An analogous frame of debate concerns the news ombudsperson movement. Interestingly, its official guild calls itself the Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO), not ombudspersons, an interesting confusion about accurate nomenclature for a mixed-gender grouping of watchdogs for a media that can’t distinguish whether murderous nihilist thugs are “terrorists” or “insurgents” in its reporting nomenclature. But, that’s another story! In any event, Gina Lubrano, “readers representative” of the San Diego Union Tribune and executive secretary of the ONO, told me on June 8 that she considers the term “ombudsmen” appropriate usage, and not a matter of or subject to political correctness. I’ll choose to say “ombudsperson.”

When a Jewish or Christian minister fails to follow the Ten Commandments, he is justifiably called a hypocrite. When an ombudsperson fails to follow the ONO’s Ten Commandments, one may justifiably also criticize him.

Of course, there may be mitigating or structural circumstances, but a reason still equals an excuse for not acting up to the highest standards that one filling such a role, as minister or ombudsperson, should be held accountable. The highest standards, self-acknowledged as such for membership in such priesthoods, are really a misleading “myth” if not taken seriously, or a worthy “goal” if failures to reach them are grounds for valid criticism. One should recognize that attainment of the “goals” is not perfect, but not use that reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Both Don Luskin and I have written about the many failings of and our disappointment with the performance of Dan Okrent as the New York Times’ first ombudsman. The Times named the position, grandly, "public editor" -- a misguiding title to his actual work which consisted mostly of editing out and chastising the public’s criticism of the Times’ increasing political slants and its reporters’ substitution of opinions for full and factual reporting. I suggested to Luskin that his recentJayson Awards might have included a category for the Daniel Okrent OmbudsEunoch Award, for those who fail to act fully behind the scenes to strive, at least, toward the “goals” of ombudspersons.

My nominee is Gina Lubrano, the “readers representative” of the San Diego Union-Tribune. She is also the executive secretary for ONO. The San Diego Union-Tribune is my hometown newspaper. It is not, no paper is and has no pretensions to be, the New York Times, self-declared exemplar of the paper of record printing all the news that’s fit to print. It is, however, a highly credible regional newspaper, striving to present a wide diversity of views in its op-eds, its editorials generally middle-of-road (which makes them conservative by comparison to most other newspapers), and its newspages fairly complete as to international and national news subjects but having to rely on newswires -- usually liberal in their viewpoints -- to reach outside southern California.

The ONO website prominently posts“Ten commandments of ombudsmen” by Sanders LaMont, ombudsman of the Sacramento Bee, from the publication of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1999. Commandment # 1 says, “the reason this reader called was because…they want it [the newspaper] to be better.” Commandment # 3 says, “Respond, somehow, to every call or letter. An acknowledgement may be all that is required, but avoid lectures or sarcasm.” Okrent’s assistant, or automatic response email, did respond to all messages to him, but Okrent’s own responses were often sarcastic putdowns or blatant evasions. Lubrano doesn’t regularly even respond to messages, except occasionally when she chooses to, and then in my experience with her -- one recounted below -- usually just to be defensive.

Commandments # 4 and #5, respectively, say to “assure each caller that the message they bring will be delivered to a person in the newspaper management who has the authority to do something about it,” and “Deliver all messages, quickly…” One didn’t have a clue what Okrent actually did in follow-up nor the results, except as he self-glorifyingly reported on himself in his column. In a phone conversation with Ms. Lubrano on June 8, she told me she does forward messages, but has no organized or regular procedure to require responses nor follow-up for responses from those she forwards critiques. The ONO commandments do not include follow-up. I suggested, from my practical experience in business, and she concurred, that she didn’t have the resources nor the editors the time to have such a consistent practice, and that few newspapers do. It’s more a matter of those she chooses to follow-up upon.

Delving further, as to what is relevant to follow-up upon, I asked Ms. Lubrano whether she followed up on two recent messages I’d sent her, and the editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, in May 2005. She hadn’t.

One concerned a front page feature on May 11 about the local “peace movement” that quoted their leaders extensively, bemoaning that Americans are misguided and ignorant not to recognize and join the correctness of their cause. Except for several sentences out of a full-page piece (highly valuable ink in any newspaper) there were no contrary statements, nor was there any investigative vetting of the sources or the organizations they represent. I wrote Ms. Lubrano and documented these organizations as radical defenders of Castro and North Korea, suppliers of aid to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, defender of Yugoslavia’s Milosevic, and all rooted in leadership from the still-Stalinist Workers World Party, organizations and leadership supporting any country or cause opposed to the United States. All this and more is easily available on the internet, rather easy and basic investigation even for a lazy reporter.

The other message from me concerned the Union-Tribune printing on May 11 an Associated Press story that repeated a press release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In the AP story, CAIR charged that, as the article headlined, “anti-Muslim hate crimes hit highest level since 9/11.” I pointed out that the most recent FBI report on hate crimes contradicted CAIR’s contention, but the AP did not report that nor the Union-Tribune vet or correct the newswire story. I further pointed out that CAIR is documented to have among its leadership known supporters of terrorism and of its practitioners in Iraq and Afghanistan, hardly an objective or worthy source for the mimeoing of a false press release by major news organizations. I asked Ms. Lubrano, “Can you google?” As I wrote her, neither the AP nor the Union-Tribune could bother, apparently, to “do basic journalism regarding the source and veracity of its source.”

So, we know we’re dealing with an imperfect world, and ombudspersons and newspapers with limited resources. A sane person can live with that reality. But, aren’t we also dealing with newspapers, reporters, and ombudspersons who repeatedly -- not always, but far, far too often -- fail even the most basic standards for credible and professional performance? The above two examples occurred just days apart in May, and only scratch the surface of such daily outrageous journalistic failings in our established media.

Interestingly, Ms. Lubrano, who has not replied nor, apparently, followed up on numerous other failures of fact I’ve written to her about in other reports appearing in the Union-Tribune, did reply almost immediately on June 6 when I’d gotten a fact wrong about ONO. Ms. Lubrano, seemingly, does make more time to respond to me on matters of her guild than of her newspaper’s journalism standards. The matter concerned the decision of the ONO to exclude the “left” and “right” ombudspersons appointed to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to watchdog the quality and balance of reporting by the taxpayer funded Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio.

Ms. Lubrano, executive secretary for ONO and matters of membership, believes that “the political nature of the oversight agency disqualified them for regular membership” which should be restricted solely to “news gathering organizations.” I responded: “You can narrow your views and rules all you want to, but all you accomplish is to increasingly wall yourselves in, not wall others out.” Corporation for Public Broadcasting president Kathleen Cox said in an April interview with the Washington Post that the ombudspersons’ appointments were “to raise public broadcasting’s ability to address [public] concerns about issues of journalism.” I further pointed out to Ms. Lubrano that “this is not Outer Slobovenia, but the U.S., and the ONO’s distrust of and distancing of itself from the U.S. government and taxpayer says much about the moral and political relativism that has contaminated so much of the U.S. media…” This does not seem to me the action of an organization that prioritizes spreading its standards over keeping its employers and itself freer from criticism.

I asked Ms. Lubrano whether she’d noticed, in the context of the past year’s heightened criticism of the media, the Union-Tribune had increased its self-scrutiny. She responded, “editors (and ombudsmen) are very aware of the increased scrutiny from all sides…Because of that…we always look at how we do things and how we can do better.” Ms. Lubrano also said, “we’re always sensitive to valid criticism.” I expressed that, indeed, I believed this and have noticed some improvements in the Union-Tribune, using more accurate and less-inflammatory headlines, and blending news wire reports to achieve better coverage and balance.

To my view, aside from additional follow-up on criticisms, this 35-year employee of the Union-Tribune, starting as a reporter herself, for 13-years the ombudsperson of the Union-Tribune, needs to pay more professionally disciplined follow-up attention to the paper of which she is the official watchdog. Daniel Okrent, without newspaper experience but also without a permanent job to protect, said in a May interview: “I do believe my lack of newspaper experience means I take nothing for granted, that I don’t say, ‘Well, that’s the way it’s done.”

In our conversation discussing ONO, Ms. Lubrano said to me, “I don’t know that you have the same view of ombudsmen that ombudsmen have.” That seems to be true and obvious.

Perhaps too idealistically, and definitely out of deep caring for the core need of a democratic society to have a vibrant, respected media, I believe that ombudspersons should be more than they too often are, inadequate practitioners of their own standards, and their newspapers should provide more resources for them to be better. At least, they should if they really care about recovering from now faded respect by their consumers. Ms. Lubrano referred me to a column by the “public editor” for the Baltimore Sun, in which he wrote of newspaper management, “it understands that, in the long run, serving the readers also serves the best interests of the institution.”

Ms. Lubrano took time and space from reporting to the readers about efforts to improve the Union-Tribune’s reporting to devote 2/3rds of her June 6 column to the growth of the ONO. (The other third of her column addressed whether the Indy 500 result headline should have focused on female racer Danica Patrick coming in fourth or which male came in first, an obviously major issue compared to qualities of reporting, for example, on the Iraq War.) Ms. Lubrano wrote of the ONO: “It is a sign that news-gathering organizations throughout the world are concerned with credibility, accountability and transparency.”

The managing editor of the New York Times, speaking at his J-school alma mater, recently said, “we believe in tried-and-true methods: the traditional journalistic inquiry, original reporting, digging to avail ourselves of all sources of information possible within the deadline; we do not merely cut and paste.” He also stressed the core journalistic standards of “the journalism of verification…to substantiate facts,” of “transparency…rely on documentary evidence,” and to be “agnostic as to where a story may lead. We do not go into news gathering with an agenda or preconceived notion. We do not manipulate or hide facts to advance an agenda. We are independent and serve only the readers’ interests.” Restraining myself from laughing all over the floor, this managing editor’s boss, executive editor Bill Keller, did at least order an internal critique released in May recognizing the need for the New York Times to stress better journalistic standards and their enforcement.

In my email to Ms. Lubrano of May 11, after I’d sent her the above speech, I wrote: “An ‘ombudsperson’ should be proactive about the ‘standards’ of journalism, not just an apologist or spend most of their public effort, and private if that is so, avoiding the issues of standards, and their enforcement. – Why do so many filter out or distrust the established media? Perhaps they know something the reporters don’t, how to do basic research!

The Pew Foundation’s Project for Excellence in Journalism points out in its 2005 State of News Media report: “To adapt, journalism may have to move in the direction of making its work more transparent and more expert, and of widening the scope of its searchlight.” Maybe then the 35% decline since 1964 in the percentage of adults who even bother to read daily newspapers can be stanched, or the small percent of readers who trust what they read be increased.

I have to conclude that Don Luskin was apparently correct to not have an “OmbudsEunoch Award.” Where does one start? How does one tell the difference? The ombudsperson movement is to be respected for its noble goals, how far it has come, and the movement should be encouraged. But it still has too far to go to hold it to its own standards. We hope the day, and resources, and members will come when one can single out just one inadequacy or failure.

Bruce Kesler

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:49 AM | link    

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