Globe public editor: New press council gives media accountability a boost

The creation of the National Newsmedia Council gives the public another option to have complaints redressed. [[{“fid”:”4749″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“format”:”default”,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:””,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:””},”type”:”media”,”link_text”:null,”attributes”:{“height”:444,”width”:361,”style”:”width: 100px; height: 123px; float: left; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px;”,”class”:”media-element file-default”}}]]By Sylvia Stead, for the Globe and Mail It’s taken two years of planning, but this month the National Newsmedia Council is up and running. It is replacing a number…

The creation of the National Newsmedia Council gives the public another option to have complaints redressed.

[[{“fid”:”4749″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“format”:”default”,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:””,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:””},”type”:”media”,”link_text”:null,”attributes”:{“height”:444,”width”:361,”style”:”width: 100px; height: 123px; float: left; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px;”,”class”:”media-element file-default”}}]]By Sylvia Stead, for the Globe and Mail

It’s taken two years of planning, but this month the National Newsmedia Council is up and running.

It is replacing a number of provincial press councils across the country, including the Ontario Press Council. Some of the provincial groups were struggling and losing member organizations. But the National Newsmedia Council has much broader support from many large newspaper organizations, including The Globe and Mail, Postmedia, the Sun properties, The Toronto Star, Metroland and a number of other organizations.

This should matter to you because it offers you another option for having your complaints against the media redressed. All complaints about The Globe should come to me first as Public Editor, but if you remain unhappy, you have the option, for free, of appealing to the National Newsmedia Council with a formal complaint. Information on filing a complaint, journalistic standards and previous council decisions are available on the website.

It makes more sense for The Globe to deal with a national group (The Globe was also a member of the Ontario Press Council), because complaints come from readers across the country. The press council hearing panels include a majority of public members and will also include a journalist from another group.

The new council is the brainchild of outgoing Ontario Press Council executive director Don McCurdy, who pitched the idea as soon as he took that job.

To read the rest of this column, please head to the Globe’s website, where this column was originally published.

H.G. Watson

H.G. Watson was J-Source's managing editor from 2015 to 2018. She is a journalist based in Toronto. You can learn more about her at hgwatson.com.