“Isn’t Azerbaijan a democratic republic? Constitutionally, it is, of course. But the constitution is one thing and the political culture and practice are something else.”

— Christel Fricke, director of the Center for the Study of Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo, Norway, writing at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

It’s a new year in Baku, Azerbaijan, which I last wrote about here, after visiting, on behalf of the international Organization of News Ombudsmen, here.

Even as bustling Baku booms, it seems the more things change, the more things…don’t? As Ms. Fricke observes, the struggle continues.

More Baku scenes:

— C.B. Hanif

Will journalistic and other freedoms boom for this Baku youth the way everything else around him seems to be?

A couple of months after my visit, “Journalism 2.0” author Mark Briggs confirmed from Baku that “There certainly is a lot of interest in journalism for a place that has such struggles with it.”

From my latest offering in Florida Weekly’s Palm Beach Gardens edition, here. Or just keep reading:

And now, to be thankful for something completely different:

Unlike other places in the world we live in a country where, in the words of Stephen Biko of South Africa, “I write what I like.”

We get to cuss out our government officials, even question whether their birth certificates were stamped USA or Kenya, without putting our lives at risk like the anti-apartheid martyr.

In contrast, I met human rights attorney and distinguished former Azerbaijan Parliament member Matlab Mutallimli while in that country in March representing my colleagues of the international Organization of News Ombudsmen.

News ombudsmen field concerns at their news organizations and generally respond publicly.

In Baku, the Caspian sea capital of the oil-rich former Soviet republic that now is the Free Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, the news the other day: “Azerbaijan must immediately release Eynulla Fatullayev.”

It was for his articles critical of the government that Mr. Fatullayev was arrested in 2007 and eventually sentenced to a cumulative eight years in jail on charges ranging from “Incitement of hatred” to tax evasion. So say his defenders, who include the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.

For years Mr. Fatullayev suffered beatings, threats and the persecution of his family because of his outspoken journalism.

In April the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings Azerbaijan is obligated to observe, found that Mr. Fatullayev’s rights of free expression had been violated and that he had been unfairly tried. The ECHR ordered his release with 27,822 Euros ($37,854) in compensation.

In July, however, Mr. Fatullayev was sentenced to an additional 2½ years on charges of possession of narcotics, which he says are routinely planted by Baku prison guards to silence critics.

On Nov. 11 the Azerbaijani Supreme Court agreed to implement the ECHR decision — while not addressing the drug charges. And in what the Committee to Protect Journalists called a ruling “blatantly tailored to defy the European Court’s order,” a Baku Appeals Court has said he will remain imprisoned while he appeals those charges.

Other Azeri journalists have been even less fortunate.

Enter my host, Matlab Mutallimli. While I broke from a whirlwind schedule of meetings and interviews with journalists and news organizations, he motioned me to follow him through a crowd to the front of a memorial service at the grave of Elmar Huseynov.

It was the anniversary of the brutal 2005 shooting murder of Mr. Huseynov.

A father's graveside grief for his son.

The award-winning journalist had suffered threats and incarceration for his criticism of Azerbaijani authorities. He was fined and forced to close his popular Monitor after being convicted in 1998 of “insulting the nation.”

The view of many gathered was that the Azeri government was responsible for the assassination of Mr. Huseynov, who our U.S. ambassador at his first memorial service had described as a national hero.

I confess to having little clue about the challenges of establishing a free, democratic, post-Soviet era government.

As a journalist, I also don’t take allegations as givens, one reason I would have liked the organizers of my visit to have arranged for me to speak to “the other side,” so to speak.

Yet one of our government officials there has told me that as for higher levels, they are not open to such meetings. They’ve heard it many times before. Ahh, progress on media? Not really.

A couple of months after my visit, “Journalism 2.0” author Mark Briggs confirmed from Baku that “There certainly is a lot of interest in journalism for a place that has such struggles with it.” Among the hurdles he cited:

“News outlets must receive a special license from the government, which means there is little investigative reporting. (The government doesn’t tolerate criticism.) Independent news sources, mostly online, apparently operate with a single-minded focus on complaining about the government, so the idea of journalistic objectivity and fairness are a ‘are work in progress,’ to put it mildly.’ Still, many journalists I spoke to are hopeful that the Internet will change the game and bring a diversity of voices and reporting to a nation that sorely needs it.”

And the fact that there is no news on regulating the Internet is one place where there is some hope.

Our own news media are not guiltless, of course.

I’ve mentioned before my ombudsman colleagues chastising us U.S. media types for cheerleading our nation and the world into the Iraq disaster. Just this year, we have endured another round of idiotic media fascination over whether President Barack Obama was born in the USA or is a closet Muslim. We’ve had journalists give carte blanc to “angry” folks who threaten to tote weapons to public rallies, rather than call it out as the thinly veiled thuggery that it is.

And sure, our radio and TV blowhards get to say pretty much what they want. But our government doesn’t make us listen. We all get to tune them out. Because — in popular culture jargon — that’s how we roll.

It’s just more of our freedom that we should not take for granted.

So thanks, Dear Readers — especially those of you who fought and marched and even died — for my freedom to write what I hope you and I like.

On a street in Baku.

Thanksgiving Day addenda:

Voice of America: Azerbaijanis Blog for Freedom

MSNBC: Azerbaijan frees second critical blogger

— C.B. Hanif

Here in South Florida, many listeners are concerned about the future of NPR-affiliated WXEL radio and TV. Included are we jazz fans who would love to have WXEL join Miami’s WLRN, and many other other NPR affiliates, in featuring on a daily basis not only European classical, but also America’s classical music and original art form.

In another aside: The D8 reporting provided a reminder that in “journalism,” source still makes a difference. NPR hosted some sessions of  last year’s international Organization of News Ombudsmen conference in Washington, D.C.  Included was an opportunity to tour NPR’s Massachusetts Avenue recording studios and observe a taping of its flagship “All Things Considered.” During one of our sessions, I told NPR execs that as a nearly four-decade listener I consider NPR a national treasure. But I also was compelled to mention the embarrassing lack of diversity in the building. The fact that we were in a “Chocolate City” such as overwhelmingly African-American D.C. only underscored such questions as the “digital divide” going forward, and whether news organizations such as the WSJ and NPR will better reflect, in their staffing and reporting, the so-called “majority minority” nation we are fast becoming.

Schiller’s comments don’t suggest much has changed. The lack of diversity in our too-often disappointing news media apparently didn’t come up in the D8 interview.

For example, Hamer cited Charlie Beckett, directof of POLIS, London School of Economics, Department of Media and Communications, who accurately observed that “Journalism is no longer a product, but a process.”

Without presuming to tell other news ombudsmen how to do their jobs, I concur with Beckett’s well-established observation that journalists “need to reinvent themselves.”

With specific regard to ombudsmen, however, it is my sense that too many media commentators — particularly those who never have actually served as an ombudsman responsible to a news organization’s readers, viewers or listeners — confuse the concepts of “watchdog for the media” and ombudsman for a media outlet.

Regarding the latter, Beckett captured the essence of how well The Palm Beach Post served its readers during my two-decade tenure, the longest of any news ombudsman in the world. He noted (a point also picked up by ONO Executive Director Jeffrey Dvorkin), that ombudsmen must act as:

Facilitators, not judges

Moderators, not regulators

Forums, not courts

Educators, not enforcers

Those sentiments capture the way The Post’s weekly ombudsman column worked: as a reader’s forum, in which the critical aspects were readers’ concerns and staff response. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here …) I basically served as its editor.

Over the years that column was promoted, often in quarter- and full-page ads, as the place where the newspaper conducted a conversation with its readers regarding issues of accuracy and fairness in its news and features offerings.

For all that, for the ombudsman’s independence, and for my opportunity  to provide general interest offerings as well from time to time (see here, here, here, and here), credit went to the paper’s then management, particularly Publisher Tom Giuffrida and Editor Edward Sears.

Overall, the media transparency and accountability introduced in countless columns by news ombudsmen has contributed mightily to the public’s heightened sophistication regarding how news organizations work(ed).

There’s a direct connection, in fact, to the public’s increased ability to question editors’ decisions, as well as to define for themselves what is news.

That increased consumer awareness, hardly common before the advent of news ombudsmen, is another factor exacerbating the digital challenges for journalists, and ombudsmen, today.

“In print, the Guardian is, even now, the ninth or 10th biggest paper in Britain. On the web it is, by most measurements, the second best-read English-language newspaper in the world. If the New York Times really does start charging for access, the Guardian may become the newspaper with the largest web English-speaking readership in the world.” — Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor-in-chief

Under Rusbridger’s leadership The Guardian already was becoming a leader in ombudsmanship. The paper’s newly established ombud, Ian Mayes, soon was elected ONO’s president. The newspaper went on to host a subsequent London meeting of ONO.

Just as significant is that The Guardian has been a consistent trailblazer in the online possibilities that U.S. newspapers in particular still are trying to get right. The latest exhibit is Rusbridger’s report that:

“In December the journalism we’re producing (was) read by 37 million people around the world – very roughly a third in the UK, a third in North America and a third in the rest of the world,”

Which gets me to The New York Times’ announcement that readers soon will have to pay to play — er, read — some of that publication’s content online.

Already anticipating BuzzMachine.com blogger Jeff Jervis’ take on this, I was not surprised to find him sharing a link to Rusbridger’s observations, such as:

“It may be right for the Times of London and New York, but not for everyone. It may be right at some point for everybody in the future, but not yet.”

Rusbridger’s detailed insight is worth a thorough read.

For additional ONO perspective, here’s my earlier post regarding our  Harvard meeting, during which both Rusbridger and Jarvis spoke.

—

Last, a nod to my outstanding ombudsman colleagues Jamie Gold, who after 10 years is leaving the Los Angeles Times, and Siobhain Butterworth, who after 13 years is leaving The Guardian.

I’m hoping to see both again at our upcoming meeting in Oxford. Some good news in the meantime: Both report their newspapers are appointing successors; the Times already, The Guardian by the end of February.

In contrast, I recall from our president’s update during our last meeting that, with news ombudsmen already rare, readers of U.S. newspapers lost 12 in the previous year.

To my knowledge there no longer are any news ombudsmen in Florida.

It always was a delight to speak withDeborah Howell at ONO’s annual meetings. Like fellow deceased Post ombudsmen Joseph Laitin (who had served in five different presidential administrations before he befriended me during my first ONO meeting in 1988),  and Richard Harwood (who used to try to recruit me from my Palm Beach Post to his Post), her wisdom, and wit, will be missed.

While I’m here, I should mention the launch of ONO’s redesigned website, www.newsombudsmen.org. Let us know what you think.

Also, I still am on track to represent ONO to journalists in Baku, Azerbaijan in upcoming months. More on that to come.

For now, think a good thought for her and her family in reading about my colleague Deborah Howell.

From our recent Washington, D.C. conference of the world’s news ombudsmen, I came away thinking that we members of the international Organization of News Ombudsmen don’t have The Answer for newspapers either. At least, not here in the USA.

Our group’s president, Stephen Pritchard, reported that since last year’s meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, U.S. newspapers have lost 12 ombudsmen, including yours truly, to buyouts, retirement, layoffs or some other budget-motivated downsizing. Of course, the overall number of professional news journalists no longer serving U.S. readers is staggering.

This year’s ONO meeting began with a reception at the board rooms of National Public Radio, a tour of NPR’s recording studios and an opportunity to observe a taping of NPR’s trademark All Things Considered.

(See the conference agenda here; a photo slideshow here; the audio and video of a notable panel and the text of some presentations here.)

Our sessions continued at The Washington Post, the Newseum, NPR and The New York Times’ Washington bureau.

And repeatedly, during formal and informal comments over the next three days, colleagues from as far afield as Eastern Europe and South America reported a different story from that in the U.S. — namely, flourishing rather than waning support for newspapers.

During the past decade I reported to Palm Beach Post readers the surging interest in ombudsmanship abroad compared to the U.S. ( for example here and here).

In his post-conference column, Janne Anderson, ombudsman for Stockholm’s TV4, provided the typical kind of report I gave Post readers over the years, including:

“The U.S. ombudsmen are quite worried and the whole conference was colored by this anxiety but also by many discussions and suggestions about how media ombudsmen can survive and whether they will have a future?”

Meanwhile, from the former Soviet republics to East African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, there is emerging interest in quality news journalism. That’s in contrast to its decline in the U.S., notably showcased in the Judith Miller debacle at The New York Times, and the supine behavior of U.S. news organizations in general, in helping promote our country’s invasion of Iraq.

(For which, our colleagues from elsewhere continue to remind us, there has been little accountability. Sure, there is U.S. newspapers’ Internet-devasted business model. But also too-often damnable performance. But that’s another post.)

A new trend around the world is media organizations emerging from decades of dictatorial repression or state censorship, reaffirming their commitment to be accurate, fair and transparent — and wanting to establish an ombudsman role.

Alicia Shepard, NPR’s ombudsman, spelled this out in her column following last year’s sessions. For example, she quoted Pam Platt, then ONO’s president as well as the public editor at the Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal, the first U.S. newspaper to establish the position: “Ombudsmen are growing in parts of the world where a free press is starting to assert itself.”

Shepard concluded by noting that “the editorial director for Kenya’s Nation Media Group has asked ONO for help in writing a job profile so he can hire an in-house critic. Considering the dozens of polls that repeatedly tell of the media’s loss of credibility in this country, it is unfortunate that more U.S. news outlets aren’t willing to take this same step toward regaining public esteem.”

Similarly, TV4′s Anderson reported this year that “A number of media companies from various countries in Africa want ombudsmen and have requested help from the ONO.”

One result of such interest has been the demand by foreign members that more ONO meetings be held outside the U.S. Reflecting that sentiment, “Next year will be the ONO conference’s 30th anniversary,” wrote my Swedish colleague. “It will be held in Capetown, South Africa.”

In a previous post I mentioned The Coastal Star newspaper, one of the publications in which my freelance work appears, and the Palm Beach Arts Paper. The feedback I’m hearing regarding them and the South Florida Times, another newspaper for which I write, suggests an encouraging future for quality journalism whether delivered via print, broadcast, online or whatever technology provides next.

The big question in the U.S., however, is not news. It still is whether quality newspapers will prove to be the exception rather than the rule.

“I hardly have time to go to the bathroom,” said then-Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell. “Start a blog?”

Before we survey the recent Washington, D.C. meeting of the world’s news ombudsmen, indulge me a look back at our meetings last year in Stockholm and two years ago at Harvard.

Amid all the breaking changes at my former newspaper, I missed ONO’s 2008 Stockholm sessions.

That was regrettable. Not only because I had told my Swedish counterpart, Lilian Ohrstrom, that I really hoped to be present. And because it would have been great to check out her city where colleagues reported the sun didn’t set until around midnight, and rose again around 4 a.m.

What I particularly missed was sharing in the continuum of my colleagues’ thinking regarding what BuzzMachine.com blogger Jeff Jarvis succinctly had summarized during the previous year’s meeting: “The architecture of news is changing, because it can.”

Fortunately, our website carried “Reports from the 2008 ONO Conference.” They’re still available. Including the welcome from Par-Arne Jigenius, former Swedish national press ombudsman, “to the native country of the ombudsman institution” (not to mention the gender-neutral Swedish word).

I also liked what I heard in then-ONO President Pam Platt’s weblog reports. Such as:

“The international nature of the Organization of News Ombudsmen is one of its greatest assets. It is inspiring to meet and talk with people from around the world who are committed to a free and fair press and who advocate for the reader, viewer, user or consumer. We come from different places but there are great common denominators to what we do, and what we encounter on the job.”

There’s plenty more at our website from ONO’s 2008 Stockholm meeting for media watchers who may have missed it. For example, our current president, Stephen Pritchard of the London Observer, shared web developer Joakim Jardenberg’s suggestion that, given the sniping between mainstream media and bloggers, we should “stop calling ourselves ombudsmen and look upon ourselves as nurturers of an online community.”

But looking back yet another year: Unlike at the earlier Istanbul, St. Petersburg FL, London and Sao Paulo meetings of our increasingly international group, I thought our digital focus really crystallized in 2007 in Cambridge, MA.

“Ombudsmen in a Time of Transition” was an appropriate theme.

The sessions at the Nieman Foundation’s Walter Lippmann House headquarters came against the emerging background for newspapers and news ombudsmen of a firmly entrenched phenomenon of blogs.

In addition the Harvard meeting was our first that I had attended in more than 20 years from which we blogged reports to our website — itself another tool ONO did not have 20 years ago.

As my colleague Ms. Howell’s comment above also suggests, blogging news ombudsmen still were the exception. In contrast was ONO member Jose Carlos Abrantes of the 140-year-old Povedor dos Leitores, Diario de Noticia of Lisbon, Portugal: “I am a blogger since 2002 — five years,” he said. “And I have five blogs.”

Most memorable for me were self-described “Blogger Guy” Jarvis’ thought-provoking suggestions — which I blogged for our website — from the session, “Is There a Shared Watchdog Role for the Public, the Blogs & Ombudsmen?”

“We’re better off if we start to see stories as a process rather than a product,” he said. Sometimes, “You put up what you know and say this is what we don’t know, what do you know?”

He also said the best thing a newspaper can contribute to the conversation with its community is facts; so why not solicit some, for example from the countless people who can tell how well computers are being used in a community’s elementary schools.

I still regularly check Jarvis’s thoughts regarding the possibilities for newspapers (he’s not optimistic), and for other kinds of media. Anyone who really cares about all this should check out his July 4 post on “Journalistic narcissism.” Talk about “independence.”

Along with my own report to Palm Beach Post readers, there’s more online from that meeting. For example the thoughts of Alan Rusbridger, editor of the consistently groundbreaking British newspaper The Guardian, which hosted our London meeting. (Here we are at The Guardian’s visitor center, The Newsroom.)

Ms. Platt aptly summarized the Guardian editor’s thoughts on “Ombudsmen in the digital future”:

“The new model of journalism is more fluid, and demands more transparency. Trust, he said, is the only thing in the end that we have going for us, and that calls for ‘a searching examination of what we mean by journalism.’ ”

Although spread too thin myself as a news ombudsman, I was trying to figure how to incorporate a blog while fielding and investigating readers’ concerns, researching and writing columns and editorials, and editing the letters page — all tasks that I enjoyed, and which had value for readers. While I was doing the math on all that, the paper’s major downsizing last year removed me from the equation.

I still envision intriguing possibilities for readers, for my ONO colleagues and those still working to make newspapers work.

And regarding the “blogger vs. MSM (mainstream media) culture war,” I have plenty of thoughts to share in future posts.