The Guardian I have spent most of this week in Paris at the annual conference of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen which I have just joined, a body with the wonderfully expressive acronym Ono. One of the main reasons I joined was to meet others of the same species, occupying the fretful and often lonely ground between readers and listeners or viewers and their newspapers or broadcasting organisations. It turned out that most of the others feel a similar need to huddle together now and again. He or she recommends appropriate remedies or responses to correct or clarify news reports. Almost all the 35 ombudsmen who responded to a recent Ono survey said they felt isolated within their organisations.
Some journalists also consider themselves intellectually superior toward the public.
These are symptoms of the culture that we have been trying to change at the Guardian. Only a few ombudsmen thought they had no effect on the work of journalists. The majority thought that the feedback they provided from readers had increased respect for the individual and for privacy, and had increased sensitivity in other areas, for example in references to victims of violence. Ombudsmen in journalism are a relatively new idea. The mass circulation Tokyo paper, Yomiuri Shimbun, has had a 28-member ombudsman committee to hear complaints and to liaise daily with editors since 1951.