Community council
encourages greater
media credibility
Three recent news-related incidents suggest reasons why grass roots public groups such as the Honolulu Community Media Council can help nudge the media toward greater accountability and credibility.
>> The first concerned news stories of the rejection by the U.S. Senate of a Federal Communications Commission recommendation to allow corporations to acquire more broadcast stations and newspapers.By reporting (or not reporting) the events, the media appear to have carried out their minimal professional role. An even greater issue, however, is how the Honolulu Community Media Council can involve citizens in news institutions and nudge the press to become even more accountable and credible.>> The second, a letter to the editor, charged a local daily with a "prejudicial position," "misguided reporting" and "sensationalism."
>> The third, a speech by a visiting professor from the East-West Center, concerned negative stereotypes of the Islamic religion after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Both Honolulu dailies published stories on the Senate vote coverage. One newspaper put it on the front page. The other relegated it to an inside business page.
The letter to the editor showed professional fairness by allowing a candidate for vice-chancellor at the University of Hawaii to list eight areas he believed an editorial had unfairly dismissed.
The letter suggested the editorial had a racist tinge. An editor's note, however, got in the last word. It properly stated that the editorial never mentioned the letter writer's ethnic background.
The speech about the unfair treatment of Islam was ignored by the news media.
What this coverage or noncoverage demonstrates is that as far as the media are concerned no one can tell the press what to report or to speak over the public airwaves.
In America, A.J. Liebling once said, freedom of the press means freedom for the publishers or owners. Such was the concern in 1947 of the Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press, which, in a passionate indictment of the mass media, reported that freedom of the press for the public had been distorted by powerful media owners such as William Randolph Hearst.
Today, the same pattern is being repeated with a group of new "press lords," conglomerates, oligopolies and supporting groups such as the FCC, which favors broadening the rights of media corporations to own multiple print, television and radio operations, a move opposed by both the public and Congress.
One result of the Hutchin's Commission was to reject the profit-oriented radical libertarian approach to media ownership with a more socially responsible model patterned after "public interest, convenience and necessity."
The print media have supported socially responsible model checks and balances such as reader advocates, ombudsmen, journalism reviews and media councils, such as the one started in Honolulu in the 1970s.
As a member of the Honolulu media council from 1976-1981, I can testify to the value of local media councils based on members representing the diversity of Hawaii's media, business, labor, women, education and government who occasionally scolded, but usually praised, the press.
Of particular value to the council, according to longtime executive secretary Ah Jook Ku, was the membership of two former editors of Hawaii's two largest dailies, George Chaplin of the Honolulu Advertiser and Adam A. "Bud" Smyser of the Star-Bulletin.
Their membership was the symbol of mature media, unafraid to have the community involved as an objective watchdog. This is not always the feeling when media are owned by massive outside conglomerates.
As an adjunct faculty at Hawaii Pacific University and the Kapiolani Community College and later, as a journalism professor in Pennsylvania and Utah, I often used the Honolulu Community Media Council as an example of the how the media can most effectively encourage meaningful community involvement.
Based on Honolulu's successful council, I even tried to initiate a media council in Utah. I continue to praise the Hawaii council as a member of the Annenberg Press Commission, an updated version of the 1947 Hutchins group.
Next to Hawaii's legendary Outdoor Circle, I tell them the media council is one of Hawaii's most important watchdogs.
After 22 years away from Hawaii it is good to return and find that the media council is still functioning and even broadening its membership, according to Moya Gray, the current president.
It's also good to know that the purposes of the council are the same as in the past:
>> to promote accurate and fair journalism,I hope an invigorated Honolulu council will continue to grapple with such issues as how to best report on the sensitive conflicts of interest involved in reporting media issues owned by outside corporations, ongoing charges of bias and poor coverage of religion, as well as why the media overplays sports and entertainment to the neglect of more relevant issues.
>> to broaden public understanding of the role of the media,
>> to foster discussion of media issues,
>> to strengthen public support for First Amendment rights and freedoms,
>> to improve public access to information.Equally important is the fact that media councils often point out the many good things the media do for the community.
For example, the visiting professor, who noted the bias of the national media reporting on Islam, did not indict the Honolulu media.
Instead, Aslam Sayed reported that local and regional press such as those in Honolulu are usually more objective and fair. Locally produced and written articles were described as "more inspiring."
Such comments coming from an outsider -- even though his comments were unreported --are what members of media councils often discover about newspaper and broadcast holdings, along with the tribulations. About 90 percent of the complaints that were filed when I was a member of the council were dismissed.
When good news or bad comes from an objective outside source such as a media council, there is a renewed sense of credibility and trust. Such is not always evident when the newspapers or broadcasters boast about themselves winning prizes, or use their own self-serving vehicles to proclaim their social responsibility when their actual interpretation of freedom of the press means freedom mostly for the owners.
The Honolulu media and the communities of Hawaii will all benefit as they enthusiastically support the Honolulu Community Media Council.
Alf Pratt, a former Star-Bulletin reporter, lives in Laie and is writing a history of Brigham Young University-Hawaii.BACK TO TOP |
About the Honolulu
Created by Kailua minister Claude DuTeil in 1970, the Honolulu Community Media Council still abides by its original mission statement -- to provide an open forum for the community on press matters; to increase public understanding of news operations; to resolve confrontations between the public and the press; to develop standards of conduct for the media and news sources; and to preserve freedom of the press.
Media CouncilNonpartisan and independent, the HCMC has as many as 70 volunteer members working to resolve differences between the local news media and the people and organizations they cover.
