ONO NEWSLETTER November 2023

A word from the board

Dear ONO member,

Whether you are pondering terminology and definitions, analysing perceived on-air reporting bias, fielding complaints on online coverage or deep diving into something completely different, we hope this November newsletter finds you all well. It will revisit the topic we have now all very likely reported on or written about : the Israel/Hamas war. We will share some examples of how ONO colleagues and others reviewed the topic this month. But the newsletter will also report other interesting (and hopefully inspirational!) stories and developments in journalism. If you want to share your own experiences or have reports all ONO members should know about, find us at newsombudsmenorg@gmail.com and we will include it in the end-of-year December newsletter, where we also hope to update you on next year’s ONO conference. For now: enjoy reading and keep up the good work!

On behalf of ONO,

Margo Smit (president) and Chris Elliott (executive director)

New member – Prof Charo Sádaba

For the first time in its history, the daily Spanish newspaper ABC is to have an Ombuds. She is Prof Charo Sádaba, who was appointed as Readers’ Advocate earlier this year. Charo is a full professor and dean of the School of Communication at the University of Navarra. She graduated in journalism in 1995 and earned her PhD in public communication in 1999.

In 2021, Charo earned a management degree at IESE Business School. She has an extensive research background in the impact of technology on media companies, the relationship between minors and technology, and more recently, misinformation and media literacy strategies to combat it. She has been involved in numerous research projects funded by regional, national, and international public and private institutions.

Currently, she is a member of the research team at Iberifier, the Iberian hub of the EDMO network, and co-directs the Youth in Transition project at the Institute of Culture and Society of the University of Navarra. In 2022, she was part of the group of experts that advised the European Commission on the development of educational strategies to combat misinformation.

She is responsible for addressing the complaints and suggestions of readers and ensuring that everything published adheres to ethical and deontological journalistic standards. She publishes her conclusions every fortnight. Readers contact her through email and WhatsApp.

Meet Chris Elliott, ONO’s new Executive Director

Chris Elliott joined ONO as the new Executive Director at the last board meeting on November 14.

“I spent 12 years on regional papers and 34 on years on national newspapers in the UK, including the Sunday Telegraph, The Times and the Guardian, the last where I was a reporter, news editor, managing editor and for my final five and half years, the readers’ editor. “I am the former interim Director of the Ethical Journalism Network, and a former board member of the UK’s Society of Editors and National Council for the Training of Journalists, for which I do the occasional piece of judging. I am also a judge for the annual Fetisov Awards. For 10 years I was a trustee and latterly chair of Concern UK, an Irish charity that concentrates on the very poorest in fragile states and developing countries.

“I don’t think credible journalism will survive without the adoption and practice of ethics and so I am really pleased to be joining ONO to work with old colleagues and meet new ones. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with a query or if I can help, or even, as I surely will, make a mistake that needs correcting”.

Chrismelliott51@gmail.com

Israel-Hamas war

The Israel-Hamas war continues to dominate many of the working days – and nights – of our members. Jack Nagler, CBC ombudsman and ONO’s vice president, has tackled an issue that many colleagues have faced in the past few weeks: should the word ‘terrorist’ be used to describe Hamas.

Jack was responding to 307 complaints to his office about the way CBC has characterized Hamas, as well as the attacks which took place in Israel on October 7.

In a major piece for the CBC ombudsman’s website, Jack said:

“The fundamental issue is that CBC has mostly avoided using the words ‘terrorists’ or ‘terrorism’ to describe the events of October 7, or Hamas itself.”

To gain a manageable perspective Jack reviewed CBC’s coverage across radio, television, online, and the CBC News social media accounts from October 7 to October 10before publishing his conclusions on November 23 here.

He wrote that “…the most powerful way for a journalist to describe an event as shocking and disturbing as October 7 is to be specific, be detailed and be precise. Using a label is not an indicator of quality or ethical journalism. The better indicator is whether CBC provides enough information to make Canadians informed – a task that continues on throughout the evolution of this war.”

Jack and Pierre Champoux, Ombudsman, French Services CBC/Radio-Canada, outline their approach to role of the ombuds in two LinkedIn videos, here and here.

Two posts on October 10 on X/Twitter from journalist and author Oliver Bullough reflect a reporter’s wider view on the use of the word terrorist:

“When I reported on Chechnya for Reuters, I would regularly return to my desk from days of reporting on unimaginable horrors, to find hundreds of emails shouting at me for the fact our style guide didn’t use the word “terrorist”.

“My answer to them would always be to reply politely and say surely — after reading the news I’ve just written — you can work out for yourself who’s a terrorist and who isn’t, why do you need it done for you?”.

In Australia the conflict has been a big and very divisive issue, reports our colleague, and my predecessor, Alan Sunderland. He says that quite a number of progressive journalists, including (collectively) the media section of the main union and the house committee at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, signed this open letter calling for more balanced coverage of the conflict.

There has been an immediate reaction, particularly from mainstream media organisations across the political spectrum, that the letter goes too far in its calls for balanced coverage and in fact includes material that could be seen as biased towards Palestine or against Israel. Some examples (some of these are paywalled):

Alan says that has been coupled with the usual attacks on the ABC as public broadcaster, both for being anti-Semitic and for toeing the Israeli line. Fiona Cameron, the ABC Ombudsman and an ONO member, has already published investigations into various aspects of these complaints and you can find them here:

Alan wonders whether such letters have been written by other groups of journalists in other countries? How might ONO members deal with a situation in which their own colleagues in the news organisation sign such a letter?

Another facet of the war is reflected in this article from the Columbia Journalism Review. It reports that:

“In the weeks since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israeli civilians, and during the bombardment and invasion of Gaza that followed, people across social media have complained about posts in support of Palestinians being restricted or removed. There have been some high-profile examples: Facebook took down the English and Arabic pages of Quds News Network, known for sharing graphic crowdsourced videos. Press outlets have also reported on individual accounts sharing relatively innocuous material—a Palestinian-flag emoji, for instance—getting dinged as ‘potentially offensive’. Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and The Intercept all found that posts and accounts have been taken down or seen their reach limited. Whether that amounts to a coordinated attempt at silencing has been difficult to prove.”

Canada’s National NewsMedia Council has upheld a complaint about the unpublishing of an article relating to Palestine by the Kingston Whig Standard.

The finding, published on November 2, related to a May 12 news brief, “Vigil marks 75th anniversary of Palestinian displacement”, which provided details of an upcoming event organized by a Palestinian support group in Kingston, Ontario. The original headline contained the word “expulsion” instead of “displacement,” according to a council press release.

“The brief was the subject of multiple complaints submitted to the news organization by different advocacy organizations representing pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian perspectives. The news organization originally updated the brief but, later, removed it from its website.”

One of the other big issues for journalists navigating the Israel-Hamas war is disinformation. Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation correspondent, looks at what is happening on TikTok and other social media sites.

El Pais reviews long-running investigation into alleged abduction of newborns

Soledad Alcaide, Readers’ Advocate for El Pais, has been investigating an entirely different issue arising from an interview following a long running investigation by the paper, which “raises confusion among readers about the investigation of irregular adoptions between the 1950s and 1980s in Spain”.

The results of her investigation were published on November 26.

Reporters Without Borders announces new charter on AI and journalism

RSF and 16 partners announced a new charter in Paris on AI and journalism on November 10. There are 10 principles, which aim to define “ethics and principles that journalists, newsrooms and media outlets around the world will be able to appropriate and apply in their work with artificial intelligence”.

Members will be particularly interested in the fourth principle, which states that media outlets are always accountable for the content they publish and that “responsibilities tied to the use of AI systems should be anticipated, outlined, and assigned to humans to ensure adherence to journalistic ethics and editorial guidelines”.

The charter was written by a commission brought together by RSF and chaired by Rappler’s Maria Ressa, the journalist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.

And here is a critique of the charter on thefix website.

Steven Springer, Editor for News Standards, Radio Free Asia, says that YouTube is taking “what looks to be a pretty strong position about the use of AI in videos posted to the platform”.

Please help Elaine!

When you are paying your modest annual fee – the invoices are going out as I write – please help our assistant treasurer, Elaine Carlton, by including either the invoice number or your name. Sometimes a fee appears in the system with very little to tell her who is paying. If possible, please pay before the first of January 2024. As we said last month, we will be changing the password for the members-only part of the website, so only those who have paid have access.

This is your newsletter!

As mentioned earlier, if you want to share your own experiences or have reports all ONO members should know about, find us at newsombudsmenorg@gmail.com and we will include it in ONO’s next newsletter.