VERIFICATION SHOP TALK
and ONO Annual General Meeting
Wednesday, June 22nd 2022 at 1200 UTC
I am very pleased to let you know that we will be joined for our next shop talk by one of the members of the Associated Press news verification team, to discuss the latest techniques and approaches in dealing with fake news, disinformation and misinformation.
Ruth Brown is Weekend News Editor, News Verification for AP in New York. She is part of the team that verifies news content and news images, and will be speaking to us about the challenges she faces in her work.
This will provide an opportunity for all members to ask any questions they might have and share their own experiences with disinformation and news verification.
The shop talk will be followed by our formal Annual General Meeting, which will include updates from our President, Treasurer and Executive Director.
I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the Zoom call.
SALLY BEGBIE
After serving as Vice-President and spending many years as part of the team leading ONO, Sally Begbie has advised that she is stepping down from the Board.
In a message to her fellow board members, Sally wrote:
“The time has come for me to resign from the board. It is wonderful to see that ONO is in such relatively robust health and I wish the organization and all of you the best for the future. I trust ONO will continue to grow and remain a place for insightful discussion and professional support for years to come.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their assistance and friendship throughout the last 16 years. Many fun times were had and we faced challenges that were productively resolved.”
The whole Board of ONO joins in thanking Sally for her leadership and expertise over many years. She has made an enormous contribution to the organization in so many ways, but in recent times she was particularly instrumental in organizing the very successful 2019 ONO Conference at Columbia University in New York, which discussed the role of ‘Journalism in a Polarized World’.
Sally is, of course continuing as SBS Ombudsman and as a member of ONO, and we look forward to continue to see and hear plenty from her in future meetings and conferences.
NEWS OMBUDSMAN FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
ABC Chair, Ita Buttrose
After an independent review lasting several months, Australia’s largest public broadcaster – the ABC – has announced significant changes to its editorial complaints handling processes.
While the review praised the current complaints system, describing it as an ‘efficient system’ that performs ‘efficiently and in accordance with best practice complaints standards’, it also recommended a series of changes to improve complaints processes and improve public trust and transparency.
Chief among them was the establishment of an ABC Ombudsman to lead the complaints team and review findings where necessary.
The Ombudsman role, which will be appointed by the board for a fixed period, is similar to the ombudsman roles that already exist at other public broadcasters around the world. In particular, it is similar to the ombudsman roles at SBS in Australia and CBC in Canada, which are capably filled by two ONO members in Sally Begbie and Jack Nagler.
For those interested, more details of the review can be found here.
A number of public submissions to the review can also be found here, including those from ONO Member and ABC Editorial Director Craig McMurtrie, and ONO Executive Director Alan Sunderland (a submission made in a personal capacity, and not on behalf of ONO).
OTHER NEWS & ITEMS OF INTEREST
- Why do people complain about journalists? NPR has some ideas.
- The bot that thinks it’s an Ombudsman? This article from the Columbia Journalism Review looks at an example of social media users holding the media to account, with a little satire thrown in for good measure.
- A new voice in the world of journalism ethics.
- How do you report on a king, especially one who is not so popular? ONO President Margo Smit knows.
- Mass shootings – should the media name the perpetrators or not? Long-time ONO member and supporter Edward Wasserman weighs in.
