The Organization of News Ombudsmen and Standards Editors (ONO) is a modern, international non-profit organization. ONO membership comprises news ombudsman, readers' representatives and standards editors from around the world, working online, in print, in television and radio. All are individuals who work for professional news organizations such as the BBC, the Guardian, CBC, the ABC and SBS in Australia and the Hindu in India. Editorial standards editors work to maintain ethical practice in their newsrooms, while ombudsmen or reader representatives attempt to find mutually satisfactory solutions to complaints about coverage. Both standards editors and ombudsmen seek to explain the workings of journalism to their audiences.
Since its inception in 1980, ONO has built an active cohort of European, Scandinavian, British, South American, Indian, Australian and Canadian editorial standards and editorial complaints handling executives. It is also working to strengthen relationships with the Asian news media who share its editorial principles of independence, fairness, balance and accuracy.
Purposes of ONO
The official web site of ONO states that it is:
"Dedicated to protecting and enhancing quality journalism by encouraging respectful and truthful discourse about journalism’s practices and purposes."
The Organization of News Ombudsmen and Standards Editors is a best practice organisation, encouraging reliable editorial standards processes and effective editorial complaints handling mechanisms.
ONO aims to:
• Promote the values of accuracy, fairness and balance in news reporting for the public good.
• Assist media organizations to provide mechanisms to ensure they remain accountable to consumers of their news.
• Encourage transparency within news media organizations to develop trust within their audience.
• Support the role of news ombudsmen, readers' editors and other mediators between the news consumer and the media organization.
Annual conference
The main event on the ONO calendar is its annual conference, which examines current challenges facing news media and news audiences and how those issues are affecting the work of its members. The 2019 ONO Conference will be held in New York in association with the Columbia Journalism Review. The conference, entitled “Journalism in a Polarized World – Sharing Common Ground", will examine the role and responsibilities of news media, standards editors and news ombudsman in a time of heightened political, social and economic polarization.
ONO's 2009 conference was held in Washington DC, at the offices of National Public Radio, The Washington Post and the Washington Bureau of The New York Times . The 2010 conference took place at Reuters Institute, and St Peter's College Oxford University, Oxford, England, the 2011 conference at CBC in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the 2013 conference in Los Angeles, California. Conferences in Copenhagen (2014), Hamburg (2015), Buenos Aires (2016), Chennai (2017) and Amsterdam (2018) followed. Topics discussed at annual conferences are usually of an ethical nature, because news ombudsmen and standards editors are more often than not concerned with the ethics of reporting the news. Some of topics raised in the past include coverage of minorities, coverage of sex crimes, the relationship to the news department, the use of anonymous sources, invasion of privacy, plagiarism, conflicts of interest.
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Media bias is the bias or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed.
Junk food news is a sardonic term for news stories that deliver "sensationalized, personalized, and homogenized inconsequential trivia",
especially when such stories appear at the expense of serious investigative journalism. It implies a criticism of the mass media for disseminating news that, while not very nourishing, is "cheap to produce and profitable for media proprietors."
Journalism scandals are high-profile incidents or acts, whether intentional or accidental, that run contrary to the generally accepted ethics and standards of journalism, or otherwise violate the 'ideal' mission of journalism: to report news events and issues accurately and fairly.
Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are overhyped to present biased impressions on events, which may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story. Sensationalism may have reporting about generally insignificant matters and events that do not influence overall society and biased presentations of newsworthy topics in a trivial or tabloid manner contrary to the standards of professional journalism.
CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. Founded in 1941, CBC News is the largest news broadcaster in Canada and has local, regional and national broadcasts and stations. It frequently collaborates with its French-language counterpart, Radio-Canada Info, although the two are organizationally separate.
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Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities. First evolving as a practice in the 18th century, a number of critiques and alternatives to the notion have emerged since, fuelling ongoing and dynamic discourse surrounding the ideal of objectivity in journalism.
Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists. This subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism". The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by both professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.
Media ethics is the subdivision of applied ethics dealing with the specific ethical principles and standards of media, including broadcast media, film, theatre, the arts, print media and the internet. The field covers many varied and highly controversial topics, ranging from war journalism to Benetton ad campaigns.
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An ombudsman, ombudsperson, ombud, or public advocate is an official who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints of maladministration or a violation of rights. The ombudsman is usually appointed by the government or by parliament, but with a significant degree of independence. In some countries an inspector general, citizen advocate or other official may have duties similar to those of a national ombudsman, and may also be appointed by a legislature. Below the national level an ombudsman may be appointed by a state, local or municipal government. Unofficial ombudsmen may be appointed by, or even work for, a corporation such as a utility supplier, newspaper, NGO, or professional regulatory body.
George D. Beveridge was an American journalist praised for his coverage of the Washington politics, government, and regional development, and described by The Washington Post as "an expert on this city and a keen observer and critic of journalistic ethics and practices".
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Jennifer Rubin is an American neoconservative journalist who writes the "Right Turn" blog for The Washington Post. Previously she worked at Commentary, PJ Media, Human Events, and The Weekly Standard. Her work has been published in media outlets including Politico, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, and The Jerusalem Post.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to journalism: