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1 Index | Editorial | Birds-eye view | Opening the toolbox | Zoom-in on the newsroom | Media landscapes 1 Photograph: photocase/kallejipp Up-to-date or out of touch? By SAlVAdOr AlSiuS, MArcel MAuri-de lOS riOS & ruTh rOdrigueZ-MArTineZ Traditional press councils and “readers’ letters” It’s time to dip into the media’s laboratory. Let’s open the journalist’s toolbox and take a closer look at the diverse traditional instruments that journalists and the media have developed over the years to ensure that they act within ethical norms and values: press councils and readers’ letters. Are these traditional instruments already old-fashioned and out of touch or are they still up-to-date and relevant? Journalists monitor government action, political decisions and investigate issues. However, guarding society is only one side of the coin. Who monitors the media and journalists ensuring that they act ethically? The government? Who else? Press freedom in a democracy attracts only low levels of legal government regulations, but something is out of kilter if the government sets rules for journalists and narrows press freedom by sanctioning their daily work. This can be seen in the annual Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. Neither is it right that full responsibility should fall on the media companies and media professionals, who may be tempted to act in line with personal or corporate interests. In a democracy there is only one answer to this delicate question: the public. “Feedback”, an old concept The term ‘participation‘ – recently replaced by ‘interaction‘ – has, for decades, been used to overcome the idea of the one directional nature of communication. In the mid twentieth century communication theory incorporated the concept of ‘feedback‘ to refer to messages which sent information back in the opposite direction from usual. Feedback comprised messages sent to those who normally had the role of sending out information, messages in which the recipients were involved to some extent in the active process of communication. Public feedback: voting with your feet So, how has the public generally ‘fed back‘ to the communication
media? First, via a message, which while not explicit, is tremendously effective – consumption. Clearly, it is somewhat dangerous to make all decisions on the basis of audience figures; but neither can the response of the public as consumers of media products be ignored. It should be accepted that the public increasingly sanctions what it considers to be good or bad quality by voting with its feet. To ignore this entirely would be foolish. Readers’ letters: the voice of the audience There have been and still are specific procedures which allow the public to express their views on media content. One very longstanding way is the ‘letter to the editor‘. This letter format, which has become a distinct journalistic genre in itself, emerged from the British and American press. Today, given the proliferation of digital means through which individuals can make their voices heard, such emphasis on the importance of the ‘Letter to the editor‘ might ring a little hollow. The fact is that this letter form has endured for almost two centuries as the most natural way for individuals to express themselves in the public arena. It is true that the expression of ideas through this channel was conditioned by many factors: space limitations, the tendency towards ‘soft‘ topics that permeates much of the media, and last but not least, the criteria applied to the selection of material. Despite this, as Brian Thornton, an expert on readers’ letters, points out, they nonetheless express public feeling, and especially the feelings of a sector of the public who know how to express their opinions in writing. The ‘letter to the editor’ was a mode of communication which took off in the press in particular. The visual media have on occasion tried to emulate the possibilities of this pseudo-genre. Sometimes this is done through simply transposing the concept across media, for example, when radio presenters read out letters sent in by some of their listeners. However, radio, and later television, gradually took on board the idea that listeners could express their feelings live, generally using the telephone. ‘Letters to the editor‘ and other similar types of contribution have been lauded by media companies as a way of making their content more attractive. Without doubt some of the contributions have a critical edge and, in their own way, these contributions have helped to influence the quality of media content. A good example of this kind of the contribution by the users can be found in Spain. Some years ago the Spanish newspaper El Pais published in its Sunday supplement only those Letters to the Editor where the readers referred to the coverage made by the newspaper during the previous week. Self-regulation as self-defence The second major channel through which individuals have been able to express their critical opinions about media content has been the press councils. The press councils try to ensure that media ethics are respected. They are entities which receive complaints from individuals regarding the way in which the media handle the news. They have a certain moral legitimacy in making judgments on the appropriateness of how news is dealt with, although they have no actual legal clout to impose any kind of sanction. Although the press councils are bodies which are separate from the media companies, in many cases it was the media companies themselves which promoted the councils as means of self-regulating the content of their products. In a number of countries the press councils were born out of initiatives by media companies to protect themselves from attempts by government or parliament to impose excessively rigid regulation. They are the channel by which the media system self-regulates. A substantial proportion of them are cross-party and are made up of representatives from among editors and journalists‘ associations. There are also some (as for example in Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom) which include members of the public as representatives, who are ultimately those who hold the right to receive complete, verified information. Challenges and reformulations One of the main problems for press councils is incorporating a reasonable degree of public representation. In a formal democracy the only thing that truly guarantees such representation is universal suffrage. However, at the same time, it is true that for public representation to come via the parliamentary parties would be problematic. The independence of information, with respect to the established political powers, would be among those things at risk. Other problems which have limited the councils‘ ability to act have been: the lack of power to impose sanctions, as mentioned earlier, the unwillingness of some companies to recognise the moral authority of the verdicts, difficulties in obtaining funding, and a lack of awareness of their role among the general public. The UK was one of the first countries to have a press council but it was the UK‘s Press Complaints Commission which had its role questioned once again following the case of The News of the World and the recommendation of Judge Leveson regarding the creation of new laws to govern the press (for details see also the article by Mike Jempson, page 5-7). This is still under discussion and as an alternative there is talk of a possible reformulation of the press council. The tension between regulation and self-regulation is at the fore yet again. During recent decades many professional journalists believed self-regulation could act as a palliative to limit the powers that control media content, and also as a way to guarantee the public the right to access true, complete and accurate information. However, lately, many journalists, and also media users, recognise that the system that gives out penalties to violators is too “soft“ and cannot stop certain excesses of the tabloid press or garbage TV. Press councils and readers’ editors still have validity It is worth considering whether these two prongs of public participation, letters to the editor and complaints to the press councils, still have any validity. Based on the answers from the professionals surveyed in the <strong>MediaAcT</strong> study it is important to differentiate between the instruments: while the press council was perceived as an accountability instrument with medium impact among the professionals from the countries surveyed, it was at the same time evaluated more positively than other traditional instruments, such as ombudsmen or readers’ editors (for further information regarding ombudsmen and other new forms of “participative instruments” for more openness and transparency, please see the article by Huub Evers and Harmen Groenhart, page 20-21). The digital age has clearly provided many new channels which make the interaction between broadcasters and recipients (to use the classic division of roles) more intense (for digital details see page 14-17 and page 18-19). If we go back to the journalist laboratory, basic tools, such as the traditional press council and the reader‘s letter, continue to have their place in the toolbox, despite their evident limitations. 1 Index | Editorial | Birds-eye view | Opening Opening the toolbox | Zoom-in on the newsroom | Media landscapes
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