-criticism as alternative to a news council.

The Organisation of News Ombudsmen chief Yavuz Baydar describes the role of ombudsman as opening a window on the inner working of news organizations. As a concept, it began in America as early as 1913 when the New York World started a bureau of accuracy and fair play. But the first ombudsman came only in 1967 with Courier-Journal of Louiseville, Kentucky. appointing one. NYT’s first public editor Daniel Okrent is among 38 other ombudsmen in the US print media. For the thousands of newspapers in the world there are only 80 public editors (number from The Organisation of News Ombudsmen) highlighting a medieval and short sighted opposition to even self-regulation. The NYT continues to be the butt of derision even today as a result of Judith Miller’s reporting of WMDs in Iraq. Gloria Cooper, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review says, " Late in 2003, against all inclinations but desperate to exorcise the ghost of Jayson Blair, NYT cracked open its door to the alien presence of a public editor."

A public editor helps build credibility for his newspaper. The omdusman institution itself is a response to "the public’s alarming disaffection with an unaccountable press." The appointment of a public editor improves the performance of the journalists while it is a way of showing respect to reader sentiment. The public editor mediates between his newspaper and its readers, telling the editors what the readers need and explaining to the readers why mistakes occur in a newspaper. As Ian Mayes, public editor of the Guardian, writes in the British Journalism review, "the principle is a simple one: news organizations that, almost by definition, constantly call others to account should be more readily accountable and open themselves."

In Britain, the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent on Sunday, the Sun and the Daily Mirror have public editors who have devised ways in which to ensure transparency. All of them publish corrections while the two Sunday papers discuss issues raised by their readers. The Daily Mirror tells its readers how to contact the Press Complaints Commission, Britain’s media watchdog, while the Guardian provides a low cost telephone line to its readers to convey complaint or comment. On its home page, the Guardian provides a link to corrections published by it.

At the Guardian, Ian Mayes has a fulltime job, has complete independence and has built a unique database of feedback from readers. The editor has no veto on what Mayes writes nor can he dismiss him. It is the Scotts Trust, the owner of the paper, alone that can sack him. The terms of appointment for the public editor are on the Guardian website for all to see. If readers have any complaints against him, Mayes advises them on how to reach the Press Complaints Commission. He favors high visibility and easy accessibility to improve interaction with readers.

Nicholas Kristof, one of NYT’s well-known columnists, wrote last month an article (A slap in the face) where he talked of the declining faith of the public in the American media and said, "We will have to work much, much harder to win back our credibility with the public. Stressing the need for taking much bolder steps to reconnect with the public, he called for "more openness, more ombudsmen and more acknowledgement of failings." The article evoked feedback that demonstrates how informed and critical readers can be.

If some editors in India are not comfortable with external scrutiny and regard it as a drag on their independence, they may emulate their counterparts in the West and welcome an ombudsman or a public editor. In fact, the Times of India, in the forefront of opposition to the press council, had an ombudsman as a showpiece for a while. Nobody outside the Times House had an idea of what Justice P.N. Bhagavathi did for the while he was with the Times of India. No one has an idea of what a judge could do in a newspaper office. I know of no other newspaper in the country appointing a public editor to represent the interests of the readers.

Sometime in September 1999, the editor of the Hindustan Times V.N. Narayanan wrote a column in his paper. "Of its 1,263 words, 1,020 were identical to those in an article of mine published in The Sunday Times Magazine in February under the headline "No time like the present". Of its 83 sentences, 72 were mine," wrote Bryan Appleyard pointing out that Narayanan's column was a replication of the article he wrote for The Sunday Times. In exasperation Appleyard wrote, "Narayanan would have lost nothing by rewriting my article in his own words and giving me credit." B.N. Uniyal, a former chief of bureau at Patriot, detected this act of plagiarism and wrote an article about it in the Pioneer. Narayanan's plagiarism caused embarrassment not only to himself and his paper but also to Indian journalism. For the Hindustan Times, that was the time to appoint a public editor who would keep a watch on shortcuts journalists adopt when they run short of stories to report.

Long ago, India Today (its North American edition) carried a story by Tunku Varadarajan with the following heading: "Desis Crib Despite Fairer Press Coverage of India" The first paragraph read like this: " We were at a dinner party recently and I was talking to a Typical Desi Whiner: you know, the sort who lives in America, profits from it, yet can rarely find a kind word for the land which gave him new life and bounty." The writer criticized rightly the tendency of some American Indians to attack India-baiters in the US though they themselves feel free to run down the country of their origin. But the article repeatedly used the word whiners implying the existence of a community of Desi whiners. That may be proper in American journalism but most Indian newspapers and their readers find it difficult to digest such freedom of expression.

There is no doubt that India Today’s North America desk was intimidated by the credentials of Varadarajan who is Times of India, London, correspondent in the US and bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. A public editor/ombudsman would certainly have pulled up the desk for its pusillanimity. In his article, Kristof says, "If one word can capture the public attitude toward American journalists, I’m afraid it’s ‘arrogant.’ This is no less true of Indian journalists at all levels.

The ugly face-off between some editors of English newspapers and the Press Council of India when Justice P.B.Sawant was its chairman yielded from the editors a grudging endorsement of the need for self-regulation. Press councils throughout the world are an acknowledgement of the importance of keeping a watch on public and private conspiracies to weaken the role of the media and also to ensure that media performance is in consonance with the needs of their audiences.

Self-criticism is the first step to self-regulation. In the absence of either, the media invite the prying eyes of readers and critics and barbs from media sentinels (owls) like The Hoot. Not that readers ever matter or that they ever mattered with some of our editors. But an occasional inversion of the searchlight will strengthen the bonds of mutual trust between readers and the media. Many readers are not subscribers, who generally are uncritical consumers. Unaffiliated readers are more searching and probing than the subscriber-reader. Both categories are bound, however, by the content they consume that in the end becomes the agenda for public discourse. As a process, this agenda formation is not noticeable because of the intervention of time/space disparities in content consumption. But readers are a force that deserves to be respected and given space as reflecting the communication urges of content providers.