Monday, January 16, 2006

 

Reader's Editor- Increased Accountability and Responsiveness?

As most south Indian newspaper readers have no doubt noted, The Hindu recently announced that it will have a readers' editor (RE), and nominated K Narayanan, veteran of the same paper, for the job.

As the reader's mail in today's Hindu (16th January) reflects, there are two, mutually consistent, views on this development.

The first is that it is a laudable move, given that no other Indian daily newspaper has had an RE so far. This brings (one would hope) the organization closer to the reading public by enforcing accountability and reducing the costs of conflicts with external interests. This in turn, as the Guardian has said of itself in the past, "increases the bond of trust between the paper and its readers". Factual evidence from the Guardian's own experience confirms that both in terms of newspaper responsiveness as well as conflict-cost reduction. For example Mr Mayes has posited that the Guardian carried more than 1600 corrections in the last one year alone, and his prompt action "reduced the number of people seeking to sue the paper for libel and defamation by between 30 and 50 per cent". It is quite possible that The Hindu will soon achieve a similar track record.

But the possible is not the same as the inevitable. The second view on the creation of an RE is that since KN is an internal ombudsman like Mr Mayes of the Guardian, one must question the expectations that one could reasonably form about this role. A slew of readers' letters that appeared even in The Hindu points to this fact- see here. Mr Mayes, again, presents the best defence of this position, being in an identical position within his organization. He argues:

"The 'independence' is something I am always questioned about. How can you be paid by the Guardian and at the same time investigate complaints against it independently? It is true that I am paid by the Guardian, no longer as a member of its staff but on a two-year contract. My independence is underwritten by a number of clauses in the terms of reference. For example, the paragraph requiring me to write this weekly column says, "The content to be determined independently and not subject to prior approval by the editor or others on his staff".

He goes on to suggest that in four years "the editor has on no occasion tried to veto the subject of one of these Open Door columns, nor to interfere with its content". And most importantly, on the issue of independence, the RE "can only be removed from the post [within the term of a contract] by a vote of the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian, and of which, it has to be said, the editor is an influential member".

The comparison of these clauses with the terms of reference of KN would suggest that the RE model of The Guardian has virtually been replicated in The Hindu. However, there are still some murky issues that bolster the second view mentioned above- on the need for circumspection in expectations of what the RE can and cannot achieve. There main reason for this is the following.

The weakness of an internal ombudsman is likely to come to the fore in certain special circumstances that are, nevertheless, not outlandish scenarios. These are, firstly, when a reader is also the subject of news and a news controversy, for example the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. If, during the November 2004 privilege motion 'crisis', she had written to the newspaper's RE (assuming it had one), how much room for addressing her complaints would KN have had? Secondly, when one of the board members of Kasturi and Sons, or indeed some any other influential individual within the organization, is the subject of news or a news controversy, how might KN discharge his duty to "to collect, consider, investigate, respond to, and where appropriate come to a conclusion about readers' comments, concerns, and complaints in a prompt and timely manner, from a position of independence within the paper"? Is such action feasible at all?

Having raised these points that show the internal RE's role as what it is- a rather stringently limited one- it should not be thought that this editor is a fifth wheel in the organization. Far from it. As Mr Mayes himself has argued, "The overall intention is that the role should make a positive rather than negative contribution to [The Hindu] in its various manifestations, and that [the RE] should, for instance, 'seek to ensure the maintenance of high standards of accuracy, fairness and balance in our reporting and writing' and encourage 'greater responsiveness to readers'". This positive function is definitely within the reach of someone with as much experience as KN, and is also a role that will not lead to clashes with the existing power structure of the organization, such as more ambitious goals might. Readers would do well to keep this in mind when writing to the RE.

 

Blogmaster Note

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