Hammer-news-council
The role of a news council: Hearings, forums, panels, encouraging students
By John Hamer
John Hamer is executive director of the Washington News Council and a former member of The Seattle Times’ editorial board.
News councils are an idea whose time has come -- again.
What are news councils and what exactly do they do?
Well, to tweak a few favorite media mantras:
News councils speak truth to power...of the press.
News councils defend the people’s right to know…how the news media operate.
News councils comfort the afflicted – those who have been damaged by inaccurate news stories about them – and afflict the comfortable – media organizations that have long operated without true public accountability.
News councils are independent, nonprofit, citizens’ organizations that care deeply about the indispensable role of the news media in a democracy. Our mission is to help maintain public trust and confidence in the news media by promoting fairness, accuracy and balance. We provide a forum where citizens and journalists can engage each other in discussing media performance and ethics.
When the Washington News Council (www.wanewscouncil.org) started in 1998, we were one of only three news councils in the country, joining Minnesota and Hawaii.
Now there are five, including two of the nation’s largest population and media centers.
The Southern California News Council and the New England News Council were announced June 30. They were each winners of $75,000 start-up grants in a national competition conducted jointly by the Washington and Minnesota News Councils and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami (www.knightfdn.org).
Why do we need more news councils? Because the news media are in trouble. National polls consistently show that the media rank low in public esteem. Newspaper circulation and television ratings are declining. Many people, especially youth, go to the Internet for news – but it’s hard to know what sources to trust online.
Media professionals, to their credit, are trying to be more transparent and responsive. They are opening daily news meetings to the public, naming ombudsmen or public editors to hear citizen complaints, sending out “accuracy check” letters, linking to local bloggers, appointing reader advisory panels. All commendable – but insufficient.
The media cannot restore trust in themselves by themselves. They wouldn’t allow any other organization to do that. Whenever another institution is in trouble, the media are the first to call for independent, blue-ribbon, outside commissions to investigate and issue findings.
That’s what our news council does. If an individual, company or group feels damaged by a story about them, and is unable to get satisfaction from the media outlet, they can file a formal complaint with the Washington News Council. If it’s a serious complaint, we notify the media organization and encourage them to resolve it. We also require complainants to sign a waiver that they will not sue for libel. We are an alternative to litigation.
If no resolution is reached after 30 days, we convene our council – half journalists, current or retired, and half members of the public – in an open hearing, broadcast statewide by TVW. We consider both sides, ask questions, debate the complaint in public, and vote openly on whether to uphold it. Then we issue a press release, post the results on our website, and go home. What good does this do?
Our process holds the news media publicly accountable in much the same way that the media hold everyone else publicly accountable. It’s a form of peer review, which helps guard against any potential government interference with the press.
Some journalists oppose news councils, claiming that we represent “special interests,” lack the expertise to “judge” them, hold a political or corporate “bias,” may have a “chilling effect” on vigorous reporting, or somehow threaten “freedom of the press.”
On every point, the opposite is true.
Enlightened journalists statewide have embraced the Washington News Council. Peter Horvitz, publisher of this newspaper, and such respected editors as the late Dick Larsen and Herb Robinson of The Seattle Times, were early supporters. Current WNC members include Clayton Park of the King County Journal, Erik Lacitis of The Seattle Times, and Cindy Zehnder of TVW. Mike Flynn, former publisher of the Puget Sound Business Journal, and Martin Neeb, general manager of KPLU-FM, just joined the WNC’s board.
In addition to complaint hearings, we convene public forums with panels of journalists and citizens. We hold student mock news council hearings in colleges and high schools statewide. We award two $1,000 scholarships to promising students yearly. We sponsor an annual “Gridiron West Dinner” to “toast” political, business and media leaders.
As our current president, Stephen Silha, a nationally known media consultant, wrote in The Christian Science Monitor: “Doesn’t every state deserve a news council?”
