News ombudsmen more important than ever in web environment, says Siobhain Butterworth

With an increasing numbers of articles published straight to web and up to 10 times as many articles going online as in the paper -
the day of the recent Lehman Brothers bank collapse saw around four stories in the Guardian's paper edition and 30-40 on the web - the suspicion at the Guardian was that reader complaints were more likely to be received directly by journalists and the website, via online comments.

In fact, Guardian ombudsman or readers' editor, Siobhain Butterworth, sees an in-tray, off and online, more crammed than ever with readers' queries.

In the last year alone she dealt with 23,000 corrections and complaints via email, telephone and fax - in comparison the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) received just 10,000 communications over the same period, she points out.

But aren't some of these relatively trivial amendments, such as missing words? Journalism.co.uk asks.

"It's wrong to think they're trivial. People say when they complain, 'I know this is a trivial point, but it reflects on the newspaper'. It impacts on the trust, on the competence," she says.

"[But] readers understand that you're putting together more than a big novel per day from scratch, so there's a tolerance."

Ombudsman role
Butterworth has been in the job since mid-2007, when she took over from Ian Mayes, the first to sit in the Ombudsman seat. Few other UK papers have comparable positions. The Observer's incumbent, Stephen Pritchard, also chairs the Organization of Ombudsmen.*

The job is to mediate and communicate between journalists and readers, she says.

"I see part of my role as 'media literacy': explaining the paper to readers; and explaining readers to the paper and website - explaining to journalists why readers elsewhere don't 'get' what we do."

US-UK differences
One of main challenges, she says, are getting over differences in news cultures. For example, the increasing US-based audience might have different ideas about 'objectivity'.

"UK journalism is not so hung up on objectivity," she says.

"I was reading the other day that objectivity is a commercial invention, sometime in the 1950s in the US, and it's now an ethical dimension of US journalism."

In the UK, she says, readers are more likely to choose papers 'that reflect your views'.

"But that doesn't necessarily mean it is not fair and balanced. Sometimes it's necessary to explain why there is so much comment and opinion, or why a newspaper might suggest you vote a particular way," she says.

The paper's 'liberal' values are another contentious point, she says.

Though Guardian readers 'identify very strongly with the paper's journalism and the paper's liberal values', in the US, 'liberal' is someone very left-wing, explains Butterworth.

"Here it doesn't necessarily have those connotations," she says, adding that non-UK readers may never have seen a copy of the newspaper.

A way round that is to refer readers back to the ideals of its once editor and founder of its original trust, C.P. Scott (the Guardian's owner, the Scott Trust was recently transformed into a company).

"I think the Guardian is really clear on its liberal values," she says.

News is 'decontextualised' online
One big challenge, Butterworth says, is to overcome the various and direct ways people access content online.

"It [access] is often very fragmented and decontextualised, but when you're reading a newspaper you know the news section is at the front.

"You've got separate sections for readers - that's very clear to readers and they find their way through the [printed] paper. They have a very good idea about what's going on.

"On the web, people access material because they've been sent an email or via an RSS feed. In those circumstances, it's very hard to make it clear what is comment or what the nature of the piece is," she says.
 
The Guardian has a policy of separating fact and opinion, she says, adding that it is important web journalists 'try really hard to signpost what they're writing' if they want to avoid the furore that arose over David Cox's comment piece, which was mistakenly read as a film review.

So will content demarcations become more flexible? No, says Butterworth: "I don't think they'll get broken down; I think they'll get built up."

Time constraints
Butterworth read all 700 comments in the David Cox case, but admits this is not always practical.

She is stretched as it is, with the daily corrections and clarifications, web amendments and her weekly comment piece.

She has administrative support staff and a part-time colleague, who helps with corrections and clarifications three days a week, but the role is growing ever larger, she says.

Reconsidering an article in light of a complaint means Butterworth can't always respond as readily as she would like to, but, she says, readers are empathetic: "They understand what the role is and what I'm trying to do."

New integration
A recent column touched on the impact of the soon-to-be fully integrated newsrooms - part of Butterworth's mission to keep readers informed about the paper's workings.

She is enthusiastic about the paper's move to Kings Place and the merged news teams in 'pod' arrangements.

"The environment will be very exciting. At the moment people are physically very far apart from each other," she says, explaining that in the current location on Farringdon Road news and web teams have several floors between them.

But, as far as her own integration into the newsroom goes, there are no plans for an Ombudsman pod just yet.

*This article was amended on August 4, 2009.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).