If you don’t be the boss of you, somebody else will be.

That’s the underlying theme stressed in The Media Self-Regulation Guidebook, published this spring by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

This 100-page guide is available to order, free of charge, in French, English and Russian. It carefully chronicles steps unregulated media groups can take to become more self-regulating. The guide is structured in a Q&A format, proffering logical questions and then giving lucid answers in concise sentences. This creative format easily facilitates practical consideration of a rather serious topic.

The book is useful for editors, publishers and owners. It gives well thought-out advice and offers short theoretical clues as to why it provides the advice it does.

Self-regulation can save a lot of money. More importantly, codes of ethics can, when publicised and respected, increase a newsgathering operation’s credibility with – and accountability to - the public.

“Respect for a visible code of ethics significantly reduces the risk of statutory intervention and expensive legal action. The alternative to a code is the courtroom.”

Particularly in emerging democracies, avoiding governmental regulations is strongly desirable. Legal regulations can easily discriminate, control and criminalise – even when a constitution guarantees freedom of speech. The Guidebook describes in its first chapter the downsides to government regulations. It answers the question “Can governmental regulations make the press more professional or ethical” in one word: No.

Rather, “self-regulation is the right way to foster professionalism and global responsibility.”

This is particularly true when considering the impact of the Internet upon newsgathering organisations. The Guidebook points out, “Self-regulatory mechanisms can be extremely well-suited to dealing with fast-moving technological advances because they tend to be inherently more flexible than statutory tools.”

There are, of course, many steps to self-regulation.

The first is to establish a code of ethics.

Codes should appropriately reflect the society in which media outlet operates – its journalistic traditions, diversity. Codes do not need to be unified across the country. But it does need to be well-researched. Input should come from editors, publishers, owners, journalists, the public and government groups. Obviously, the latter should be consulted but not be allowed to weigh in to a greater extent than any other stakeholder.

Codes of ethics, once publicised, create a consensus for - and the backbone of - self-regulatory bodies. These bodies, be they a press council or an ombudsman – the guide describes both – addresses violations of ethics codes levied against media outlets.

Press councils are, of course, not government bodies. They should not levy fines or suspend journalists. Rather, the OSCE guidebook clearly states that moral redress is best.

Not all OSCE countries have press councils. France, Portugal and Austria do not. But Germany, the Netherlands, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia and Belgium do. Canada does. The United States does not.

The Guidebook offers tips on how to structure and hire such a body – as well as advice on the practice of employing an ombudsman.

The guide advocates for ombudsmen. This Swedish word for “advocate” implies an employee charged with liaising between a media outlet’s staff and its consumers. She is to help solve disputes between staff and consumers. She also typically writes an annual column critiquing her media outlet’s efforts to adhere to its code of ethics.

While the OSCE guidebook points toward a need for such employees with case studies of outlets, like Le Monde, that have ombudsmen, it notes that “only 2 percent of the daily newspapers in the United States have ombudsmen, and they are even rarer in other countries.”

Published: June 20, 2008