"The public likes to know there's somebody there listening to their criticisms," said PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler. "An Ombudsman makes news organizations live up to their own standards. An editor is too close."

STOCKHOLM -- The "Readers' Editor" for The Observer of London was sightseeing here last week when his cell phone rang. It was a Kenyan journalist asking how his newspaper company might create the role of a news Ombudsman.

In the last decade, Kenya has enjoyed a surge in press freedom, a trend that's paralleled the opening up of Kenya's political system. One of the best testaments is the phone call from the editorial director for the Nation Media Group, who wanted an Ombudsman for his papers in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and two other countries in East Africa.

Another journalist from Kenya visited NPR this week and made the same point. "Media in Kenya is not restricted in any way," even following the recent violence, said Nairobi radio journalist Tole Nyatta. "You can criticize the government. Seven or eight years ago, the government would threaten to close you. But now we are very independent and very robust."

As the link between the public and the newsroom, the Ombudsman plays a key role in ensuring a news organization upholds its own standards as well as making sure audience concerns are taken seriously.

Kenya is not the only place where the press is becoming more free and where news organizations are considering adding Ombudsmen. In Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America, there is a greater interest in the position, according to a meeting last week in Stockholm of the Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO), which I attended.

However, in the United States -- where press freedom is taken for granted, even when it's under assault -- the number of Ombudsmen at news organizations is declining, largely for budgetary reasons. Just a few years ago, 40 news organizations employed Ombudsmen (sometimes called "public editors" or "reader representatives.") That's not many, considering the United States has some 1,500 daily newspapers, three broadcast TV networks, several national radio networks, scores of cable networks, and thousands of local radio and TV stations.

Today, there are only 34 U.S. news ombudsmen, most of them at newspapers.In broadcast, only NPR, PBS, ESPN and WJAR-TV in Warwick, R.I. employ someone to act as a liaison between the newsroom and the audience. In the last year, four newspapers killed the position.

Worldwide, there are only 100 news Ombudsmen for newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet, according to Esben Orberg of the Danish Union of Journalists, who researched the role and gave a report at the ONO conference.

"Ombudsmen are growing in parts of the world where a free press is starting to assert itself," said ONO President Pam Platt, the public editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal in Kentucky, the first paper in the U.S. to create the position.

Estonia is another country now enjoying press independence after decades of dictatorship. In 2004, Estonia joined the European Union, an important symbol of its new freedoms. Last year, the government created the position of Ombudsman for its public radio and TV. The first to hold the position, Tarmu Tammerk, writes internal criticism four or five times a week and has a monthly radio show where he shares his views publicly.

Tammerk sees great potential for other news Ombudsmen in Central and Eastern Europe because communist-state censorship is gone.

"These countries - the new member states in the European Union - have been able to build up free and democratic media systems for the past fifteen years," said Tammerk. "There's an even bigger potential for media Ombudsmen in the former Soviet republics, which are still struggling with how to turn former government broadcasters into public broadcasters, which would be journalistically independent."

In Bogota, Columbia, two private television stations have Ombudsmen, who each produce weekly 30-minute TV shows critiquing their employers. "There's definitely interest in Latin America," said Consuelo Cedpeda Cediel with RCN Channel.

Brazil has two popular Internet sites, each with their own ombudsman, iG and UOL (Universe online).

Why have an Ombudsman?

Having an Ombudsman is a form of self-regulation by a news organization that the public should find heartening. An Ombudsman can point out publicly when a news organization is not living up to its own written standards and ethics. Having an Ombudsman indicates that a news organization is confident enough in its journalism to be publicly criticized by someone on its payroll.

While it may seem self-serving for me to say so, an Ombudsman also lends credibility to a news organization -- as long as the person is contractually independent and cannot be fired for her comments. The role encourages self-criticism within the news organization, something that editors and reporters often don't have the time, or the appetite, to engage in. Think of it as quality control.

"Reporters and editors have a tendency to brush off criticism," said Michael Getler, PBS' Ombudsman. "If you have an independent Ombudsman who says, 'You are wrong. You violated your own guidelines,' that definitely makes them think."

Getler knows. After 21 years with the Washington Post as a foreign correspondent, reporter and editor, he spent five years as the paper's Ombudsman before joining PBS in 2005.

While it is true that some news organizations, especially in the electronic media, have editors for 'standards and practices,' the role is largely internal and doesn't involve dealing directly with the public.

"The public likes to know there's somebody there listening to their criticisms," said Getler. "An Ombudsman makes news organizations live up to their own standards. An editor is too close."

Meanwhile, the editorial director for Kenya's Nation Media Group has asked ONO for help in writing a job profile so he can hire an in-house critic. Considering the dozens of polls that repeatedly tell of the media's loss of credibility in this country, it is unfortunate that more U.S. news outlets aren't willing to take this same step toward regaining public esteem.

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11:43 - June 5, 2008

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