A new name for ONO
Big news: ONO is changing its name. The organization will soon be known as Organization of News Ombuds & Standards Editors. This means the term OmbudsMEN will no longer be in our official name.
During the ONO London conference in June this year, the topic came up several times. It was clear during the annual membership meeting there was strong support for ONO going gender neutral. We asked all of you in the last newsletter if there were any objections and none were raised.
The board will now set the wheels in motion for the official name change to take effect as soon as possible. Once that happens, we’ll work on making whatever changes we need to our logo, website, etc.
Available in the “Members Only” section of the ONO website
All the presentations from the 2023 conference can now be found on the members only section of the website. We recently added Jussi Latvala’s talk on “Journalistic Transparency and Trust”. His full study on the subject for the Reuters Institute can be found here.
On the website you can also find a recording of the latest ONO-shoptalk about AI, in case you missed it. We also included the suggestions some members shared during the talk.
And you can find the previous ONO newsletters on the website.
COMING UP: ONO shop talk on Media Criticism and the role of Ombuds
Each year, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (Oxford University) publishes the Digital News Report, a kind of ‘state of the union’ on the news ecosystem we all work in. This year, the report contained a chapter on media criticism and its role in shaping the discourse on media accountability, but also its possible impact on journalists.
ONO has invited Craig Robertson, research fellow at the institute and writer of the chapter, to talk about media criticism and the role of ombuds. Based on the data from a large and international survey, Robertson will take us through the sources of media criticism our public encounters. We think you will agree that there is lots our members learn and use from the data!
The shoptalk is on Thursday November 9, at 12 UTC (mind the daylight savings time change in several parts of the world) and is open to all members. You can find the Zoom link for participants here. The Reuters Digital News Report is available in English and Spanish. You can find more on Craig Robertson here.
If you have ideas for future shop talks please forward Bjarne and Lars an email at Bjarne.Schilling@pol.dk and labe@tv2.dk.
Interesting links
When is race relevant? CBC Ombuds Jack Nagler got that question after a CBC published an article on the website titled “White, male, young and disgruntled: Saanich bank robbers latest in line of violent B.C. Criminals”. A member of the public took issue with the focus on the robbers being white. You can find Jack’s response here.
If you read Jussi Latvala’s study on transparency and want to learn even more, you can also read what intern Kris Sturkenboom wrote during her four-month stint at the office of Dutch Ombuds Margo Smit. It is in Dutch but with the help of Google Translate you should be able to read her research here.
In the previous newsletter we used AI-generated pictures. An ethically dangerous thing to do according to this Bloomberg research. “The world according to Stable Diffusion is run by White male CEOs. Women are rarely doctors, lawyers or judges. Men with dark skin commit crimes, while women with dark skin flip burgers.”
And thank you to Elisabeth Ribbans of The Guardian for sharing this report from the Nieman Lab: “Press freedom means controlling the language of AI.”
ONO’s Newsletter is your newsletter!
Comments? Ideas for this newsletter, for shop talks or even the next conference already? Email us at newsombudsmenorg@gmail.com.
Looking for an earlier ONO newsletter, click here!
